John C. Maxwell

The best leaders are humble enough to realize their victories depend upon their people.

Most people want to avoid pain, and discipline is usually painful.

The challenge of leadership is to create change and facilitate growth.

A successful person finds the right place for himself. But a successful leader finds the right place for others.

The secret of your success is determined by your daily agenda.

A leader is one who knows the way, goes the way, and shows the way.

I feel like the thing we can do is celebrate people doing great work and create more cultural momentum and awareness that this is an important thing in the world. So when the next economic crisis hits and people are talking about where to cut from the budget, science isn’t the thing.

I judge people based on their capability, honesty, and merit.

You don’t reward failure by promoting those responsible for it, because all you get is more failure.

If you wouldn’t follow yourself, why should anyone else?

In real life, if I were firing you, I’d tell you what a great job you did, how fantastic you are, and how you can do better someplace else. If somebody steals, that’s different, but generally speaking, you want to let them down as lightly as possible. It’s not a very pleasant thing. I don’t like firing people.

Even as entrepreneurs, we rely on people to get things done. We may have the original idea, but moving it forward can involve hundreds of people. Every person becomes integral to the overall success.

I like to praise and reward in a loud voice and to scold in a whisper.

It’s easy to demonise people, you’re usually wrong about it, people are nicer than you think.

Most great leaders in history that I’ve studied always need to get as wide a range of opinions as possible so that they can have sufficient information to make the right decisions.

A leader is one who knows the way, goes the way, and shows the way.

I have a very simple rule when it comes to management: hire the best people from your competitors, pay them more than they were earning, and give them bonuses and incentives based on their performance. That’s how you build a first-class operation.

The art of leadership is a serious matter. One must not lag behind a movement, because to do so is to become isolated from the masses. But one must not rush ahead, for to rush ahead is to lose contact with the masses. He who wished to lead a movement must conduct a fight on two fronts–against those who lag behind and those who rush ahead.

If you aspire to be a leader of your own country, you must speak your own language, for God’s sake.

Effective leadership is putting first things first. Effective management is discipline, carrying it out.

And give… give more credit to others and don’t assume they’re mean until you know they’re actually mean.