Swami Vivekananda Quotes on Leadership

“He who is the servant of all is their true master. He never becomes a leader in whose love there is a consideration of high or low. He whose love knows no end, and never stops to consider high or low, has the whole world lying at his feet.”

“Nobody will come to help you if you put yourself forward as a leader. . . . Kill self first if you want to succeed.”

“Do not be afraid of a small beginning, great things come afterwards. Be courageous. Do not try to lead your brethren, but serve them. The brutal mania for leading has sunk many a great ship in the waters of life. Take care especially of that, i.e. be unselfish even unto death, and work.”

“You will have to take charge of the whole movement, not as a leader, but as a servant. Do you know, the least show of leading destroys everything by rousing jealousy?”

“Unless the commanding officer goes ahead and faces death, the rank and file will never fight with heart. It is the same in every branch. “A captain must sacrifice his head,” they say. If you can lay down your life for a cause, then only you can be a leader. But we all want to be leaders without making the necessary sacrifice. And the result is zero—nobody listens to us!”

“Everybody wants to become a leader, and there is nobody to obey. Everyone should learn to obey before he can command.”

“He who knows how to obey knows how to command. Learn obedience first. Among these Western nations, with such a high spirit of independence, the spirit of obedience is equally strong. We are all of us self-important—which never produces any work.”

“Some people do the best work when led. Not every one is born to lead. The best leader, however, is one who “leads like the baby.” The baby, though apparently depending on everyone, is the king of the household. At least, to my thinking, that is the secret.”

“Many feel, but only a few can express. It is the power of expressing one’s love and appreciation and sympathy for others, that enables one person to succeed better in spreading the idea than others.”

“It is hard work to be a leader—one must crush all one’s own self under the feet of the community.”

“Everybody wants to be a leader, but it is the failure to grasp that he is born, that causes all this mischief.”

“Can a leader be made my brother? A leader is born. Do you understand? And it is a very difficult task to take on the role of a leader. One must be a servant of servants, and must accommodate a thousand minds. There must not be a shade of jealousy or selfishness, then you are a leader. First, by birth, and secondly, unselfish — that’s a leader.”

“I am persuaded that a leader is not made in one life. He has to be born for it. For the difficulty is not in organisation and making plans; the test, the real test, of a leader, lies in holding widely different people together along the line of their common sympathies. And this can only be done unconsciously, never by trying.”

“The great difficulty is this: I see persons giving me almost the whole of their love. But I must not give anyone the whole of mine in return, for that day the work would be ruined. Yet there are some who will look for such a return, not having the breadth of the impersonal view. It is absolutely necessary to the work that I should have the enthusiastic love of as many as possible, while I myself remain entirely impersonal. Otherwise jealousy and quarrels would break up everything. A leader must be impersonal.”

“The majority of sects will be transient, and last only as bubbles because the leaders are not usually men of character. Perfect love, the heart never reacting, this is what builds character. There is no allegiance possible where there is no character in the leader, and perfect purity ensures the most lasting allegiance and confidence.”

“Men who have brains to think for themselves are few, everywhere. These few men with brains are the real leaders in everything and in every department of work; the majority are guided by them as with a string, and that is good, for everything goes all right when they follow in the footsteps of these leaders. Those are only fools who think themselves too high to bend their heads to anyone, and they bring on their own ruin by acting on their own judgment.”

“How often does a man ruin his disciples by remaining always with them! When men are once trained, it is essential that their leader leaves them; for without his absence they cannot develop themselves!”

“In Western countries there is no botheration of caste. Those on whom Fortune smiles for their industry and exertion are alone regarded as leaders of the country and the controllers of its destiny.”

“The conviction has grown in my mind after all my travels in various lands that no great cause can succeed without an organisation.”

“The secret of success of the Westerners is the power of organisation and combination. That is only possible with mutual trust and co-operation and help.”

“Why is it that organizations are so powerful? Do not say organization is material. Why is it, to take a case in point, that forty millions of Englishmen rule three hundred millions of people here? What is the psychological explanation? These forty millions put their wills together and that means infinite power, and you three hundred millions have a will each separate from the other. Therefore to make a great future India, the whole secret lies in organization, accumulation of power, co-ordination of wills.”

“We want organisation. Organisation is power, and the secret of this is obedience.”

“The term organisation means division of labour. Each does his own part, and all the parts taken together express an ideal of harmony.”

“Go to work, my boys, the fire will come to you! The faculty of organisation is entirely absent in our nature, but this has to be infused. The great secret is—absence of jealousy. Be always ready to concede to the opinions of your brethren, and try always to conciliate. That is the whole secret.”

“Organise and found societies and go to work, that is the only way.”

“Bring all the forces of good together. Do not care under what banner you march. Do not care what be your colour—green, blue, or red—but mix up all the colours and produce that intense glow of white, the colour of love.”

“International organisations, international combinations, international laws are the cry of the day.”

“Above all “obedience” and “esprit de corps.” The work cannot succeed unless there is perfect obedience to the authority of the Order and sacrifice of individual views for the sake of the Order. "Trinair gunatvam âpannair badhyante mattadantinah" — “Blades of grass woven into a rope can restrain even mad elephants”.”

“Those that want to help mankind must take their own pleasure and pain, name and fame, and all sorts of interests, and make a bundle of them and throw them into the sea, and then come to the Lord. This is what all the Masters said and did.”

“It is by leading others to Bhakti and Mukti that one attains them oneself. Take that up, forget your own self for it, be mad over the idea.”