123 Motivational Quotes for Employees From Managers: Toolkit to Inspire Your Team

Struggling to motivate your team? Look no further! Here, we cover a list of inspirational quotes managers may leverage to boost employee morale, spark creativity, and drive success!

Keeping your employees motivated is a challenge for many leaders; that said, the right messages may make all the difference. In this article, we will go over a collection of motivational quotes specifically chosen for managers to share with their teams. Whether you’re looking for a quick pick-me-up during a team meeting or a thoughtful message to recognize individual achievements, these words provide a powerful way to inspire and empower people for remarkable results!

(by Jonathan M. Pham)

Highlights

• Quotes serve as a powerful tool for motivating employees, condensing complex ideas, and providing external validation from respected figures.
• Leaders should use these sayings strategically, tailoring them to the audience, situation, and platform, while sparking discussion and pairing them with employee recognition.
• The article provides a wide range of inspirational quotes for managers to inspire and empower their employees in various aspects, from achieving targets to fostering teamwork and a growth mindset.

Positive Quotes for Employees

1. Believe you can and you’re halfway there. – Theodore Roosevelt

2. Positive thinking will let you do everything better than negative thinking will. – Zig Ziglar

3. Keep your face to the sunshine and you cannot see a shadow. – Helen Keller

4. Optimism is the faith that leads to achievement. Nothing can be done without hope and confidence. – Helen Keller

5. Positivity always wins…Always. – Gary Vaynerchuk

6. Every day may not be good, but there’s something good in every day. – Alice Morse Earle

7. Turn your wounds into wisdom. – Oprah Winfrey

8. You are never too old to set another goal or to dream a new dream. – C.S. Lewis

9. Stay positive, work hard, and make it happen. – Unknown

Quotes to motivate employees

Encouraging Quotes for Employees From Managers

10. You’ve got this, keep pushing forward. – Unknown

11. Believe in yourself and all that you are. Know that there is something inside you that is greater than any obstacle. – Christian D. Larson

12. Success is not final, failure is not fatal: It is the courage to continue that counts. – Winston Churchill

13. You are capable of more than you know. – Benjamin Hoff

14. Don’t be pushed around by the fears in your mind. Be led by the dreams in your heart. – Roy T. Bennett

15. It does not matter how slowly you go as long as you do not stop. – Confucius

16. Challenges are what make life interesting and overcoming them is what makes life meaningful. – Joshua J. Marine

17. Dreams don’t work unless you do. – John C. Maxwell

Inspirational quotes for employees

Short Motivational Quotes for Employees From Managers

18. Work hard. Dream big. – Unknown

19. Push yourself because no one else is going to do it for you. – Unknown

20. Make each day your masterpiece. – John Wooden

21. The future depends on what you do today. – Mahatma Gandhi

22. You’ve got the passion, the drive, now unleash it. – Unknown

23. Dare to dream big. – Unknown

24. Stay focused and never give up. – Unknown

25. Believe in your abilities. – Unknown

26. Strive for progress, not perfection. – Unknown

27. Keep moving forward. – Unknown

Short inspirational work quotes

Good Employee Quotes

28. Excellence is not an act but a habit. – Aristotle

29. Success is the sum of small efforts, repeated day in and day out. – Robert Collier

30. Quality is not an act, it is a habit. – Aristotle

31. Do not wait for opportunity. Create it. – Unknown

Motivational quotes for employees from managers

Motivational Messages for Employees to Achieve Targets

32. Set your goals high, and don’t stop till you get there. – Bo Jackson

33. Don’t watch the clock; do what it does. Keep going. – Sam Levenson

34. Don’t let yesterday take up too much of today. – Will Rogers

35. The road to success and the road to failure are almost exactly the same. – Colin R. Davis

36. Don’t stop when you’re tired. Stop when you’re done. – Unknown

Motivational quotes for work success

Life Motivational Quotes for Employees From Managers

37. Life is 10% what happens to us and 90% how we react to it. – Charles R. Swindoll

38. The biggest risk is not taking any risk. In a world that is changing quickly, the only strategy that is guaranteed to fail is not taking risks. – Mark Zuckerberg

39. Life is either a daring adventure or nothing at all. – Helen Keller

40. Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one’s courage. – Anaïs Nin

41. Life’s challenges are not supposed to paralyze you, they’re supposed to help you discover who you are. – Bernice Johnson Reagon

42. Life is not about waiting for the storms to pass but learning to dance in the rain. – Vivian Greene

43. Life is short, and it is up to you to make it sweet. – Sarah Louise Delany

44. The purpose of life is not to be happy. It is to be useful, to be honorable, to be compassionate, to have it make some difference that you have lived and lived well. – Ralph Waldo Emerson

Encouraging Words to Staff During Difficult Times

45. Tough times never last, but tough people do. – Robert H. Schuller

46. When everything seems to be going against you, remember that the airplane takes off against the wind, not with it. – Henry Ford

47. Hard times may have held you down, but they will not last forever. When all is said and done, you will be increased. – Joel Osteen

48. You may encounter many defeats, but you must not be defeated. In fact, it may be necessary to encounter the defeats, so you can know who you are, what you can rise from, and how you can still come out of it. – Maya Angelou

49. Challenges are gifts that force us to search for a new center of gravity. Don’t fight them. Just find a new way to stand. – Oprah Winfrey

50. The struggle you’re in today is developing the strength you need for tomorrow. – Unknown

51. Every adversity, every failure, every heartache carries with it the seed of an equal or greater benefit. – Napoleon Hill

52. Don’t be discouraged. It’s often the last key in the bunch that opens the lock. – Unknown

53. Difficult roads often lead to beautiful destinations. – Unknown

Motivational quotes for employees from managers

Motivational Quotes for Employees to Inspire Hard Work

54. Hard work beats talent when talent doesn’t work hard. – Tim Notke

55. The only way to do great work is to love what you do. – Steve Jobs

56. Success is no accident. It is hard work, perseverance, learning, studying, sacrifice, and most of all, love of what you are doing or learning to do. – Pelé

57. There is no substitute for hard work. – Thomas Edison

58. The only limit to our realization of tomorrow is our doubts of today. – Franklin D. Roosevelt

59. Success is walking from failure to failure with no loss of enthusiasm. – Winston Churchill

60. The only place where success comes before work is in the dictionary. – Vidal Sassoon

61. Success usually comes to those who are too busy to be looking for it. – Henry David Thoreau

62. The harder you work for something, the greater you’ll feel when you achieve it. – Unknown

Motivational Quotes for Employees to Unlock Innovation

63. Innovation distinguishes between a leader and a follower. – Steve Jobs

64. Creativity is intelligence having fun. – Albert Einstein

65. The best way to predict the future is to invent it. – Alan Kay

66. Innovation is seeing what everybody has seen and thinking what nobody has thought. – Albert Szent-Györgyi

67. The only way to discover the limits of the possible is to go beyond them into the impossible. – Arthur C. Clarke

68. If you are not willing to risk the usual, you will have to settle for the ordinary. – Jim Rohn

69. Innovation is taking two things that already exist and putting them together in a new way. – Tom Freston

70. The world is changed by your example, not by your opinion. – Paulo Coelho

71. The secret of change is to focus all of your energy, not on fighting the old, but on building the new. – Socrates

Motivational quotes for employees from managers

Inspirational Appreciation Quotes for Employees From Managers

72. The best way to appreciate your job is to imagine yourself without one. – Oscar Wilde

73. Appreciation is a wonderful thing. It makes what is excellent in others belong to us as well. – Voltaire

74. Feeling gratitude and not expressing it is like wrapping a present and not giving it. – William Arthur Ward

75. Appreciation can make a day, even change a life. Your willingness to put it into words is all that is necessary. – Margaret Cousins

76. People work for money but go the extra mile for recognition, praise, and rewards. – Dale Carnegie

77. Appreciation is the highest form of prayer, for it acknowledges the presence of good wherever you shine the light of your thankful thoughts. – Alan Cohen

78. The roots of all goodness lie in the soil of appreciation for goodness. – Dalai Lama

79. It’s not the load that breaks you down, it’s the way you carry it. – Lou Holtz

80. Appreciate everything your associates do for the business. Nothing else can quite substitute for a few well-chosen, well-timed, sincere words of praise. – Sam Walton

81. Gratitude is the fairest blossom which springs from the soul. – Henry Ward Beecher

Quotes for employees’ appreciation

Quotes to Empower Employees’ Ownership & Inspire Confidence

82. The speed of the boss is the speed of the team. – Lee Iacocca

83. You don’t lead by pointing and telling people some place to go. You lead by going to that place and making a case. – Ken Kesey

84. Accountability separates the wishers from the action-takers that care enough about their future to account for their daily actions. – John Di Lemme

85. Empowerment is the key to a fulfilling life. The greatest empowerment is the realization of one’s own power. – Lailah Gifty Akita

86. Accountability breeds responsibility. – Stephen R. Covey

87. If you could get all the people in an organization rowing in the same direction, you could dominate any industry, in any market, against any competition, at any time. – Patrick Lencioni

88. Ownership is not a matter of holding things but a matter of holding on to things. – Unknown

89. When people are financially invested, they want a return. When people are emotionally invested, they want to contribute. – Simon Sinek

90. Responsibility equals accountability equals ownership. And a sense of ownership is the most powerful weapon a team or organization can have. – Pat Summitt

91. When you take ownership of your own actions, you hold the key to your future. – Allan Lokos

Read more: Inspirational Leadership – Key Principles & Practices

Quotes to Nurture Employees’ Mindset & Attitude

92. Your attitude, not your aptitude, will determine your altitude. – Zig Ziglar

93. The only disability in life is a bad attitude. – Scott Hamilton

94. It”s not what happens to you, but how you react to it that matters. – Epictetus

95. The greatest discovery of all time is that a person can change his future by merely changing his attitude. – Oprah Winfrey

96. Ability is what you’re capable of doing. Motivation determines what you do. Attitude determines how well you do it. – Lou Holtz

97. Attitude is a little thing that makes a big difference. – Winston Churchill

98. A positive attitude gives you power over your circumstances instead of your circumstances having power over you. – Joyce Meyer

99. Excellence is not a skill, it’s an attitude. – Ralph Marston

100. Success is not the key to happiness. Happiness is the key to success. If you love what you are doing, you will be successful. – Albert Schweitzer

Motivational quotes for employees from managers

Inspirational Quotes about Continuous Learning for Employees

101. Live as if you were to die tomorrow. Learn as if you were to live forever. – Mahatma Gandhi

102. The capacity to learn is a gift; the ability to learn is a skill; the willingness to learn is a choice. – Brian Herbert

103. The beautiful thing about learning is that no one can take it away from you. – B.B. King

104. The only thing that interferes with my learning is my education. – Albert Einstein

105. Learning is not attained by chance, it must be sought for with ardor and diligence. – Abigail Adams

106. Develop a passion for learning. If you do, you will never cease to grow. – Anthony J. D’Angelo

107. The more that you read, the more things you will know. The more that you learn, the more places you”ll go. – Dr. Seuss

108. The only true wisdom is in knowing you know nothing. – Socrates

109. Learning never exhausts the mind. – Leonardo da Vinci

Motivational Quotes for Employees’ Teamwork

110. Alone we can do so little; together we can do so much. – Helen Keller

111. Teamwork makes the dream work. – John C. Maxwell

112. Coming together is a beginning; keeping together is progress; working together is success. – Henry Ford

113. The strength of the team is each individual member. The strength of each member is the team. – Phil Jackson

114. Unity is strength… when there is teamwork and collaboration, wonderful things can be achieved. – Mattie Stepanek

115. None of us is as smart as all of us. – Ken Blanchard

116. Individually, we are one drop. Together, we are an ocean. – Ryunosuke Satoro

117. It takes two flints to make a fire. – Louisa May Alcott

118. Great things in business are never done by one person; they’re done by a team of people. – Steve Jobs

119. The best teamwork comes from men who are working independently toward one goal in unison. – James Cash Penney

Coaching Quotes for Employees from Managers

120. Feedback is the breakfast of champions. – Ken Blanchard

121. The greatest good you can do for another is not just share your riches, but reveal to them their own. – Benjamin Disraeli

122. It’s not about the number of hours you put in, but rather what you put into those hours. – Simon Sinek

123. You get the best out of others when you give the best of yourself. – Harvey S. Firestone

Read more: 60 Coaching Quotes – Words of Wisdom on the Path to Greatness

Motivational quotes for employees from managers

FAQs

Why should I use quotes to motivate my employees?

There are a couple of reasons why famous sayings make a powerful tool for managers to motivate their employees:

• Inspiration and positivity: Well-chosen quotes provide a quick burst of inspiration or a reminder of a positive mindset. They enable employees to re-focus on their goals and spark a can-do attitude, especially during challenging times.
• Simple and universal truths: Quotes often distill complex ideas or experiences into a short, easy-to-understand message – which may resonate with employees on a personal level and give them a sense of shared purpose.
• External validation: Hearing words of wisdom from respected figures can add a lot of weight to one’s motivational message.

How should I use motivational quotes for employees?

• Tailor the quote: Don’t just throw out random sayings. Pick those that connect to the current situation, project at hand, or common challenges your employees face. This personalizes the message and makes it more impactful.
• Target audience: A quote about teamwork might resonate more in a collaborative environment, while a quote about perseverance might be better suited for individual goal setting.
• Variety is key: Don’t bombard your team with the same quote every day. Instead, rotate through a selection or find new ones to keep things fresh and engaging.
• Platform matters: Think about the best way to deliver the quote. You can include it in a company newsletter, display it on a bulletin board, or even write it on a whiteboard in a common area.
• Spark discussion: Don’t just present the quote – use it as a springboard for conversation. Ask employees how it relates to their work or what it means to them.
• Pair it with recognition: Quotes are a nice sentiment – but don’t forget to acknowledge and celebrate your employees’ achievements. This reinforces the positive message and shows your appreciation.

Beyond Motivational Quotes: Empower Yourself & The Team with ITD World’s Training Solutions

While motivational quotes provide a powerful tool, true empowerment comes from building a foundation of knowledge and skill. At ITD World, we believe in taking inspiration a step further – we offer a comprehensive suite of training solutions designed to equip both managers and employees with the tools they need to thrive.

Our programs cover a wide range of topics, from leadership development and communication skills to industry-specific expertise, and are delivered through a variety of formats – including in-person workshops, interactive online courses, and personalized executive coaching sessions.

By investing in training, you’re not just giving your team a motivational boost – you’re equipping them with the resources they need to overcome challenges, achieve their goals, and contribute to the overall success of your organization.

Ready to unlock the true potential of your team? Contact ITD World today to discuss your specific needs and explore how our training solutions can help you build a more skilled, motivated, and empowered workforce!

Other resources you might be interested in:

• 80 Employee Engagement Quotes: Building a Thriving Workplace
• 110 Leadership Quotes: Daily Doses of Inspiration to Unlock Greatness
• 175 Powerful Coaching Questions for Everyone
• 42 Training Quotes: Words that Motivate Learning & Growth