163 Best Leadership Quotes To Inspire Your Branding (2023)

Branding is much more than social media. Take your hard work to the next level and find the best way to increase brand loyalty with these leadership quotes.

1. The most exhausting thing you can be is inauthentic. Click to tweet!– Anne Morrow Lindbergh

2. Leadership is not about men in suits. It is a way of life for those who know who they are and are willing to be their best to create the life they want to live. —Kathleen Schafer, CEO of Human Being Store

3. I alone cannot change the world, but I can cast a stone across the water to create many ripples. —Mother Teresa, Albanian-Indian Roman Catholic nun and missionary

4. Be who you are and say what you feel, because those who mind don’t matter and those who matter don’t mind.– Dr. Suess

5. A genuine leader is not a searcher for consensus but a molder of consensus. —Martin Luther King Jr., civil rights activist

6. Good leaders build products. Great leaders build cultures. Good leaders deliver results. Great leaders develop people. Good leaders have vision. Great leaders have values. Good leaders are role models at work. Great leaders are role models in life. —Adam Grant, American psychologist and author

7. Leadership is lifting a person’s vision to high sights, the raising of a person’s performance to a higher standard, the building of a personality beyond its normal limitations. —Peter F. Drucker, Austrian-American management consultant, educator, and author

8. The mediocre teacher tells. The good teacher explains. The superior teacher demonstrates. The great teacher inspires. —William Arthur Ward, writer

9. Personal Branding is about building authority that gets people to pay attention to your message and want to share it and recommend it to others.– Mark Traphagen

10. Leadership is about making others better as a result of your presence, and making sure that impact lasts in your absence. —Sheryl Sandberg, COO of Facebook

11. Leadership is a series of behaviors rather than a role for heroes. —Margaret Wheatley, writer, teacher, and speaker

12. I am not a product of my circumstances. I am a product of my decisions. —Stephen R. Covey, American educator

13. Change will not come if we wait for some other person, or if we wait for some other time. We are the ones we’ve been waiting for. We are the change that we seek. —Barack Obama, former U.S. President

14. If the highest aim of a captain were to preserve his ship, he would keep it in port forever. —Thomas Aquinas, Italian philosopher

15. I have not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work. —Thomas A. Edison, American inventor

16. Average leaders raise the bar on themselves; good leaders raise the bar for others; great leaders inspire others to raise their own bar. —Orrin Woodward, entrepreneur and author

17. When the whole world is silent, even one voice becomes powerful. —Malala Yousafzai, activist

18. Branding gives you an exceptionally effective way to broadcast who you are to your target market quickly and efficiently.– MultiChannel News

19. Your personal brand is what people say about you when you are not in the room – remember that. And more importantly, let’s discover why! Click to tweet!– Chris Ducker

20. The only safe ship in a storm is leadership. —Faye Wattleton, American reproductive rights activist

21. Don’t be intimidated by what you don’t know. That can be your greatest strength and ensure that you do things differently from everyone else. —Sara Blakely, founder & CEO of Spanx

22. If I have seen farther than others, it is because I was standing on the shoulder of giants. —Isaac Newton, English mathematician, physicist, and astronomer

23. If you want to build a ship, don’t drum up the men to gather wood, divide the work, and give orders. Instead, teach them to yearn for the vast and endless sea. —Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, French writer, poet, and aristocrat

24. You have to look at your career and personal life at the big-picture level: it’s a marathon, not a sprint. Doing that helps me feel OK during the weeks when one part of my life overwhelms the other. —Joanna Horsnail, partner at Mayer Brown LLP

25. Leaders walk a fine line between self-confidence and humility. —Stanley McChrystal, retired United States Army General

26. Your personal brand is what differentiates you from others. Click to tweet!– unknown

27. Leadership is not a person or a position. It is a complex moral relationship between people based on trust, obligation, commitment, emotion, and a shared vision of the good. —Joanne Ciulla, American philosopher

28. Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, concerned citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has. —Margaret Mead, anthropologist

29. Leadership should be more participative than directive, more enabling than performing. —Mary D. Poole, author

30. A brand is the set of expectations, memories, stories and relationships that, taken together, account for a consumer’s decision to choose one product or service over another.– Seth Godin

31. Become the kind of leader that people would follow voluntarily, even if you had no title or position. —Brian Tracy, Canadian-American motivational public speaker

32. Branding demands commitment; commitment to continual re-invention; striking chords with people to stir their emotions; and commitment to imagination. It is easy to be cynical about such things, much harder to be successful.”– Sir Richard Branson

33. All of us need to understand the importance of branding. We are CEOs of our own companies: Me Inc. To be in business today, our most important job is to be head marketer for the brand called You. – Tom Peters in Fast Company

34. Leadership is an action, not a position. —Donald McGannon, broadcasting executive

35. The keys to brand success are self-definition, transparency, authenticity and accountability. Click to tweet!– Simon Mainwaring

36. As you enter positions of trust and power, dream a little before you think. —Toni Morrison, author

37. It takes 20 years to build a reputation and five minutes to ruin it. If you think about that, you’ll do things differently. —Warren Buffett, investor

38. The challenge of leadership is to be strong, but not rude; be kind, but not weak; be bold, but not bully; be thoughtful, but not lazy; be humble, but not timid; be proud, but not arrogant; have humor, but without folly. —Jim Rohn, American entrepreneur, author, and motivational speaker

39. The test of leadership is, is anything or anyone better because of you? —Mark Sanborn, author, professional speaker, and entrepreneur

40. Leadership is not just about giving energy… it’s unleashing other people’s energy. —Paul Polman, Dutch businessman

41. True leadership stems from individuality that is honestly and sometimes imperfectly expressed… Leaders should strive for authenticity over perfection. —Sheryl Sandberg, COO of Facebook

42. A leader is a dealer in hope. —Napoleon Bonaparte, French military leader and emperor

43. A year from now you will wish you had started today. —Karen Lamb, author

44. Leadership consists of nothing but taking responsibility for everything that goes wrong and giving your subordinates credit for everything that goes well. —Dwight D. Eisenhower, former U.S. President

45. I cannot give you the formula for success, but I can give you the formula for failure, which is: Try to please everybody. —Herbert Swope, American editor and journalist

46. Be so good they can’t ignore you. Click to tweet!– Steve Martin

47. A good leader must hate the wrong thing more than they hate the pain of doing the right thing. —Angela Jiang, product manager

48. ‘Restore connection’ is not just for devices, it is for people too. If we cannot disconnect, we cannot lead. —Arianna Huffington, founder & CEO, Thrive Global

49. Leadership is something you earn, something you’re chosen for. You can’t come in yelling, ‘I’m your leader!’ If it happens, it’s because the other guys respect you. —Ben Roethlisberger, quarterback, Pittsburgh Steelers

50. Branding adds spirit and a soul to what would otherwise be a robotic, automated, generic price-value proposition. If branding is ultimately about the creation of human meaning, it follows logically that it is the humans who must ultimately provide it.– David Aaker

51. If you’re your authentic self, you have no competition. Click to tweet!– Scott Stratten

52. Start by knowing what you want and who you are, build credibility around it and deliver it online in a compelling way.– Krista Neher

53. I learned to always take on things I’d never done before. Growth and comfort do not coexist. —Ginni Rometty, Executive Chairman of IBM

54. In periods where there is no leadership, society stands still. Progress occurs when courageous, skillful leaders seize the opportunity to change things for the better. —Harry Truman, former U.S. President

55. A brand for a company is like a reputation for a person. You earn reputation by trying to do hard things well.

56. Obstacles are things a person sees when he takes his eyes off his goal. —E. Joseph Cossman, inventor and businessman

57. The way to achieve your own success is to be willing to help somebody else get it first. —Iyanla Vanzant, American inspirational speaker, author, and lawyer

58. You too are a brand. Whether you know it or not. Whether you like it or not. Click to tweet!– Marc Eckō

59. Life isn’t about finding yourself. Life is about creating yourself. Click to tweet!– George Bernhard Shaw

60. Too many people overvalue what they are not and undervalue what they are. Click to tweet!– Malcolm Forbes

61. One of the most important things for any leader is to never let anyone else define who you are. And you define who you are. I never think of myself as being a woman CEO of this company. I think of myself as a steward of a great institution. —Ginni Rometty, Executive Chairman of IBM

62. The more you like yourself, the less you are like anyone else, which makes you unique. Click to tweet!– Walt Disney

63. The question isn’t who is going to let me; it’s who is going to stop me? —Ayn Rand, author

64. The art of leadership is saying no, not saying yes. It is very easy to say yes. —Tony Blair, British politician

65. We are all faced with a series of great opportunities brilliantly disguised as impossible situations. —Chuck Swindoll, Christian pastor and radio preacher

66. Leadership is the ability to guide others without force into a direction or decision that leaves them still feeling empowered and accomplished. —Lisa Cash Hanson, author and entrepreneur

67. Truth is a point of view, but authenticity can’t be faked. Click to tweet!– Peter Gruber

68. 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, chemical engineer, and writer

69. If one is lucky, a solitary fantasy can totally transform one million realities. —Maya Angelou, civil rights activist and poet

70. If people like you they will listen to you, but if they trust you, they’ll do business with you. Click to tweet!– Zig Ziglar

71. A leader is a dealer in hope. —Napoleon Bonaparte, French military and political leader

72. You can be a leader in your workplace, your neighborhood, or your family, all without having a title. —Travis Bradberry, author

73. If you’re not branding yourself, you can be sure others do it for you. Click to tweet!– unknown

74. A great person attracts great people and knows how to hold them together. —Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe, German poet, playwright, and novelist

75. I believe in a quiet, strong and grounded leadership. I think some of the best leaders are those whose work is widely known and respected but who, themselves, are relatively unknown. —Rachael Chong, founder and CEO of Catchafire

76. Leadership is not a person or a position. It is a complex moral relationship between people based on trust, obligation, commitment, emotion, and a shared vision of the good. —Joanne Ciulla, author and educator

77. The most dangerous leadership myth is that leaders are born—that there is a genetic factor to leadership. That’s nonsense; in fact, the opposite is true. Leaders are made rather than born. —Warren Bennis, American scholar, organizational consultant, and author

78. Great leaders are almost always great simplifiers, who can cut through argument, debate and doubt to offer a solution everybody can understand. —Gen. Colin Powell, former U.S. Secretary of State

79. A leader is one who knows the way, goes the way, and shows the way. —John Maxwell, author, speaker, and pastor

80. Someone is sitting in the shade today because someone planted a tree a long time ago. —Warren Buffett, investor

81. You have enemies? Good. That means you’ve stood up for something, sometime in your life. —Winston Churchill, former British Prime Minister

82. A man who wants to lead the orchestra must turn his back on the crowd. —Max Lucado, author and pastor

83. You don’t need a title to be a leader. —Unknown

84. Leadership is about the team – the culture they keep and embrace; it’s about empathy for your customers, clients, employees and the communities where you do business; it’s about doing the right thing for the right reasons, being confident enough to take risks and responsible enough to think of those who your decisions and risks may affect. —Kat Cole, COO & President of FOCUS Brands

85. People respond well to those that are sure of what they want. —Anna Wintour, Editor-in-Chief of Vogue

86. Your brand is a gateway to your true work. You know you are here to do something – to create something or help others in some way. The question is, how can you set up your life and work so that you can do it? The answer lies in your brand. When you create a compelling brand you attract people who want the promise of your brand – which you deliver.– Dave Buck

87. I think one of the keys to leadership is recognizing that everybody has gifts and talents. A good leader will learn how to harness those gifts toward the same goal. —Ben Carson, U.S. Secretary of Housing and Urban Development

88. We have to dare to be ourselves, however frightening or strange that self may prove to be. Click to tweet!– Marey Sarton

89. Live authentically. Why would you continue to compromise something that’s beautiful to create something that is fake.– Steve Maraboli

90. Be Yourself, Everyone Else is Already Taken. Click to tweet!– Oscar Wilde

91. What makes you unique, makes you successful. Click to tweet!– William Arruda

92. Innovation distinguishes between a leader and a follower. —Steve Jobs, chairman of Apple

93. If I lost control of the business I’d lose myself–or at least the ability to be myself. Owning myself is a way to be myself.-Oprah Winfrey

94. The manager accepts the status quo; the leader challenges it. —Warren Bennis, American scholar, organizational consultant, and author

95. Do not follow where the path may lead. Go instead where there is no path and leave a trail. —Muriel Strode, poet

96. In a world where you can be anything, be yourself. Click to tweet!– Etta Turner

97. Don’t waste your energy trying to educate or change opinions; go over, under, through, and opinions will change organically when you’re the boss. Or they won’t. Who cares? Do your thing, and don’t care if they like it. —Tina Fey, actress, comedian, and writer

98. My own definition of leadership is this: the capacity and the will to rally men and women to a common purpose and the character which inspires confidence. —General Montgomery, British Army Officer

99. If your actions inspire others to dream more, learn more, do more and become more, you are a leader. —John Quincy Adams, former U.S. President

100. The greatest leader is not necessarily the one who does the greatest things. He is the one that gets the people to do the greatest things. —Ronald Reagan, former U.S. President

101. Outstanding leaders go out of the way to boost the self-esteem of their personnel. If people believe in themselves, it’s amazing what they can accomplish. —Sam Walton, founder of Walmart and Sam’s Club

102. Leaders don’t force people to follow – they invite them on a journey. —Charles S. Lauer, author and businessman

103. If plan “A” fails – remember you have 25 letters left. Click to tweet!– Chris Guillebeau

104. Rarely are opportunities presented to you in a perfect way. In a nice little box with a yellow bow on top. ‘Here, open it, it’s perfect. You’ll love it.’ Opportunities – the good ones – are messy, confusing and hard to recognize. They’re risky. They challenge you. —Susan Wojcicki, CEO of Youtube

105. A person always doing his or her best becomes a natural leader, just by example. —Joe DiMaggio, former New York Yankees outfielder & Hall of Fame baseball player

106. No leader sets out to be a leader. People set out to live their lives, expressing themselves fully. When that expression is of value, they become leaders. So the point is not to become a leader. The point is to become yourself, to use yourself completely – all your skills, gifts and energies – in order to make your vision manifest. You must withhold nothing. You must, in sum, become the person you started out to be, and to enjoy the process of becoming. —Warren Bennis, American scholar, organizational consultant, and author

107. One of the criticisms I’ve faced over the years is that I’m not aggressive enough or assertive enough or maybe somehow, because I’m empathetic, it means I’m weak. I totally rebel against that. I refuse to believe that you cannot be both compassionate and strong. —Jacinda Ardern, Prime Minister of New Zealand

108. Leadership distilled down to 3 words: Make a difference. —Robin Sharma, Canadian writer

109. I suppose leadership at one time meant muscles; but today it means getting along with people. —Mahatma Gandhi, Indian Independence Movement leader

110. A great brand is a story that’s never completely told. A brand is a metaphorical story that connects with something very deep – a fundamental appreciation of mythology. Stories create the emotional context people need to locate themselves in a larger experience.– Scott Bedbury – Nike, Starbucks

111. It’s important to build a personal brand because it’s the only thing you’re going to have.Your reputation online, and in the new business world is pretty much the game, so you’ve got to be a good person. You can’t hide anything, and more importantly, you’ve got to be out there at some level.– Gary Vaynerchuk

112. You have to be burning with an idea, or a problem, or a wrong that you want to right. If you’re not passionate enough from the start, you’ll never stick it out. —Steve Jobs, chairman of Apple

113. Power isn’t control at all—power is strength, and giving that strength to others. A leader isn’t someone who forces others to make him stronger; a leader is someone willing to give his strength to others that they may have the strength to stand on their own. —Beth Revis, author

114. If ‘leadership’ has come to be known as something much bigger than us, aligned to changing the world, then we are spending way too much time celebrating things that hardly anyone can do and not celebrating things we can do every day. —Drew Dudley, founder of Day One Leadership

115. The mark of a great man is one who knows when to set aside the important things in order to accomplish the vital ones. —Brandon Sanderson, author

116. Leadership is unlocking people’s potential to become better. —Bill Bradley, American politician and former professional basketball player

117. Alone we can do so little; together we can do so much. —Helen Keller, author, activist, and lecturer

118. A brand’s strength is built upon its determination to promote its own distinctive values and mission. Click to tweet!– Professor Jean-Noel Kapferer, (Re)Inventing the Brand (2001)

119. Education is the mother of leadership. —Wendell Willkie, lawyer

120. We need to accept that we don’t always make the right decisions, that we’ll screw up royally sometimes. Understand that failure is not the opposite of success, it’s part of success. —Arianna Huffington, founder & CEO, Thrive Global

121. In the future, there will be no female leaders. There will just be leaders. —Sheryl Sandberg, American business executive, billionaire, and philanthropist

122. Your personal brand is a promise to your clients… a promise of quality, consistency, competency, and reliability. – Jason Hartman

123. If your actions create a legacy that inspires others to dream more, learn more, do more and become more, then, you are an excellent leader. —Dolly Parton, musician

124. Focus on identifying your target audience, communicating an authentic message that they want and need and project yourself as an “expert” within your niche.– Kim Garst

125. Hire character. Train skill. —Peter Schutz, former president and CEO of Porsche

126. Leading people is the most challenging and, therefore, the most gratifying undertaking of all human endeavors. —Jocko Willink, American author, podcaster, and retired United States Navy Officer

127. Leadership is a matter of having people look at you and gain confidence, seeing how you react. If you’re in control, they’re in control. —Tom Landry, former Dallas Cowboys coach

128. Even individuals need to develop a brand for themselves …. Whatever your area of expertise, you can take steps to make people think of YOU when they think of your field.– Accelepoint Webzine

129. I start with the premise that the function of leadership is to produce more leaders, not more followers. —Ralph Nader, American political activist, author, lecturer, and attorney

130. A creative man is motivated by the desire to achieve, not by the desire to beat others. Click to tweet!– Ayn Rand

131. Don’t tell people how to do things, tell them what to do and let them surprise you with their results. —George Patton, general in the United States Army

132. To handle yourself, use your head; to handle others, use your heart. —Eleanor Roosevelt, former First Lady

133. If you don’t give the market the story to talk about, they’ll define your brand’s story for you. Click to tweet!– David Brier

134. It’s okay to admit what you don’t know. It’s okay to ask for help. And it’s more than okay to listen to the people you lead – in fact, it’s essential. —Mary Barra, CEO of General Motors

135. You do not really understand something unless you can explain it to your grandmother. Click to tweet!– Albert Einstein

136. Whenever you see a successful business, someone once made a courageous decision. —Peter F. Drucker, Austrian-American management consultant, educator, and author

137. You are never too small to make a difference. —Greta Thunberg, environmental activist

138. If you can’t find your own center and love for yourself, nothing else works. Click to tweet!– Chris Brogan

139. Personal Branding is all about your unique promise of value and what you bring to the table. It’s (also) about getting your potential clients to choose you as the only solution to their problem.– Dr. Sarah David

140. Management is doing things right; leadership is doing the right things. —Peter F. Drucker, author and educator

141. It took me quite a long time to develop a voice, and now that I have it, I am not going to be silent. —Madeleine Albright, former U.S. Secretary of State

142. A cowardly leader is the most dangerous of men. —Stephen King, author

143. All of the great leaders have had one characteristic in common: It was the willingness to confront unequivocally the major anxiety of their people in their time. This, and not much else, is the essence of leadership. —John Kenneth Galbraith, economist and diplomat

144. Absorb what is useful, reject what is useless, add what is specifically your own. Click to tweet!– Bruce Lee

145. 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, philosopher and writer

146. Your personal brand serves as your best protection against business factors you can’t control. Click to tweet!– Dan Schawbel

147. To find yourself, think for yourself. Click to tweet!– Socrates

148. Personal branding is about managing your name — even if you don’t own a business — in a world of misinformation, disinformation, and semi-permanent Google records. Going on a date? Chances are that your “blind” date has Googled your name. Going to a job interview? Ditto.– Tim Ferriss

149. Ninety percent of leadership is the ability to communicate something people want. —Dianne Feinstein, Senior United States Senator

150. Building a profitable personal brand online is not a sprint, and something that happens over night. Don’t aim for perfection early on. Instead allow your brand to evolve naturally over time and focus on providing massive value and over deliver to your target audience. Then you will get more clear over your message and brand as well. Always remember that!– Navid Moazzez (Yes, moi!)

151. Don’t be scared to present the real you to the world, authenticity is at the heart of success. Click to tweet!– unknown

152. A good leader is a person who takes a little more than his share of the blame and a little less than his share of the credit. —John Maxwell, author, speaker, and pastor

153. Only the truth of who you are, if realized, will set you free. Click to tweet!– Eckhart Tolle

154. At the center of your being you have the answer: you know who you are and you know what you want. Click to tweet!– Lao Tzu

155. As a leader, it’s a major responsibility on your shoulders to practice the behavior you want others to follow. —Himanshu Bhatia, CEO of Chesterfield

156. The ability to learn is the most important quality a leader can have. —Padmasree Warrior, CEO & founder of Fable

157. We need to think of the future and the planet we are going to leave to our children and their children. —Kofi Annan, Ghanaian diplomat

158. There are two ways of being creative. One can sing and dance. Or one can create an environment in which singers and dancers flourish. —Warren Bennis, American scholar, organizational consultant, and author

159. Today a reader, tomorrow a leader. —Margaret Fuller, American journalist and editor

160. Do the difficult things while they are easy and do the great things while they are small. A journey of a thousand miles must begin with a single step. —Lao Tzu, philosopher and writer

161. A leader is like a shepherd. He stays behind the flock, letting the most nimble go out ahead, whereupon the others follow, not realizing that all along they are being directed from behind. —Nelson Mandela, revolutionary, statesman, and philanthropist

162. A leader takes people where they want to go. A great leader takes people where they don’t necessarily want to go, but ought to be. —Rosalynn Carter, former First Lady, American writer, and activist

163. The most important thing to remember is you must know your audience. Click to tweet!– Lewis Howes