The Top 60 Leadership Quotes Of 2021 Part 1

Earlier this year I released the Ebook The Top 100 Leadership Quotes Of 2020.  If you do not have your copy yet, click HERE to download a complimentary edition.  The response to this resource was so overwhelming I want to bring a follow-up with my Top 60 Leadership Quotes of the first six months of 2021.

For many entering a post-pandemic environment, leadership looks completely different than the pre-pandemic world.  People are more broken now.  They are more uncertain.  Fear and anxiousness are unwelcome constant companions.  Cultures are more unhealthy.  Relationships are more dysfunctional.  Hope seems to be in short supply.  Every day seems to bring a new hacking, natural disaster, or unexpected calamity.

Therefore, the fundamentals of leadership are more important than ever.  The quotes below deal with the basics of leadership.  While the words may be simple, applying the principles is extraordinarily complex.  You can read these in one sitting but it will take you a lifetime to learn them.

But it is what the world and the people you serve need right now.

The following are The Top 60 Leadership Quotes Of 2021 Part 1:

Christianity

1. “Churches don’t split from the bottom up but from the top down.” – Ike Reighard
2. “Sin is the most incredible force multiplier I’ve ever seen… Our challenge is to be uncommon.” – Clint Hurdle.  For more from Coach Hurdle, read 6 Things All Leaders Must Know About Dealing With Selfish Team Members.
3. “I’m not suggesting that a robust digital presence is problematic in and of itself. I believe every church should take advantage of every channel available to spread the Gospel and make disciples. I WILL argue that our digital footprint should be a step and a supplement, not a substitute, for in-person engagements.” – Gavin Adams.  For more from Gavin, read Live Blog From ReThink Conference – 63 Leadership Quotes From Gavin Adams.
4. “Storms often create a new beach.  2020 was a storm which created a new front for the Church.” – Dr. Winfield Bevins

The Value Of Books

1. “I love books. I adore everything about them. I love the feel of the pages on my fingertips. They are light enough to carry, yet so heavy with worlds and ideas. I love the sound of the pages flicking against my fingers. Print against fingerprints. Books make people quiet, yet they are so loud.” ― Nnedi Okorafor,Writer
2. “If you love to read, or learn to love reading, you will have an amazing life. Period. Life will always have hardships, pressure, and incredibly annoying people, but books will make it all worthwhile. In books, you will find your North Star, and you will find you, which is why you are here.” — Anne Lamott, A Velocity of Being: Letters to A Young Reader
3. “It is a most wonderful comfort to sit alone beneath a lamp, book spread before you, and commune with someone from the past whom you have never met.” — Yoshida Kenkō, Essays in Idleness
4. “Books are the carriers of civilization. Without books, history is silent, literature dumb, science crippled, thought and speculation at a standstill. Without books, the development of civilization would have been impossible. They are engines of change, windows on the world and lighthouses erected in the sea of time. They are companions, teachers, magicians, bankers of the treasures of the mind. Books are humanity in print.” ― Barbara Tuchman,Historian

Winning

1. “Winners focus on winning.  Losers focus on winners.” – Conor McGregor
2. “Let’s dominate and win by one.” – ESPN Countdown’s Rex Ryan
3. “It is not sport if the relationship between the effort and reward doesn’t exist,” Manchester City manager Pep Guardiola
4. “The best way to win the day is to win the moment. Moments turn into days, days into weeks and weeks into years.” – University of Denver women’s basketball coach Doshia Woods
5. “Gold medals aren’t really made of gold. They’re made of sweat, determination, and hard-to-find alloy called guts” – Olympic wrestler Dan Gable
6. “Every day we face the giant of a wasted life.” – Mike Linch.  For more from Mike, read 26 Reasons Why Mike Linch of NorthStar Church is One of the Greatest Pastors in America.

Losing

1. “I’ve learned all about the pain of losing and I’ve learned that it’s only by losing that we are able to get back up again.  It is our failures that teach us to value how hard it is to win.  I have to recognize the pointlessness of regrets and excuses.  We are all responsible for our own failures.  When things go badly for me, I need to shoulder the blame.” – Pep Gauardiola to the Italian Parliament in 2011
2. “I’ve failed many times in my life and career and because of this I’ve learned a lot. Instead of feeling defeated countless times, I’ve used it as fuel to drive me to work harder. So today, join me in accepting our failures. Let’s use them to motivate us to work even harder.” ― Phil Mickelson after winning the U.S. Open at age 50
3. “Winning is great, sure, but if you are really going to do something in life, the secret is learning how to lose. Nobody goes undefeated all the time. If you can pick up after a crushing defeat, and go on to win again, you are going to be a champion someday.” — Track and Field Olympic Gold medalist Wilma Rudolph

The Process

1. “You can’t go out and practice average on Wednesday, average on Thursday, okay on Friday and then expect to play well on Sunday.”  – Tom Brady.  For more from Brady, read 10 Things The New England Patriots Missed By Not Having Tom Brady In 2020.
2. “Trained behavior becomes boring habits.  Boring habits become elite instinct.  The elite get to the elite instinct.  The average stop in the boring habits because they lose interest.” – P.J. Fleck.  For more from Coach Fleck, read 10 Guiding Leadership Principles For 2021 From Jon Gordon And P.J. Fleck.
3. “The great sports teams, the successful businesses, the outstanding teachers, the best executive assistants, the best sales people have one thing in common — they execute the fundamentals of their job consistently.  There’s no magical formula. There is only execution. Those who can execute consistently are the ones that are successful.” – Steve Gilbert
4. “You have to be able to have a growth mindset. You keep your integrity, you keep your identity but you also have to be able to evolve.” ― LeBron James.  For more from James, click Watch This Clinic On How To Gain Influence With LeBron James And Other Apex Leaders.
5. “People do not decide their futures, they decide their habits and their habits decide their futures.” ― F. M. Alexander
6. “First, it is an intention. Then a behavior. Then a habit. Then a practice. Then a second nature. Then it is simply who you are.” — Brendon Burchard, High Performance Habit
7. “Consistency is the truest measurement of performance.” – Coach Sean McVay
8. “That boat parade was unbelievable, that was one of the best things I’ve ever seen. And then to follow it up and have the parade in my city, that’s what I’m shooting for. When I’m out there tired, I’m just thinking about that boat parade and that parade in my city, and trying to get that again.” – Tampa Bay Buccaneers wide receiver Mike Evans on his summer workouts following last year’s Super Bowl title
9. “A year from now you will wish you had started today.” – Karen Lamb, author and journalist

Generosity 

1. “Raise your words, not your voice. It is rain that grows flowers, not thunder.” ― Rumi,Poet
2. “Contentment isn’t when we have enough.  It’s when what we have is enough.” – Rachel Cruze
3. “The best leaders are the ones who touch the most people, and the ones who touch the most people are the ones who go out of their way to assist.” – Mike Lombardi.  For more from Lombardi, click 26 Facts About Creating A Healthy Organizational Culture.
4. “Am I a fountain or a drain?  Am I giving life or sucking it dry?” – Cole Ragsdale
5. “If you think you deserve it, you’re not ready to steward it.” – Louie Giglio
6. “My father gave me the greatest gift anyone could give another person: He believed in me.” – Jim Valvano
7. “There is a wonderful, almost mystical, law of nature that says three of the things we want most—happiness, freedom, and peace of mind—are always attained when we give them to others. Give it away to get it back.” — John Wooden, Wooden: A Lifetime of Observations and Reflections On and Off the Court

Coaching Wisdom 

1. “My job is to get him (Damian Lilliard) the ball.  If we call a play at the end of the game, the most important thing is to get him the ball…  I try to stand in the way of greatness.  You let great players do great things.” – Terry Stott, Portland Trailblazers head coach
2. “When you don’t have a quarterback who can’t make plays off script, you don’t have margin of error.” – Bill Cowher
3. “The most successful coaches are the ones who are the most coachable themselves.” – Andrew Bartman, Director of USA Baseball
4. “The best teachers are those who show you where to look, but don’t tell you what to see.” – Keanu Reeves
5. “Your talent determines your floor.  Character determines your ceiling.” – Eric Mangini

Personal Growth and Hard Work

1. “I am not here only for the big celebrations, I am here for the work. And if it is the dirty work, the hard work, no problem.” – Jurgen Klopp.  For more from the great Liverpool manager, click 15 Amazing Leadership Quotes And Lessons From Liverpool FC’s Jurgen Klopp.
2. “I think when you begin to think of yourself as having achieved something, then there’s nothing left for you to work towards. I want to believe that there is a mountain so high that I will spend my entire life striving to reach the top of it.” ― Cicely Tyson, Pioneer Actress
3. “Complainers change their complaints, but they never reduce the amount of time spent in complaining.” – Mason Cooley
4. “Look in the mirror, that’s your competition.” ―Eric Thomas
5. “Every next level of your life will demand a different version of you.” – Leonardo DiCaprio

Character

1. “If the mailman stopped to kick every dog that barked at him, he’d never deliver the mail.” – retiring UNC head coach Roy Williams
2. “Arrogance is ignorance plus conviction.  While humility is a permeable filter that absorbs life experience and converts it into knowledge and wisdom, arrogance is a rubber shield that life experience simply bounces off of.” – Tim Urban in Adam Grant’s book Think Again: The Power of Knowing What You Don’t Know
3. “I just say, don’t judge me and I am human.  I’m you.  I just happen to run a little faster.” – US track star Sha’Carri Richardson after testing positive for marijuana, a World Anti-Doping Agency’s banned substance
4. “Be around people who have the values you want, not the things you want.” ― Jay Shetty, Life & Purpose Coach
5. “Revenge is the weak pleasure of a little and narrow mind… Revenge is sweet, sweeter than life itself – so say fools.” – Decimus Iunius Iuvenalis, known in English as Juvenal, a Roman poet active in the late1st and early 2nd century AD, and author of the Satires.

Success

1. “You can’t really decide to paint a masterpiece.  You just have to think hard, work hard, and try to make a painting that you care about.  Then, if you’re lucky, your work will find an audience for whom it’s meaningful.” – Susan Kare, designer of the original Mac interface
2. “Don’t ask what the world needs. Ask what makes you come alive, and go do it. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive.” — Howard Thurman, The Living Wisdom of Howard Thurman: A Visionary for Our Time
3. “The best way to market yourself is to tell your story.  The best way to tell your story is to be part of one.  The best way to be part of one is to be on a big stage and perform at the highest level with history behind it.” – Rich Paul on athletes building a personal brand and why playing in March Madness is so important
4. “When you say no, you are only saying no to one option. When you say yes, you are saying no to every other option.” – James Clear from Atomic Habits
5. “All I ask is that you do your work to the best of your abilities, and with good heart. I promise to do the same.”
   — Nelson Mandela to his staff on the first day of his presidency
6.  “It’s not easy to do, but try—try and do what you love with people you love. And if you can manage that, it’s the definition of heaven on earth. I swear to God, it really is.” – Conan O’Brien signing off in his final show as a late-night TV host after 28 years
7. “In the NFL, if you’re not mentally ready for a dog fight, you’ve lost. And I was ready for a dog fight, every week.” – Julian Edelman
8. “Criticism is the price on success.” – Chris Bosh

Current Events

1. “There’s no oxygen. A hospital bed is hard to find. It’s impossible to get a test. You have to wait over a week. And pretty much every system that could break down in the health care system has broken down.” —Ramanan Laxminarayan, director of New Delhi’s Center for Disease Dynamics, Economics, and Policy to CNN.  India accounts for one in three new coronavirus cases globally, tallying nearly 300,000 cases and 2,000 deaths a day. Experts blame relaxed restrictions, mass gatherings, and the spread of variants, including B1617. April 22nd
2. “Just imagine traveling 10 years back in time and trying to explain this to someone; just imagine what an idiot you’d feel like. ‘There’s going to be this online currency that people think is a form of digital gold, and then there’s going to be a different online currency that is a parody of the first one based on a meme about a talking Shiba Inu, and that one will have a market capitalization bigger than 80% of the companies in the S&P 500, and its value will fluctuate based on things like who is hosting Saturday Night Live and whether people tweet a hashtag about it on the pot-joke holiday, and Bloomberg will write articles and banks will write research notes about those sorts of catalysts, and it will remain a perfectly ridiculous content-free parody even as people properly take it completely seriously because there are billions of dollars at stake.'” – Bloomberg columnist Matt Levine writing about, you guessed it, dogecoin.

Television 

1. “With TV, the relationship is you’re the parent and it’s the child. It’s in your house. It’s smaller than you, you can turn it off, change it, and control it. With the movies, you’re the child and it’s the parent. You look up to it. It controls you and it is taking you where it wants to take you.” – Director JJ Abrams on the uniqueness of movie theaters

Aaron Rodgers

1. “I love Jordan. He’s a great kid. A lot of fun to work together. I love the coaching staff, love my teammates, love the fan base in Green Bay. Incredible 16 years. It’s just kind of about a philosophy and maybe forgetting that it is about the people that make the thing go. It’s about character, it’s about culture, it’s about doing things the right way. A lot of this was put in motion last year and the wrench was just kind of thrown into it when I won MVP and played the way I played last year. So this is just kind of, I think, a spill-out of all that.” – Aaron Rodgers on May 24 SportsCenter with Kenny Mayne.  For more from Rodgers, click 15 Leadership Lessons From Aaron Rodgers’ Iconic Performance Against The Chicago Bears.

Check back at the end of the your for the 2021 Top 100 Leadership Quotes!

Just in case you missed it, The Top 100 Leadership Quotes From 2020 is my latest ebook.  The wisdom contained in these pages from top business leaders, pastors, coaches, and superlative thinkers sustained countless leaders in the most turbulent year anyone can remember.  If you want to be the best leader you can possibly be, click HERE or on the image provided to download this FREE resource.  The lessons learned from last year, if applied, will sustain you for years to come.