Before you are a leader, success is all about growing yourself. When you become a leader, success is all about growing others.
—Jack Welch
American business executive
I must follow the people. Am I not their leader?
—Benjamin Disraeli
British statesman
A genuine leader is not a searcher for consensus but a moulder of consensus.
—Martin Luther King, Jr
American activist
Leadership is the capacity to translate vision into reality.
—Warren Bennis
American scholar
Leadership is hard to define and good leadership even harder. But if you can get people to follow you to the ends of the Earth, you are a great leader.
—Indra Nooyi
Indian-American business executive
He who has never learnt to obey cannot be a good commander.
—Aristotle
Greek philosopher
A leader is best when people barely know he exists, when his work is done, his aim fulfilled, they will say: We did it ourselves.
—Lao Tzu
Chinese philosopher
Only the guy who isn’t rowing has time to rock
the boat.
—Jean-Paul Sartre
French novelist
A leader is one who, out of madness or goodness, volunteers to take upon himself the woe of the people. There are few men so foolish, hence the erratic quality of leadership in the world.
—John Updike
American novelist
I suppose leadership at one time meant muscles; but today it means getting along with people.
—Mahatma Gandhi
Freedom fighter
Some people feel, you make your case, if they listen to you, fine, if they don’t, that’s it. That’s not what leadership is. Leadership is trying to continue to make a case.
—Anthony Fauci
American immunologist
(This story appears in the 25 February, 2022 issue of Forbes India. To visit our Archives, click here.)