Unexpected Leadership Quotes

[Referring to Ronald Reagan:] When you meet the President, you ask yourself, "How did it ever occur to anybody that he should be governor much less President?

When God gets ready to shake America, He may not take the Ph.D. and the D.D. God may choose a country boy ... God may choose the man that no one knows, a little nobody, to shake America for Jesus Christ in this day, and I pray that He would!

More leaders have been made by accident, circumstance, sheer grit, or will than have been made by all the leadership courses put together.

I remember when Tony Blair came into office, and there was a sense I was thinking, 'Well, what on Earth am I going to do now?' until I realized that's exactly what he was thinking.

Donald Trump is like a practical joke that got out of hand.

He didn't know why he had become president of the galaxy, except that it seemed a fun thing to be.

Why is this man in the White House? The majority of Americans did not vote for him. Why is he there? And I tell you this morning that he's in the White House because God put him there for a time such as this.

I would say George Mitchell was like Clark Kent sometimes with his horn rimmed glasses and his very quiet manner. People say, well, he's just a quiet leader, but then he emerges as super hero and begins to move this legislation. He led by example.

I am First Lady by accident. I was not elected by the people but here I am.

There's nothing about Lynn Good at age 30 or age 35 that would have said, 'I am setting my sights on being a CEO.'

The thing that would probably surprise most people was that Dr. Martin Luther King was a very reluctant leader. He felt very shocked at times that he had been chosen for this path, but he also understood that he was chosen for this path. He had several moments of acute doubt as to if he was up for the task - when people were injured in the protests he took it very personally, let alone when they were killed.

I find myself in a new and strange position here: President, cabinet, Gen. Scott, and all deferring to me. By some strange operation of magic I seem to have become the power of the land.