33 of the Most Inspirational Leadership Quotes for You to Live By
We’ve all seen quotes designed to motivate or inspire us. Well, according to a new study, people who post these ‘inspirational’ quotes also have lower levels of intelligence. However, Godinterest disagrees, and see’s some quotes as universal nuggets of wisdom. You know the ones – those quotes that give you “Aha!” moments of inspiration or meaningful insights into your personal and professional lives. These are the ones you want to print out and place on your fridge so you’ll see them every day.
This collection of inspirational quotes features some of the all-time classics you may know, as well as some lesser-known ones you’ll love too. If you have any quotes you would have added, feel free to share in the comments section!
- “The reason most people never reach their goals is that they don’t define them, or ever seriously consider them as believable or achievable.” – Denis Watley
- “Our goals can only be reached through a vehicle of a plan, in which we must fervently believe, and upon which we must vigorously act. There is no other route to success.” – Stephen A. Brennan
- “Without goals, and plans to reach them, you are like a ship that has set sail with no destination.” – Fitzhugh Dodson
- “Goals are dreams with deadlines.” – Diana Scharf Hunt
- “You must have long-term goals to keep you from being frustrated by short-term failures.” – Charles C. Noble
- “Crystallize your goals. Make a plan for achieving them and set yourself a deadline. Then, with supreme confidence, determination, and disregard for obstacles and other people’s criticisms, carry out your plan.” – Paul Meyer
- “The tragedy of life doesn’t lie in not reaching your goal. The tragedy lies in having no goals to reach.” – Benjamin Mays
- “Progress has little to do with speed, but much to do with direction.” – Unknown
- “The world makes way for the man who knows where he is going.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson
- “Goals help focus you on areas in both your personal and professional life that are important and meaningful, rather than being guided by what other people want you to be, do, or accomplish.” – Catherine Pulsifer
- “What you get by achieving your goals is not as important as what you become by achieving your goals.” – Zig Ziglar
- “It doesn’t matter where you are coming from. All that matters is where you are going.” – Brian Tracy
- “The true measure of a man is not how he behaves in moments of comfort and convenience but how he stands at times of controversy and challenges.” – Martin Luther King Jr.
- “It’s not the load that breaks you down, it’s the way you carry it.” – Horne, Lena
- “Difficulties are meant to rouse, not discourage. The human spirit is to grow strong by conflict.” – William E. Channing
- “Nothing is particularly hard if you divide it into small jobs.” – Henry Ford
- “It’s not whether you get knocked down. It’s whether you get up again.” – Vince Lombardi
- “You must do the thing you think you cannot do.” E- Eleanor Roosevelt
- “Motivation is what gets you started. Habit is what keeps you going.” – Jim Ryun
- “Strong lives are motivated by dynamic purposes.” – Kenneth Hildebrand
- “People who are unable to motivate themselves must be content with mediocrity, no matter how impressive their other talents.” – Andrew Carnegie
- “Be miserable. Or motivate yourself. Whatever has to be done, it’s always your choice.” – Wayne Dyer
- “The surest way not to fail is to be determined to succeed.” – Richard B. Sheridan
- “A determined person will do more with a pen and paper than a lazy person will accomplish with a personal computer.” – Catherine Pulsifer
- “There is no chance, no destiny, no fate, that can hinder or control the firm resolve of a determined soul.” – Ella Wheeler Wilcox
- “It was courage, faith, endurance and a dogged determination to surmount all obstacles that built this bridge.” – John J. Watson
- “Failure will never overtake me if my determination to succeed is strong enough.” – Og Mandino
- “You’ve got to get up every morning with determination if you’re going to go to bed with satisfaction.” – George Lorimer
- “We will either find a way or make one!” – Hannibal
- “That some achieve great success, is proof to all that others can achieve it as well.” – Unknown
- “Do not let what you cannot do interfere with what you can do.” – John Wooden
- “Success seems to be largely a matter of hanging on after others have let go.” – William Feather
- “Success is the sum of small efforts, repeated day in and day out.” – Robert Collier
The Good, the Bad and the Ugly of Project Management for Christian Leaders
It’s Monday afternoon at the office. The week has only begun, but you’re already swimming in a sea of memos, spreadsheets, and schedules. Just as you’re daydreaming about what leftovers you might reheat for a late dinner, your boss pokes his head into your office. He or she mutters something about quotas and deadlines before he or she drops the bomb about a “little project” he or she needs you to complete by the end of the week. And just like that, you know you’ve been handed a nightmare but for whatever reason accept the challenge.
“According to the Cranfield School of Management in the Uk, 68% of Projects Are Destined for Failure Before They Even Start.”
The lack of project management training or experience of many Christian leaders can be an enormous stress factor for them. Whilst natural organizational ability is enormously helpful, in itself it is no guarantee of any project being both successful and low stress.
What is a nightmare project? It’s something we’re all familiar with. The boss assigns us some vague task and a deadline but leaves the means to a solution up to our creative intellect.
So how do you solve the problem of this dreaded “project”?
1. Understand the scope of the project
First things first, create a list to layout your ideas on how to go about the job at hand. Write out questions you might have that need to be answered, people you might need to work with or talk to in order to understand what work must be done.
Without fully understanding what work must be done, it is impossible to accurately estimate a project’s schedule or budget.
After creating a list, share your ideas with colleagues. Work with peers who have the same goal and share the same work ethics as you. Too often, when faced with an unrealistic project, we tend to work with just about anybody who wearily agrees to have their name on board. The enthusiasm of a new project quickly fades when actual work is needed. Instead of “How can I help?” were met with “I’m busy right now” and “Can it wait until next week?” The sponsor, project manager, and project team must share a common understanding of the scope of the project.
2. Get estimates from the people who will be doing the work
To avoid the stress of friendly fatigue, create a solid plan of action with your co-workers. Assign duties and responsibilities and set a deadline for each task.
4. Re-estimate as soon as you realize an estimating assumption was wrong
Don’t get discouraged if people and other things fall through. Even though it’s frustrating with the broken promises, missed deadlines, mistakes, and poor quality outputs. As soon as you realize a mistake was made, assess the impact and re-estimate the project.
“Unfortunately When Project Managers Spend the Majority of Their Time Trying to Achieve the Unachievable, the Result Is Frustration and Potential Burnout.”
But say you’ve followed those steps and were able to remain positive throughout this grueling week. You completed the assignment, whether enthusiastically or completely drained of all energy, only to be told the higher-ups decided to go a different route and don’t need the results of your project after all. “Good effort, though,” your boss tells you as he or she hands back your laminated report.
If you find yourself in this situation, just remember to never say “yes” to a “little project without first taking a look at what you’ve been handed.
Yes, You Are Called to Be a Leader for Christ
Times are changing, and so are the ways people work and collaborate. The idea of being a leader can be daunting.
When you consider the word “leader who and what comes to mind, perhaps your Pastor? The BBC show the Apprentice? Your manager? A colleague at work in another team perhaps or an individual who literally has “Project Leader” on a business card or email signature?
Well, it may not be part of your job title, and you may even struggle to find the words in your job description, nevertheless, the call to follow Christ is a call to leadership.
In the Oxford ditionary a project Is defined as “an individual or collaborative enterprise that is carefully planned to achieve a particular aim”
When you think “project”, you typically think about big things, such as:
- Church building developments
- Developing a new product
- IT system integration
- Writing a tender
But actually, many smaller activities can also be classed as a project, such as:
- Creating and delivering an internal training course at church
- Creating and sending a church e-newsletter
- Creating new team processes
In fact, according to David Allen, pioneer of the productivity system Getting Things Done (GTD), a ‘project’ is any multi-step action. In other words, creating
t may seem glaringly obvious, but someone needs to own a project, and not every church organisation or team has a certified project leader to call upon.
2. Create an action plan
“Make a List of the Actions It Will Take to Get You to the End Goal”
It’s very easy to jump straight in and get moving on a project. Spending time planning can seem like wasted time, but in fact, without good planning, you could be wasting your time and energy on things that just aren’t needed. In other words, skipping the planning phase of a project is a sure-fire way of encountering problems down the line. The basics of what you’ll need to establish include your project vision (or guiding light), what your project will deliver, the risks to the project as well as your budget, resources, and timescales Prayer is the portal that brings the power of heaven down to earth. It is kryptonite to the Enemy and to all his ploys against you. Pray in the Spirit at all times and at every stage of the project.
3. Set a realistic deadline
Without a Deadline Your Project Will Sit at the Bottom of Your To-do List and Will Go Nowhere
When it comes to assessing your timescales, you need to figure out what is realistically achievable, while not padding out your timelines too much.
4. Communicate regularly
Developing a Project in a Bubble Will Result in Problems Later On
Regular communication is vital. Meetings, emails and even a quick trip to your colleague’s desk are all needed to make sure you have not missed anything important and that everyone in on the same page.
5. Faith is not a spectator sport.
The Opportunities are Endless and Harvest is Plentiful.
Finally, please remember aside from managing projects that faith is not a spectator sport. It’s easy to come to church to be entertained and not invest time in serving the church community. But Jesus isn’t here for our amusement. He didn’t die so we could experience cool sermons alone. The Christians we remember throughout history were the men and women who did not wait on the sideline when there was work to be done.
There are many places to lead. The opportunities are endless and harvest is plentiful.
Project Manager or Scapegoat?
Big Project Failures Claim Their Victims in Spectacular Fashion
You’ve just been assigned a high visibility failing project and you’re working round-the-clock to get the work to the client on time, despite the fact that the job bears barely any resemblance to the project you initially discussed. The scope keeps creeping, the risk and issue alerts are coming in thick and fast, the project is already two months past the original deadline, the clients are getting antsy even though they’re yet to provide you with various key pieces of information in order to baseline the project. Is this your chance to shine and showcase your skills?
If You Don’t Know Where You’re Going, You Will Probably End up Somewhere Else – Laurence J. Peter
If you manage to turn the project around and the project is successful, you will attract many fathers. However, if the project fails, you will probibly be offered up as the sacrificial lamb (scapegoat), there is absolutely no way around it. A high percentage of projects fail to deliver useful results, that’s a fact.
Project managers are regularly blamed for schedule delays and cost overruns for projects they inherit by no fault of there own, however, in most cases, the fault for such issues rarely lies with just one person.
Sufficient data has been gathered to indicate that blockers such as unsupportive management, senior sponsorship or low resource availability are as much to blame for project failure as ineffective stakeholder management or poor communication.
Capture all decisions
The only way to protect yourself is to ensure that you capture all decisions made in the project. In most cases many of these decisions will have been made by people above you. While you can influence decisions made by people under you. Get into the habit of building a dashboard early in the project and updating it each week with actuals. Also consider using a standard repeatable technique to analyse the health of your project.
Constrained resources
If you are in a project where resources are constrained, clearly outline the resources that you require to deliver the project in terms of time, scope, budget, risk and quality. If resources are pulled from your project, clearly articulate the affect of that in delivery terms and measure that to time delayed or cost added.
Risk and issues register
Operate a strong risk and issue register, ensure it is both visible and assessable so your team can actively participate in updating it.
Stop the project
Always remember, cancelling the project is not always a failure. There can be many reasons why the project may no longer be desirable now. If you have done your job well, you can be really successful by ensuring a project does not continue to meander along, wasting time and money when there is no possibility of completing the project.
Organisational change management
Unfortunately, the same can’t be said when there are organisation change management issues. While there are a few project managers who feel their jurisdiction ends at the triple constraint, most now understand the need to achieve the expected benefits from their projects.
So when is it fair to blame a project manager for poor implementation of a project’s deliverables, this is assuming that they were employed at the beginning of the project?
- If they didn’t perform good stakeholder analysis during the project initiation stage as well as at regular intervals.
- If they turned a blind eye and deaf ear to factors that could impact value achievement
- If they didn’t insist on a clear communication strategy and progressive information sharing with relevant stakeholder groups.
- If they didn’t engage influencers from key stakeholder groups throughout the project lifecycle.
- If the organisation management deliverables were not built into the project’s scope definition and work breakdown structure.
Assuming the project manager was appointed at the start of the project and had undertaken all of the above, what are invalid reasons to blame the project manager if the project failed?
- A lack of timely resource availability or commitment by the organisation
- Directives to the project manager to not engage certain stakeholder communities
- Ignorance by senior sponsors to management risks raised by the project team
- A management decision that is too bitter a pill to swallow in spite of how much it has been sugar coated
Have any comments or stories that could help to expand this article?
Why Do Projects Fail?
Manage Your Project More Effectively Now
There are a few who get project management right from the outset, but for many it’s a minefield. In theory, project management seems easy, but it’s not as straightforward as it seems. If you’re like the majority of people, you follow what seems like a simple project management process. You start by setting your budget, you choose the right people to join the team, and hope the project gets completed without too many hitches along the way.
But, realistically speaking, project management is nothing like this – it’s hardly ever so straightforward. Mistakes are made. You might choose the wrong people to complete the project. Your team might have no idea what’s expected of them or what the project goals are, or in some cases they might even receive conflicting information, which puts the whole project in jeopardy. Sometimes the scope of the project changes, and because of everything else that’s going on, your team is unable to fulfill the requirements and meet the project deadlines.
It happens, and you’ve got to be prepared for any situation while working together towards the common goal – successfully completing the project.
Don’t throw in the towel just yet. It might seem daunting, but there are few surefire tricks of the trade which businesses and project managers can implement to better their chances of successfully completing a project on time and within budget.
1. Know the Project Details Well
Before starting, you need to create a thorough project scope that outlines every single thing. This then needs to be approved by every stakeholder involved.
Your scope needs to have as much detail as possible such as the short-term milestones, deliverable dates, and a budget outline. It makes sense really. The more detail it includes will improve your odds when it comes to completing the project successfully.
What’s more, you’ll also improve your relationship with your client throughout the whole project process from the beginning right through to the end. Of course every project will encounter a few changes along the way – this is the norm, but having a detailed plan will help you manage your client better when something is off course.
Choose your Project Team Members and Size Wisely
2. Choose your Project Team Members and Size Wisely
Naturally, if you want your project to be a winner, you need the right people for the job, which includes having the right project manager on board. Keep your team as small as possible – size does matter; so don’t let anyone else tell you otherwise.
The smaller the team, the better the communication. It also eases the stress and takes the pressure off the project manager. With a smaller team made up of the right people, the project manager will be able to organise their group without losing sight of all the details and work that’s needed doing. So, if you really want to have an effective project, limit your group’s size and only use those people and their skills that can benefit the project.
3. Highlight your Expectations from the Outset
You need to outline what you expect and what the client expects, which includes all the milestones, from the very beginning. Setting more milestones more frequently will allow you to follow the project’s progress more effectively. This way you’ll be able to jump on things quickly when they begin to go off scope, allowing you and your team to remain on target and on time.
Setting frequent milestones in a project will also allow you to review your spending and the investment thus far, which in turn will help you stay within the budget.
Milestones remove any ambiguity. They allow people to stay on target and there’s less risk of derailing the project.
Milestone setting should be a team effort. Everyone should be on board, so there won’t be any excuses later on down the line.
4. Does your Team Know what They’re Doing?
It may sound like a given, but it’s really important to be crystal clear from the beginning regarding people’s roles in the project. In other words, you need to highlight who is responsible for what, and what their deadline or deadlines are.
Things can get complicated with many people working on the same task. Sometimes things get misinterpreted or lost in translation. Avoid anyone being confused by clearly stating who should do what right from start, and make sure you enforce accountability.
You don’t need to worry about manually managing such tasks, as there are plenty of easy-to-use online task management programmes that can do this for you, so embrace technology and ease your pressure.
You may think it’s a waste of time spelling it all out, but this ensures that the full scope of the project is understood, people are clear of their role and individual and collaborative timelines. This is the key to keeping people on task and motivated.
5. Stop Micromanaging
It’s important to constantly touch base with your team members. However, there’s a fine line between supporting them and breathing down their necks. Give them space instead of micromanaging. Empower your team, trust them, and you’ll get their best work.
6. Use a Reliable System to Manage the Project
Communication is key. Most people rely on emailing, but when it comes to managing a big project with a number of different people working on it, this can hinder the project’s progress. Constantly referring back to old emails and previous correspondence is only going to waste precious time. Use software that keeps everything in one place from communication to any project information and updates. This will save you and your team a lot of time and money.
Motivate your Team
7. Motivate your Team
Everyone works better with positive reinforcement. Set milestones and reward when they’re reached. Your milestones will keep all people on track. Celebrate milestones together, but be sure to also recognise those who can’t meet them.
8. Frequent Short Meets to Stay on Track
It’s a project with many people collaborating, so holding regular meetings is a must. This is the only way to ensure that everyone and the project are on track. But you need to keep it short and sweet. Don’t meet for the sake of meeting. Have an agenda and stick to it. If you’re doing your project virtually, it’s even more important to touch base on a regular basis, so keep those communication lines open.
People do tend to go on at times when given the floor, so give everyone a set time to speak and make sure you all stick to it.
9. Allow Time for Change
No project ever runs 100% smoothly and specifications do change along the way. So to avoid the unnecessary stress and running around frantically, do some forward thinking, and set aside a certain amount of time for any changes in the scope – you’ll thank yourself for doing so in the end!
