150 Inspiring Management Quotes To Fuel The Fire

15 min read |

Last Updated on 01 August 2022

A leader with strong management abilities helps the firm achieve its purpose and business goals with fewer roadblocks. Whether you’re an emerging leader or a manager looking for inspiration, our selected management quotes will infuse you with the burst of energy you need.

Developing a set of management abilities can equip you to achieve long-term success in leadership roles. You might explore managerial responsibilities as you progress in your job, gather experience and develop your professional skills.

According to Officevibe, managers are liable for nearly 70% of the difference in employee engagement. It is no secret that employee engagement affects a huge deal in any business. Managers are stressed and overburdened. And this is a problem that must be addressed.

That being said, folks are always looking for motivation in a variety of genres and places. While some people find inspiration in music, others may seek it in a simple quote.

Here are the top 150 inspiring quotes to get you pumped up.

1. Anthea Turner

The first rule of management is delegation. Don’t try and do everything yourself because you can’t.

2. Peter Drucker

A manager sets objectives, organizes, motivates, and communicates, sets yardsticks, and measures to develop people.

3. Steve Jobs

It’s not about money. It’s about the people you have, and how you’re led.

4. John D. Rockefeller

Good management consists of showing average people how to do the work of superior people.

5. Brian Tracy

Time management is really personal management, life management. and management of yourself.

6. Jack Welch

Good business leaders create a vision, articulate the vision, passionately own the vision, and relentlessly drive it to completion.

7. Paul Hawken

Good management is the art of making problems so interesting and their solutions so constructive that everyone wants to get to work and deal with them.

8. Elon Musk

I’ve actually not read any books on time management.

9. John C. Maxwell

Leaders must be close enough to relate to others, but far enough ahead to motivate them.

10. Henry Mintzberg

Management is, above all, a practice where art, science, and craft meet.

11. Napoleon Bonaparte

A leader is a dealer in hope.

12. Margaret Thatcher

Don’t follow the crowd, let the crowd follow you.

13. Erskine Bowles

Leadership is the key to 99 percent of all successful efforts.

14. John F. Kennedy

Leadership and learning are indispensable to each other.

15. Robert H. Johnson

Make your top managers rich and they will make you rich.

16. Frederick W. Smith

A manager is not a person who can do the work better than his men; he is a person who can get his men to do the work better than he can.

17. Dwight D. Eisenhower

Leadership is the art of getting someone else to do something you want done because he wants to do it.

18. Anonymous

Management is doing things right, leadership is doing the right things.

19. Max Lucado

A man who wants to lead an orchestra must turn his back on the crowd.

20. Mitt Romney

Leadership is about taking responsibility, not making excuses.

21. Friedrich Nietzsche

To do great things is difficult; but to command great things is more difficult.

22. Tony Blair

The art of leadership is saying no, not saying yes. It is very easy to say yes.

23. Ralph Nader

The function of leadership is to produce more leaders, not more followers.

24. Vince Lombardi

Leaders are made, they are not born. They are made by hard effort.

25. Anonymous

Strong people don’t put others down. They lift them up.

26. Anonymous

The quality of a leader is reflected in the standards they set for themselves.

27. Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

A great person attracts great people and knows how to hold them together.

28. John Seaman Garns

Real leaders are ordinary people with extraordinary determinations.

29. Earl Weaver

A manager’s job is simple. For one hundred sixty-two games, you try not to screw up all that smart stuff your organization did last December.

30. Simon Sinek

Great leaders state out loud what they intend to do and in doing so, they get things done.

31. Arnold H. Glasgow

A real leader faces the music even when he doesn’t like the tune.

32. Colin Powell

Leadership is the art of accomplishing more than the science of management says is possible.

33. Franklin D. Roosevelt

A good leader can’t get too ahead of his followers.

34. Sheryl Sandberg

Leaders should strive for authenticity over perfection.

35. Albert Schweitzer

Example is not the main thing in influencing others. It is the only thing.

36. Liz Brenner

Great managers fight for their people.

37. Arsene Wenger

A manager is a guide. He takes a group of people and says, ‘With you, I can make us a success; I can show you the way.’

38. Chinese Proverb

Not the cry, but the flight of a wild duck leads the flock to fly and follow.

39. Lee Iacocca

If I had to sum up in a word what makes a good manager, I’d say decisiveness. You can use the fanciest computers to gather the numbers, but in the end you have to set a timetable and act.

40. Seneca

He who has great power should use it lightly.

41. Fuchan Yuan

There are three essentials to leadership: humility, clarity and courage.

42. Warren Bennis

Leadership is the capacity to translate vision into reality.

43. Stephen Covey

Management is efficiency in climbing the ladder of success; leadership determines whether the ladder is leaning against the right wall.

44. Ted Turner

A leader is someone who creates infectious enthusiasm.

45. Kenneth Blanchard and Spencer Johnson

Catch someone doing something right.

46. Jim Goodnight

Treat employees like they make a difference, and they will.

47. George S. Patton

Don’t tell people how to do things; tell them what to do and let them surprise you.

48. Robert Townsend

One of the most important tasks of a manager is to eliminate his people’s excuse for failure.

49. James Cook

To be a good manager of people requires both fairness and bluntness.

50. Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

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.

51. Nelson Mandela

It is better to lead from behind and to put others in front, especially when you celebrate victory when nice things occur. You take the front line when there is danger. Then people will appreciate your leadership.

52. Marissa Mayer

Find the smartest people you can and surround yourself with them.

53. Helen McCabe

One bad day from one member of my staff doesn’t mean they are not really good at their jobs the rest of the time. I play a long game in terms of management.

54. Casey Stengel

The key to being a good manager is keeping the people who hate me away from those who are still undecided.

55. Marcus Buckingham

As a manager, your job is not to teach people talent. Your job is to help them earn the accolade “talented” by matching their talent to the role. To do this well, like all great managers, you have to pay close attention to the subtle but significant differences between roles.

56. Ben Horowitz

A manager can’t act like a role model. They need to be a role model.

57. Carlos Ghosn

I think that the best training a top manager can be engaged in is management by example.

58. Jim Rohn

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.

59. Denis Waitley

Don’t be a time manager, be a priority manager. Cut your major goals into bite-sized pieces. Each small priority or requirement on the way to ultimate goal becomes a mini goal in itself.

60. Mike Huckabee

A leader is the one who can outline the broad vision and the direction and say, here’s where we are going to go, here’s why we need to go there, and here’s how we are going to get there. A manager is the one who actually gets up under the hood and tunes the carburetor.

61. Bob Nelson

An employee’s motivation is a direct result of the sum of interactions with his or her manager.

62. Mark Hughes

Sometimes the manager actually is the glue that holds everything together, and when you take that manager out, sometimes that’s when things start to go really wrong.

63. Edin Dz

I think, for every player, it is important he knows the manager believes in him, and it is important he has the confidence of the manager. That helps you to find the best form.

64. Charles Murray

You can learn a lot about good management by working under someone who is a bad manager.

65. Eliyahu Goldratt

To be a good manager, a manager tries to constantly fight to reduce waste.

66. Dave Weinbaum

Those who let things happen usually lose to those who make things happen.

67. Herb Kelleher

A company is stronger if it is bound by love rather than by fear.

68. Eleanor Roosevelt

To handle yourself, use your head; to handle others, use your heart.

69. Robert L. Stevenson

Keep your fears to yourself, but share your courage with others.

70. Jeanette Rankin

You take people as far as they will go, not as far as you would like them to go.

71. Carlo Ancelotti

That is what a good manager does - you study and think and discuss, and you come up with a model of playing.

72. Lynn Jurich

Hire people who are smarter than you, and don’t be afraid to work with them as partners. Make it clear that you plan to learn from them, not just the other way around. The right, smart, motivated people respond very well to that approach, particularly coming from a younger manager like I am.

73. Thomas Carlyle

Go as far as you can see; when you get there, you’ll be able to see further.

74. Buddha

If you light a lamp for someone else, it will also brighten your path.

75. Elizabeth Lesser

Don’t persuade, defend or interrupt. Be curious, be conversational, be real. And listen.

76. African Proverb

If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together.

77. Muriel Strode

Do not follow where the path may lead. Go instead where there is no path and leave a trail.

78. Henry Ford

Whether you think you can or you think you can’t—you’re right.

79. Oliver Wendell Holmes

Many ideas grow better when transplanted into another mind than the one where they sprang up.

80. Tony Fadell

It’s easy to solve a problem that everyone sees, but it’s hard to solve a problem that almost no one sees.

81. John Quincy Adams

If your actions inspire others to dream more, learn more, do more and become more, you are a leader.

82. Theodore Roosevelt

People ask the difference between a leader and a boss. The leader leads, and the boss drives.

83. Bill Bradley

Leadership is unlocking people’s potential to become better.

84. Harry Truman

To be able to lead others, a man must be willing to go forward alone.

85. Alari Aho

Sometimes it’s good to step back and let others take the wheel. It’s smart to admit your mistakes and let other people win in the idea game. You won’t always be leading the team or have the best idea, and that’s a good thing. Making a mistake isn’t the end of the world!

86. Tina Fey

In most cases being a good boss means hiring talented people and then getting out of their way.

87. Raymond Wheeler

One cannot measure a manager’s knowledge and performance in a vacuum. It involves their participation in business activities while bringing all of themselves to the process of development, including their spiritual, personal, and skill & ability development.

88. Tom Peters

Management is about arranging and telling. Leadership is about nurturing and enhancing.

89. Vivek Wadhwa

A key to achieving success is to assemble a strong and stable management team.

90. Carlos Slim

Profitability is coming from productivity, efficiency, management, austerity, and the way to manage the business.

91. Russel Honore

Leadership is working with goals and vision; management is working with objectives.

92. Andy Dunn

Leadership is inspiring people. Management is keeping the trains running on time.

93. James Cash Penny

The art of effective listening is essential to clear communication, and clear communication is necessary to management success.

94. Clayton M. Christensen

Management is the opportunity to help people become better people. Practiced that way, it’s a magnificent profession.

95. Lisa Su

The best thing you can do is learn from those mistakes so that you continue to get better. That’s the management style or leadership style I believe in, which is push people to their limit such that they can become better than they thought they could be. That certainly has helped me.

96. Sam Walton

The way management treats associates is exactly how the associates will treat the customers.

97. Collin Powell

Fit no stereotypes. Don’t chase the latest management fads. The situation dictates which approach best accomplishes the team’s mission.

98. Isabel Allende

For real change, we need feminine energy in the management of the world. We need a critical number of women in positions of power, and we need to nurture the feminine energy in men.

99. Robert Heller

The first myth of management is that it exists. The second myth of management is that success equals skill.

100. Rajeev Suri

Leadership is all about emotional intelligence. Management is taught, while leadership is experienced.

101. Fred Brooks

There is no single development, in either technology or management technique, which by itself promises even one order-of-magnitude improvement within a decade in productivity, in reliability, in simplicity.

102. Adena Friedman

You need to have a lot of human judgment involved in the financial industry in terms of risk management, in terms of investment decisions, and things that really allow us to blend the best of technology and the human brain.

103. Robbert Heller

Effective management always means asking the right question.

104. Ivan Glasenberg

I thought if we could put our hard-working culture as traders into the asset management, it will be a great combination, and we did do that.

105. W. Edwards Deming

What should be the aim of management? What is their job? Quality is the responsibility of the top people. Its origin is in the boardroom. They are the ones who decide.

106. Steve Case

And I’d say one of the great lessons I’ve learned over the past couple of decades, from a management perspective, is that really when you come down to it, it really is all about people and all about leadership.

107. Allan Mullaly

The more senior your management position is, the more important it is to connect the organization or the project to the outside world. You know, how does this fit in with what we’re doing? What is the real goal, the real mission?

108. Maurice Strong

We need what I have often called an ecological approach to the management of these resources and we do not have that now. We have the inertia of past habits, unsustainable habits.

109. Lao Tsu

To lead people, walk behind them.

110. Bill Gates

As we look ahead into the next century, leaders will be those who empower others.

111. Seth Godin

Leadership is the art of giving people a platform for spreading ideas that work.

112. Winston Churchill

When eagles are silent, parrots begin to chatter.

113. Tom DeMarco

Get the right people. Then no matter what all else you might do wrong after that, the people will save you. That’s what management is all about.

114. Abraham Lincoln

No man is good enough to govern another man without that other’s consent.

115. Chinese Proverb

Not the cry, but the flight of a wild duck, leads the flock to fly and follow.

116. James Callaghan

A leader must have the courage to act against an expert’s advice.

117. Jeffrey Gitomer

Management’s job is to convey leadership’s message in a compelling and inspiring way. Not just in meetings, but also by example.

118. Pat Riley

Management must speak with one voice. When it doesn’t management itself becomes a peripheral opponent to the team’s mission.

119. Michael Jordan

Talent wins games, but teamwork and intelligence wins championships.

120. A Bug’s Life

First rule of leadership: everything is your fault.

121. Charles Richards

Don’t be fooled by the calendar. There are only as many days in the year as you make use of. One man gets only a week’s value out of a year while another man gets a full year’s value out of a week.

122. Arnold Glasow

One of the true tests of leadership is the ability to recognize a problem before it becomes an emergency.

123. George Bernard Shaw

The single biggest problem in communication is the illusion that it has taken place.

124. Jada Pinkett Smith

My belief is that communication is the best way to create strong relationships.

125. Diana Scharf

Goals are dreams with deadlines.

126. Joel Barker

Vision without action is a dream. Action without vision is simply passing the time. Action with Vision is making a positive difference.

127. Reggie Jackson

I feel that the most important requirement in success is learning to overcome failure. You must learn to tolerate it, but never accept it.

128. Mattie Stepanek

Unity is strength… when there is teamwork and collaboration, wonderful things can be achieved.

129. Amy Poehler

As you navigate through the rest of your life, be open to collaboration. Other people and other people’s ideas are often better than your own. Find a group of people who challenge and inspire you, spend a lot of time with them, and it will change your life.

130. Laura Noodapera

A team is successful only when they have a common goal. Not only does this goal need to be set, but it also has to be communicated to each team member.

131. Nina Žderić

No one can teach you how to be productive, whether it’s in the office or at home, you have to do that for yourself and see what best works for you. There will be days when you will get to work on dozens of things in a day and there will be days when you will get none done.

132. Annika Helendi

Focus on results only. Agree with every department/team/person on what is their KPI (key performance indicator). The focus has to be clear, and there has to be a numerical goal agreed upon too. After you have done this, you don’t really care if somebody is working 8 hours a day (which btw is bullshit anyway, you can rarely do over 6 hours of productive work in a day. I know, I Toggld it), you just follow up how people are progressing with their KPIs. The approach is very black & white. It doesn’t allow anyone to hide between busy-work, only results matter.

Suggested Read: Epic Goal Setting Quotes For A Successful Year

133. David Ogilvy

Hire people who are better than you are, then leave them to get on with it. Look for people who will aim for the remarkable, who will not settle for the routine.

134. Ronald Reagan

Surround yourself with the best people you can find, delegate authority, and don’t interfere as long as the policy you’ve decided upon is being carried out.

135. Howard Schultz

Hiring people is an art, not a science, and resumes can’t tell you whether someone will fit into a company’s culture. When you realize you’ve made a mistake, you need to cut your losses and move on.

136. Agha Hasan Abedi

The conventional definition of management is getting work done through people, but real management is developing people through work.

137. John Rockefeller

Good management consists in showing average people how to do the work of superior people.

138. Richard Branson

Train people well enough so they can leave, treat them well enough so they don’t want to.

139. David Brinkley

A successful man is one who can lay a firm foundation with the bricks others have thrown at him.

140. Wally Altes

You can grow more corn in a crooked row.

141. Keisha A. Rivers

Don’t fake it ’til you make it. Learn it as you become it.

142. Dale Carnegie

Don’t criticize, condemn, or complain.

143. Ryan G Wright

Own the outcome.

144. Tara Wilson

Fierce enough to handle it!

145. Cinderella

Just because it’s what’s done, doesn’t mean it’s what should be done.

146. Jonathan S. Harris

Praise in public, and criticize in private.

147. Margaret J. Wheatley

Although worker motivation and capacity are destroyed as leaders pick power over productivity, it appears as if bosses would rather be in control than have a company work well.

148. Gregory L. Sullivan

Excellence is in the details.

149. Walt Disney

It’s kind of fun to do the impossible.

150. Katie Couric

You can’t please everyone, and you can’t make everyone like you.

Wrapping it up

We’ve had the opportunity of witnessing and learning from some bright brains and excellent leaders and managers who victoriously climbed the ladder of success.

Starting from Steve Jobs to Stephen Covey, Richard Branson to Howard Schultz, Bill Gates to Ralph Lauren! People who started with little and went on to become millionaires, people who combined book smarts with street smarts, people-oriented managers, and managers with natural leadership abilities.

These were some of their well-known leadership and management quotes. We hope they encouraged the future leader inside you!

This article is written by Bhaswati Roy who is a Content Marketer at Vantage Circle. In her spare time, she can be found reading crime thrillers or scrolling through food apps, unable to pick what to eat next. For any related queries, contact editor@vantagecircle.com.