The success of a company hinges on the quality of its leadership. When there is no strong leader to direct a team or company, it can lead to ineffectual or no decision making, a rise in interpersonal conflicts, low morale, and reduced productivity. Without leadership, the core vision of the company usually falls away, leaving it without direction. For these reasons, growing the company becomes difficult. However, it is possible to take positive steps to turn around a previously leaderless, non-functioning team.
In Part One of our two-part blog series, we unpack the first three in our selection of inspirational leadership quotes, from well-known business leaders on various aspects of quality leadership, providing practical applications for each.
Inspirational quote #1
“The greatest leaders mobilize others by coalescing people around a shared vision.”
Ken Blanchard—Business consultant, motivational speaker and prolific author who wrote the best seller, The One Minute Manager.
How?
Business success hinges on having a unified workforce, at every level of the business. These are employees that have bought into and share their company’s vision and values. When employees understand and buy in to the company’s vision, great things happen. Here are 3 steps to sharing your company vision:
- Share the vision regularly with every employee in the company: Communicating your vision clearly and regularly is important to ensure everyone is aligned with your goals. Understanding the big picture and how their role plays a part in business success will enhance your employees’ belonging and purpose.
- Set clear expectations: Support meaningful participation by setting clear expectations for your team. This includes providing detailed job descriptions and key performance indicators (KPIs) that align with your vision and values. Clarity and being held accountable helps your team understand the connection between their performance and achieving the company mission.
- Lead by example: As a leader, you must embody the values that you want your team to display. Your team’s alignment to the company’s visions and values is facilitated when you, as a leader or manager, adopt a servant leadership approach.
Inspirational quote #2
“The first responsibility of a leader is to define reality. The last is to say thank you. In between, the leader is a servant.”
Max De Pree—Businessman and successful author who established the concept of Servant Leadership.
How?
Traditionally, leadership revolved around one person at the top who exercised authority over their team. In today’s workplace, servant leadership is increasingly evident as leaders share power by serving those under them. Here are 3 ways to be a servant leader:
- Good stewardship of the role: Servant leaders acknowledge and understand the importance of their responsibilities and how they affect the company’s overall success. They protect and uphold the trust and confidence given to them by living out the values they expect in others. They actively strengthen their teams by supporting and uplifting them.
- Dedication to building a motivated community: Servant leaders value the opinions of everyone on their team and motivate them to share their opinions and contribute regularly. For example, they encourage team members to provide feedback when they have an idea to improve workflow or help the company succeed. They also provide opportunities for team interaction through workplace design, collaboration and getting together socially.
- Commitment to the growth of people: Servant leaders help their team members become leaders themselves. They are committed to helping their people’s professional growth and development, seeing their employees as “valuable people” with skills, rather than people with “valuable skills.”
Inspirational quote #3
“Leadership is unlocking people’s potential to become better.”
Bill Bradley—Businessman, ex-Democratic Party politician, and professional basketball player.
How?
Investing in people’s potential will expand their horizons and lead to extensive growth of the company. As your employees continue to hone their skills and learn new things, they will become happier, more fulfilled, and more productive – as individuals and as a team. They will tackle their daily tasks and projects with positivity and precision. Here are 3 practical ways to unlock your employees’ potential:
- Paying attention to individual employees: To leverage employees’ individual abilities, pay attention to each employees’ abilities and assign each person tasks and projects that best use their strengths. The outcome of employees doing work they enjoy and are good at is better morale, greater output, and a higher standard of work.
- Providing ongoing training: Providing regular on-the-job training ensures your employees’ skills stay up to date – particularly in the face of rapid and ongoing technological change. This builds confidence. Ongoing training is not just essential to keeping employees up to date on company tools and processes, but also for gaining the necessary skills to grow in their positions and prepare for promotion.
- Building strong teams: Build strong teams by cultivating teamwork, collaboration, and a culture of lifelong learning. This allows employees to build on top of each other’s strengths and learn from one another. It encourages a peer-to-peer learning approach that can have significant impact on developing employee potential and growing the company.
An effective leader knows that walking the talk is one of the best ways to inspire others. Your employees are more likely to follow someone they see as a role model. By behaving in a way that embodies the values and goals of your team or company, you can show others what it means to be a committed and successful member and lead the team from strength to strength.
Over to you for sharing your comments and experiences.

About the Author: Kerstin Jatho
Kerstin is the senior transformational coach and team development facilitator for 4Seeds Consulting. She is also the author of Growing Butterfly Wings, a book on applying positive psychology principles during a lengthy recovery. Her passion is to develop people-centred organisations where people thrive and achieve their potential in the workplace. You can find Kerstin on LinkedIn, Soundcloud, YouTube and Facebook.