The Top 75 Leadership Quotes Of 2021

Part 2
Compiled by Brian Dodd of
BrianDoddonLeadership.com

BrianDoddOnLeadership.com
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.

Earlier this year I released the Ebook The Top 60 Leadership Quotes of 2021 Part 1. If you do
not have your copy yet, click HERE to download a complimentary edition. As we conclude the
year I want to bring a follow-up with my Top 75 Leadership Quotes of the final six months of
2021.

These quotes are separated into the following pages and categories

Page 3 Personal Favorites

Page 3 Coaching Wisdom

Page 4 Business Brilliance

Page 5 Success

Page 6 High Performance

Page 7 Top Athletes

Page 8 Pandemic

Page 8 Books

Page 9 Movies

Page 10 Global Leadership Summit

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The following are The Top 75 Leadership Quotes Of 2021 Part 2 by section. A few quotes
were older but recently requoted to serve various audiences.

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

Coaching Wisdom

• “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

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 • “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 Brilliance

• "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

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 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

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 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

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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

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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,

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 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, Author of 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

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
• "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
• "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

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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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