The Top 75 Leadership Quotes Of 2021 Part 2

I love leadership quotes.  A great quote can strip away all the fluff and get right to the essence of a particular problem or situation.  Words properly spoken solve problems or at minimum, serve as a guide towards finding solutions.

Great quotes are clear, concise, and compelling.  Clear means they are understandable.  Concise means the words are repeatable.  Compelling means the statement is memorable and worthy of our attention.

Communication is so important to effective leadership because there comes a time in all our leadership when we must stand up and say, “Follow me!”  The quotes we use in that moment will inspire others to action or repel them.

The Top 75 Leadership Quotes Of 2021 Part 2

Earlier this year, I listed The Top 60 Leadership Quotes Of 2021 Part 1.  As we come to the end of the year, I want to provide you The Top 75 Leadership Quotes Of 2021 Part 2.  These will take about 5 minutes to read and a lifetime to process and apply.

Enjoy!!!

Personal Favorites

• “It doesn’t matter if you’re the first-string, second-string, third-string, you’ve got to know who you are as a human being and what your identity is…It’s got to be in something greater, and I’ve always said mine’s in Jesus Christ.” – Nick Foles after his December 26th victory over the Seattle Seahawks as the Chicago Bears third-string quarterback
• “Leadership is solving problems. The day soldiers stop bringing you their problems is the day you have stopped leading them. They have either lost confidence that you can help or concluded you do not care. Either case is a failure of leadership.” – Gen. Colin Powell

Coaches

• “The rat poison you put out there this week was yummy.” – Nick Saban after his team beat the University of Georgia in the SEC Championship game

• “I think if you want to go far enough, look at Sun Tzu. Look at the great generals, you exploit your strengths and attack weaknesses. That’s about as fundamental as it gets. If there’s something that you can do well, you want to try to do it. If there is something that your opponent is weak at, you want to try to attack it, and if you can match those up, then that’s a good way of attack.” – Bill Belichick on game planning
• “If you don’t have a purpose — and a really, really strong purpose — and you don’t feel good about it, you’re going to get old.  You’re going to get tired.  I’m in better shape.  I’ve got more energy.  And I’m having more fun.  Because this is what I do.” – 70-year-old North Carolina head football coach Mack Brown
• “I don’t like to hear that there are no longer creative players.  I especially don’t like to hear that after 800 automated training sessions.  It’s very likely that there won’t be creative players if everything is automatic.  I understand positional play. I understand attacking space.  But I believe more that we as coaches have to take responsibility for that supposed or actual lack of creativity.  Those defensive blocks can be undone by a creative player. A creative (player) dribbles.  A creative player invents something different when everything is monotone. We have to create within creative environments.  Futball is about emotion and imagination.  It’s not chess.” – Argentina national soccer assistant manager Pablo Aimar
• “Is it demanding?  Yeah, it’s demanding.  Is it stressful?  It’s supposed to be stressful.  We get paid very, very well to do something at the highest level.  So it should be done at the highest level.” – New York Giants head coach Joe Judge on being a head coach
• “Rarely have I seen a situation where doing less than the other guy is a good strategy.” – America’s Cup-winning Oracle Team USA skipper Jimmy Spithill
• “The will to win is not nearly so important as the will to prepare to win. Most people have the will to win. Most people enjoy winning and all that comes with it.  The people willing to put in the hard work over the time required to prepare to win are far more rare.” – Vince Lombardi
• “You’re either elite or you’re not.” – University of Georgia football coach Kirby Smart’s postgame comments after defeating Clemson 10-3
• “It’s painfully clear how important good coaching is.  Everything from schemes to strategies to personnel usage to play calls.  It’s a big reason why the 2020 Browns recorded their first winning record since 2007.  It’s a big reason why the 2020 Bills won their first division championship since 1995.  The same quarterbacks, largely the same teams, and neither of those teams make those leaps without great coaching.  It’s why Frank Reich can field competitive teams that can win despite cycling through Nick Foles, Carson Wentz, Jacoby Brissett, Andrew Luck and Philip Rivers in a four-year span.  It doesn’t just impact records, it also impacts perception of players.  Although I think of him as very limited, I think Drew Lock looked even worse last year due to the play calling.  It’s why, after last season, the public perception of Tua Tagovailoa is so low right now, but I think he has a much higher ceiling than most anticipate in 2021 due to a new staff.  You will never be able to completely separate the impact and influence a play caller has on his quarterback, but most often, we look only at a quarterback and judge if he’s good or bad.  Usually, great quarterbacks have the support of great coaching.  Coaching is more important than most NFL fans believe.” – Warren Sharp

Business

• “It’s far better to buy a wonderful company at a fair price than a fair company at a wonderful price.” – Warren Buffett
• “Would we be better off doing 25 things well, or would we be better off doing six things great?” – former Nike brand president Charlie Denson
• “You do not merely want to be the best of the best.  You want to be considered the only ones who do what you do.” – Jerry Garcia
• “The biggest threat to productivity is always the same: working on the wrong thing.” – James Clear
• “The best advice that I can give, with regret to my older self, is to find a balance between having a chip on your shoulder and being mindful that for every relationship you have… at some point in the future that person is going to be a call option and you don’t want that to expire. So, be good to people.” – Josh Wolfe
• “This is the classic story of the business world.  The very same thing that appears to make a company so formidable — its size, its resources — serve as stumbling blocks when they’re forced to respond to a situation where the rules are changing, and where nimbleness, and flexibility and adaptability are better attributes.” – Malcolm Gladwell
• “You don’t rise to the level of your goals, you fall to the level of your systems.” – James Clear
• “If an email is sent from me with explicit directions, there are only three actions allowed by managers.  1. Email me back to explain why what I said was incorrect. Sometimes, I’m just plain wrong!  2. Request further clarification if what I said was ambiguous.  3. Execute the directions.  If none of the above are done, that manager will be asked to resign immediately.  Thank you,  Elon” – Monday, October 4th email from Elon Musk to the Tesla employees
• “We now accept the fact that learning is a lifelong process of keeping abreast of change.  And the most pressing task is to teach people how to learn.” – Peter Drucker at age 94
• “We know that more people die than would otherwise because of car accidents, but by and large, cars create way more value in the world than they destroy. And I think social media is similar.” – Instagram head Adam Mossier
• “I became a little bit more dismissive of other people’s opinions than I should have been.  That was an early sign that it was time. It wasn’t the reason I left, but it was a contributing factor.” – Former Disney CEO Bob Iger
• “Understand who your customer is, what they care about – that’s the way to think about innovation.” – David Robertson MIT Sloan senior lecturer in operations management

Success

• “You lose big before you ever lose small.  Then you lose small before you ever win small.  And then you win small before you win big.  That’s the trajectory of a rebuild.” – Fox broadcaster Joel Klatt, Big Noon Kickoff show on 9-18

• “The only way to greatness is by managing your way through pressure.” – All Blacks mental skills coach Gilbert Enoka
• “Many of life’s failures are people who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up.” – Thomas Edison
• “Human beings are works in progress that mistakingly think they’re finished.” – Harvard psychologist Dan Gilbert
• “But the difference between short-lived triumph and sustained greatness is often a love of repetition and an internal fire to find an even higher mountain to climb. Being transcendent requires maintaining humility no matter the level of past achievement. Being transcendent requires adapting, knowing that the standards and expectations are even higher after success. Being transcendent requires having an unquenchable thirst to prove yourself time and time again. Ultimately, champagne today very rarely leads to more champagne tomorrow.” – Michael Lombardi from The Daily Coach
• “I think there have been cracks made in the glass ceiling by women who can get close enough to hit it.  But I’m mostly bolstered by folks who create their own ceilings.” – Director Ava DuVernay
• “I don’t come up with ideas in a test tube, I come up with ideas by breaking test tubes.” – Virgil Abloh
• “People do not decide their futures, they decide their habits and their habits decide their futures.” ― F. M. Alexander
• “Our power comes not from suppressing others but from uplifting them.” ― Sakyong Mipham
• “The learn-it-all will always do better than the know-it all.” – Satya Nadella, CEO of Microsoft
• “Your sweet spot is the intersection between what you love to create and what others love to consume.” – Justin Bariso
• “Almost everyone thinks they’re smarter than average.” – Andrew Lo, MIT Sloan professor of finance, and Stephen R. Foerster, Ivey Business School professor of finance

High Performance

• “Reading is the nourishment that lets you do interesting work.” – Jennifer Egan, Novelist
• “Your personal experiences make up maybe 0.00000001% of what’s happened in the world but maybe 80% of how you think the world works. We’re all biased to our own personal history.” – Morgan Housel
• “When your mind is telling you that you’re done, that you’re exhausted, that you cannot possibly go any farther, you’re actually only 40% done.” – David Groggins
• “When you understand that you don’t have to justify your dreams to anyone else for any reason, that’s the day you truly begin to step into who you’re meant to be.” ― Rachel Hollis, Best-Selling Author
• “What other people think of you is none of your business.” – Unknown
• “Life is so short that you can’t waste even a day subscribing to what someone thinks you can do versus what you know you can do.” ― Virgil Abloh, Visionary Designer
• “Do not be afraid to take the role nobody want.” – Dannielle Appelhans, Rubius Therapeutics COO

Top Athletes

• “I don’t really care about that man… At the end of the day, our job is not to babysit somebody.” – Joel Embiid on holdout Ben Simmons
• “Everybody wants to eat but few are willing to hunt.” – Jalen Rose
• “If you quit once, it’s so much easier to quit the second, third, fourth time.” – Michael Chang
• “The feelings in those moments don’t matter.  What matters is executing.” – Justin Tuck on his NFL record 66-yard field goal
• “But, at the end of the day, that’s in the past.  When you talk about the past, that’s your ego talking.  It’s in the past. It’s over with… I figured out a mindset to have that when you focus on the past, that’s your ego. ‘I did this.  We were able to beat this team 4-0.  I did this in the past.  I won that in the past.’  When I focus on the future, it’s my pride.  ‘Yeah, next game, Game 5, I (will) do this and this and this. I’m going to dominate.’  That’s your pride talking.  It doesn’t happen.  You’re right here… I kind of try to focus on the moment, in the present.  That’s humility.  That’s being humble.  That’s not setting no expectation.  That’s going out there, enjoying the game, competing at a high level.” – Giannis Antetokounmpo
• “The most valuable player is the one that makes the most players valuable.” – Peyton Manning
• “It’s one of those things where you set your priority list on how you want to go about it and what’s really important. That takes some time to really identify. Once you do, for me at least, all those other kind of fantasies about playing somewhere else, whatever squad it would be with and who it would be with, kind of goes out the door knowing the culture that we built here. So it’s on me to maintain that culture.” – Steph Curry after signing a 4-year $215 million contract extension
• “In Chicago the other day, I saw LaVar Ball at the game wearing a hat that said: ‘I Told You So.’  Well, my hat would say: ‘I Had No Idea.'” – Dell Curry on his son Steph’s success
• “I have a mission to win and win often… I want to be surrounded around the best… Longevity is always important to me.  The mental side of things has always been No. 1, and the physical part of it, too. For me, being surrounded by greatness is really important. Always feeling it every day. We had a great offseason. I feel stronger, I feel faster, I feel more prepared than ever. I just feel ready to play, ready to win.” – Russell Wilson

Pandemic

• “This is an extraordinary time, and I believe that it will result in an extraordinary generation. You will see the world differently than your predecessors. You have been forced, sooner than most people, to consider what in life is truly important.” – Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell when discussing the impact of the pandemic on August 17
• “We refuse to become the vaccination police for any government.” – Arnie Wensinger, In-N-Out Burger’s chief legal and business officer, after San Francisco’s department of health temporarily shut down the only In-N-Out location in the city for refusing to check diners’ vaccination status.

Books

• “I don’t know what you’re gonna do when you grow up, but let’s say that you decide to be a ditch digger.  Nobody thinks much of ditch diggers, but if you decide to be a ditch digger here in Monroe, Louisiana, you take ditch digging and make it an art.  I want people in Miami, New York, Chicago, San Francisco, to say, ‘There’s this guy down in Louisiana digging ditches, and you can’t believe what he can do with a ditch.  It’s worth the trip to go down and see him.'” – Bill Russel’s father’s advice to him from Michael Kay’s book Center Stage
• “Whatever you are not changing, you are choosing.” — Laurie Buchanan, Tuesdays with Laurie
• “You can become successful with less discipline than you think, for one simple reason: success is about doing the right thing, not about doing everything right.” – Gary Keller, The One Thing
• “Progress, not perfection, is what we should be asking of ourselves.” – Julia Cameron, The Artist’s Way
• “Wisdom tends to grow in proportion to one’s awareness of one’s ignorance.” – Anthony de Mello, One Minute Wisdom
• “Instead of asking how many tasks you can tackle given your working hours, ask how many you can ditch given what you must do to excel.” — Morten Hansen, Great at Work: The Hidden Habits of Top Performers
• “It is impossible to get better and look good at the same time. Give yourself permission to be a beginner. By being willing to be a bad artist, you have a chance to be an artist, and perhaps, over time, a very good one.” — Julia Cameron, The Artist’s Way
• “Desire is the foundation of passion; passion is the foundation of mental toughness.  Mental toughness is the foundation for developing a standard for yourself and the right standard, intelligently and diligently applied, creates success.” – Ben Newman, Uncommon Leadership: 11 Ways The Greatest Leaders Lead
• “Ambition is when you close the gap between your circumstances and your expectations. Entitlement is when you expect others to close the gap between your circumstances and your expectations.” — James Clear, Atomic Habits
• “Not all storms come to disrupt your life, some come to clear your path.” ― Paulo Coelho, The Alchemist
• “Most people resist change, even when it promises to be for the better. But change will come, and if you acknowledge this simple but indisputable fact of life, and understand that you must adjust to all change, then you will have a head start.” ― Arthur Ashe, Days of Grace: A Memoir​​
• “Where others may spot a single bee but fear an entire swarm, the Impact Player is figuring out how to build a hive and harvest the honey.” – Liz Wiseman from her book Impact Players 
• “It’s crucial that you and your team focus intensely on what you send out to the world, and not on what comes back.” – John U. Bacon from his book Let Them Lead
• “What they call you is one thing.  What you answer to is something else.” – Lucille Clifton, Fooling With Words
• “Wisdom tends to grow in proportion to one’s awareness of one’s ignorance.” – Anthony de Mello, One Minute Wisdom

Movies

• “When you love something, you protect it.  It’s the most natural thing in the world.  You’ve loved these people since the day we arrived. There’s no one better to lead us than you.”– The warrior Thena, played by Angelina Jolie, tells a very compassionate and new leader Sersi, played by Gemma Chan, in the movie Eternals
• “I read a brilliant law review essay about The Little Mermaid by a law professor in Chicago named Laura Beth Nielsen. And what I learned was so disturbing that I decided that I had to (very belatedly) watch the movie. Let me just say this: It was much worse than I had anticipated. That’s why we ended up doing three episodes on the movie in the new season of Revisionist History.” – Malcolm Gladwell
• “When I was younger aliens invaded and I was alone and I was terrified.  But then I saw you fighting aliens with a stick and a string.  I saw you jump from that building even though you can’t fly, even though you don’t have super-powers.  And I thought, ‘If he can do that then I didn’t have to be scared.’  You showed me that being a hero isn’t just for people who can fly or shoot lasers out of their hands.  It is for anyone who’s brave enough to do what’s right no matter the cost.” – Kate to Clint Barton in episode 6 of the Hawkeye Disney+ series

Global Leadership Summit

•  “A great leader also plans for unexpected opportunities.  Wherever there is uncertainty, there is always opportunity.  The most significant and impactful things we’ve ever done were born in uncertain times and we never planned for them to do.” – Craig Groeschel
• “Creativity comes from problem-solving and solutions.  My creativity comes from convictions and providing solutions to my customer’s closet.” – Clothing designer Jerry Lorenz
• “We don’t see things the way they are.  We see things the way we are.” – Rich Wilkerson, Jr
•  “You cannot solve a problem at the same level it was created.” – Albert Einstein
•  “The voice of the people is not the mind of the people.  The voice of the people has been hijacked by special interests.” – A.R. Bernard

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