Top 102 Inspirational Quotes For Managers

We all need a slight nudge now and then. Our managers are just the same. So, we've compiled the finest quotes for all the managers out there to infuse them with a boost of motivation!

Managers are perhaps the most underrated piece in the organizational puzzle. And they deserve the due credit since they are considered the link between employees and the company.

A recent survey of over 1,000 managers by Betterworks revealed that managers are less than happy with their current situation in their companies.

On a day-to-day basis, managers face a tremendous amount of stress and demotivation. From ensuring that a project gets completed on time to overseeing every aspect of the teamwork, the burnout that they face is rarely discussed.

Managers need as much motivation as every other working person. Here is a compilation of the 102 best quotes for managers that will help you to gear up for your next challenge to tackle.

102 Quotes For Managers To Show Why They Are Irreplaceable

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1. Stephen Covey

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

2. 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.

3. Peter Drucker

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

4. Liz Brenner

Great managers fight for their people.

5. Jack Welch

One of the jobs of a manager is to instill confidence, pump confidence into your people. And when you've got somebody who's raring to go, and you can smell it and feel it, give 'em that shot.

6. Brian Tracy

Achieving the highest possible return on human capital must be every manager's goal.

7. Steve Jobs

Management is about persuading people to do things they do not want to do, while leadership is about inspiring people to do things they never thought they could.

8. 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.

9. 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.

10. 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.

11. 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.'

12. John D. Rockefeller

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

13. Jim Goodnight

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

14. George S. Patton

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

15. Robert Townsend

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

16. James Cook

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

17. 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.

18. 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.

19. Marissa Mayer

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

20. 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.

21. Casey Stengel

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

22. 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.

23. Ben Horowitz

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

24. Carlos Ghosn

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

25. 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.

26. Ben Horowitz

If I have one skill as a manager, I can make things extremely clear.

27. 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.

28. 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.

29. Bob Nelson

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

30. 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.

31. 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.

32. Charles Murray

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

33. Eliyahu Goldratt

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

34. Dave Weinbaum

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

35. Max Lucado

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

36. Herb Kelleher

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

37. Eleanor Roosevelt

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

38. Robert L. Stevenson

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

39. Jeanette Rankin

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

40. Carlo Ancelotti

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

41. 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.

42. Thomas Carlyle

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

43. Buddha

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

44. Elizabeth Lesser

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

45. African Proverb

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

46. Muriel Strode

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

47. Henry Ford

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

48. Oliver Wendell Holmes

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

49. 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.

50. Anonymous

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

51. Anthea Turner

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

52. John Quincy Adams

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

53. Theodore Roosevelt

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

54. Mitt Romney

Leadership is about taking responsibility, not making excuses.

55. Tony Blair

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

56. Bill Bradley

Leadership is unlocking people’s potential to become better.

57. Vince Lombardi

Winners never quit and quitters never win.

58. Harry Truman

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

59. 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!

60. Tina Fey

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

61. John C Maxwell

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

62. 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.

63. Tom Peters

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

64. Vivek Wadhwa

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

65. Simon Sinek

Corporate culture matters. How management chooses to treat its people impacts everything - for better or for worse.

66. Carlos Slim

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

67. Henry Mintzberg

I describe management as arts, crafts and science. It is a practice that draws on arts, craft and science and there is a lot of craft - meaning experience - there is a certain amount of craft meaning insight, creativity and vision, and there is the use of science, technique or analysis.

68. Warren Bennis

Success in management requires learning as fast as the world is changing.

69. Russel Honore

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

70. Andy Dunn

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

71. James Cash Penny

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

72. Clayton M. Christensen

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

73. 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.

74. Sam Walton

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

75. Collin Powell

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

76. 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.

77. Robert Heller

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

78. Rajeev Suri

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

79. 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.

80. 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.

81. Robbert Heller

Effective management always means asking the right question.

82. 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.

83. 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.

84. 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.

85. 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?

86. 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.

87. Lao Tsu

To lead people, walk behind them.

88. Bill Gates

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

89. Seth Godin

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

90. Winston Churchill

When eagles are silent, parrots begin to chatter.

91. Napoleon Bonaparte

A leader is a dealer in hope.

92. John Q. Adams

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

93. Kenneth Blanchard

The key to successful leadership today is influence, not authority.

94. Seneca

He who has great power should use it lightly.

95. Erskine Bowles

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

96. Margaret Thatcher

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

97. John F. Kennedy

Leadership and learning are indispensable to each other.

98. Abraham Lincoln

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

99. Chinese Proverb

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

100. Fuchan Yuan

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

101. Dwight D. Eisenhower

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

102. Colin Powell

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

Wrapping it Up

Being a great manager necessitates not just professional expertise but also leadership and decision-making skills. It may very well be the difference between a successful and burnt-out team.

Great managers have the power to guide the team towards greater, long-term success. But for that to happen, it's vital that the manager remains motivated and believe in themselves.

If you are an HR leader, the above collection of inspirational quotes for managers by some of the great leaders will undoubtedly help you in showing them how much they are valued.