What's a Leader?

I've been thinking a lot about leadership lately.  Partly because I am using the FranklinCovey Leadership planner--which has excellent quotations at the top of each page (I'll include some below), and partly because I'm heavily involved with The Power of Moms right now--making lots of decisions and doing a lot of work to move the organization forward.

I read this quotation by President Hinckley this morning in this month's Ensign (p. 31):

"It is so very important that you do not let praise and adulation go to your head.  Adulation is poison.  You better never lose sight of the fact that the Lord put you where you are according to His design, which you don't understand.  Acknowledge the Lord for whatever good you can accomplish and give Him the credit and the glory and do not worry about that coming to yourself.  If you can do that, you'll get along all right and you will go forward with a love for the people and a great respect for them and you will try to accomplish what your office demands of you."

I think that's the biggest challenge of leadership--remembering that you are only in the service of the Master.

Here are some other quotations I like:

"Men never plan to be failures; they simply fail to plan to be successful."  --William A. Ward

"A good leader takes a little more than his share of the blame, a little less than his share of the credit."  --Arnold Glasow

"An army of a thousand is easy to find; but, ah, how difficult to find a general."  --Chinese Proverb

"You cannot antagonize and influence at the same time."  --J.S.  Knox

"We do not have to become heroes overnight.  Just a step at a time, meeting each thing that comes up, seeing it is not as dreadful as it appeared, discovering we have the strength to stare it down."  --Eleanor Roosevelt

"Every shot you don't take is a guaranteed miss."  --Richard Sanders