89 Team Building Quotes to Inspire Your Workgroup

Your employees are key to the success of your business and if you’re looking for ways to inspire them, we’ve got some team building quotes that just might do the trick. 

It’s no secret that inspired, engaged, and motivated employees deliver higher levels of output and better results which, in turn, drives success for organizations. And if you’re looking for a way to get your employees fired up, we’ve compiled leadership and team building quotes to promote collaboration and hard work.  

89 Leadership and Team Building Quotes to Motivate Your Employees 

If you’re looking for the right words to say to inspire your team, don’t worry. Somebody has probably already said it better, so just borrow from them. 

Here are some ideas you can use. 

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56 Team Building Quotes to Encourage Collaboration 

Teamwork is critical to success. So, if you’re looking for a battle cry to get your team in the spirit of working collaboratively, you might want to use one of these. 

1. “Individual commitment to a group effort – that is what makes a team work, a company work, a society work, a civilization work.” –Vince Lombardi, NFL coach 

2. “Talent wins games, but teamwork and intelligence win championships.” –Michael Jordan, NBA legend 

3. “Individually, we are one drop. Together, we are an ocean.” – Ryunosuke Satoro, writer 

4. “Teamwork is the ability to work together toward a common vision. The ability to direct individual accomplishments toward organizational objectives. It is the fuel that allows common people to attain uncommon results.” –Andrew Carnegie, industrialist and philanthropist  

5. “Find a group of people who challenge and inspire you, spend a lot of time with them, and it will change your life forever.” ― Amy Poehler, actor 

6. “If you take out the team in teamwork, it’s just work. Now who wants that?” ― Matthew Woodring Stover, novelist  

7. “Alone we can do so little, together we can do so much.” –Helen Keller, author 

8. “Remember, teamwork begins by building trust. And the only way to do that is to overcome our need for invulnerability.” –Patrick Lencioni, business author 

9. “I invite everyone to choose forgiveness rather than division, teamwork over personal ambition.” –Jean-Francois Cope, French politician  

10. “It is amazing what you can accomplish if you do not care who gets the credit.”— Harry S. Truman, former U.S. President  

11. “Teams share the burden and divide the grief.” – Doug Smith, NHL player 

12. “Teamwork. A few harmless flakes working together can unleash an avalanche of destruction.” – Justin Sewell, author 

13. “A successful team is a group of many hands and one mind.” – Bill Bethel, minister and evangelist 

14. “None of us is as smart as all of us.” – Ken Blanchard, author  

15. “Coming together is a beginning. Keeping together is progress. Working together is success.” – Henry Ford, Ford Motors   

16. “The strength of the team is each individual member. The strength of each member is the team.” – Phil Jackson, NBA coach 

17. “Great things in business are never done by one person. They’re done by a team of people.” – Steve Jobs, Apple  

18. “Collaboration allows teachers to capture each other’s fund of collective intelligence.” –Mike Schmoker, business author  

19. “If everyone is moving forward together, then success takes care of itself.” – Henry Ford, Ford Motors   

20. “It takes two flints to make a fire.” – Louisa May Alcott, novelist  

21. “Unity is strength. . . when there is teamwork and collaboration, wonderful things can be achieved.” – Mattie Stepanek, poet  

22. “To me, teamwork is the beauty of our sport, where you have five acting as one. You become selfless.” – Mike Krzyzewski, NBA coach  

23. “In union there is strength.” – Aesop, ancient Greek storyteller  

24. “The best teamwork comes from men who are working independently toward one goal in unison.” – James Cash Penney, J.C. Penney 

25. “Efficiency is doing better that what is already being done.” – Peter Drucker, author and management consultant  

26. “Bad attitudes will ruin your team.” – Terry Bradshaw, NFL player  

27. “It is literally true that you can succeed best and quickest by helping others to succeed.” – Napolean Hill, business author  

28. “None of us, including me, ever do great things. But we can all do small things, with great love, and together we can do something wonderful.” – Mother Teresa, saint 

29. “With an enthusiastic team you can achieve almost anything.” – Tahir Shah, British author, journalist, and documentary-maker  

30. “If you want to lift yourself up, lift up someone else.” – Booker T. Washington, American educator, author, and presidential advisor  

31. “Many ideas grow better when transplanted into another mind than the one where they sprang up.” – Oliver Wendell Holmes, Former Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States 

32. “No one can whistle a symphony. It takes a whole orchestra to play it.” – H.E. Luccock, American Methodist minister and professor   

33. “It is the long history of humankind (and animal kind, too) that those who learned to collaborate and improvise most effectively have prevailed.” – Charles Darwin, naturalist, geologist, and biologist  

34. “Effectively, change is almost impossible without industry-wide collaboration, cooperation, and consensus.” – Simon Mainwaring, futurist, keynote speaker, and author   

35. “A group is a bunch of people in an elevator. A team is a bunch of people in an elevator, but the elevator is broken!” – Bonnie Edelstein, actor   

36. “The way a team plays as a whole determines its success. You may have the greatest bunch of individual stars in the world, but if they don’t play together, the club won’t be worth a dime.” – Babe Ruth, MLB player  

37. “Teamwork makes the dream work.” – John C. Maxwell, American author  

38. “If you can laugh together, you can work together.” – Robert Orben, American writer  

39. “A group becomes a team when each member is sure enough of himself and his contribution to praise the skills of others.” – Norman Shidle, author  

40. “Together, ordinary people can achieve extraordinary results.” – Becka Schoettle  

41. “A boat doesn’t go forward if each one is rowing their own way.” – Swahili Proverb 

42. “Great teams do not hold back with one another. They are unafraid to air their dirty laundry. They admit their mistakes, their weaknesses, and their concerns without fear of reprisal.” – Patrick Lencioni, business author 

43. “You don’t get harmony when everyone sings the same note.” – Doug Floyd 

44. “If a team is to reach its potential, each player must be willing to subordinate his personal goals to the good of the team.” – Bud Wilkinson, NFL player, coach, broadcaster, and politician  

45. “Cooperation is the thorough conviction that nobody can get there unless everybody gets there.” – Virginia Burden, author 

46. “In teamwork, silence isn’t golden, it’s deadly.” – Mark Sanborn, author  

47. “Teamwork is so important that it is virtually impossible for you to reach the heights of your capabilities or make the money that you want without becoming very good at it.” – Brian Tracy, motivational speaker 

48. “The real challenge is for each of us to determine where we feel we can make the most impact.” – Jay Samit, author  

49. “What separates the good players from a great player is that a great player is willing to give up their own personal achievement for the achievement of the group.” – Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, NBA player  

50. “Trust is knowing that when a team member does push you, they’re doing it because they care about the team.” – Patrick Lencioni, business author 

51. “The nicest thing about teamwork is that you always have others on your side.” – Margaret Carty, author  

52. “Interdependent people combine their own effort with the efforts of others to achieve their greatest success.” – Stephen Covey, American educator  

53. “A small group of thoughtful people could change the world. Indeed, it’s the only thing that ever has.” – Margaret Mead, American cultural anthropologist  

54. “The main ingredient of stardom is the rest of the team.” — John Wooden, basketball player and coach 

55. “If you want to build a ship, don’t drum up people together to collect wood and don’t assign them tasks and work, but rather teach them to long for the endless immensity of the sea.” – Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, French writer  

56. “The ratio of ‘We’s’ to ‘I’s’ is the best indicator of the development of a team.” – Lewis B. Ergen, actor  

9 Team Building Quotes to Inspire Hard Work 

When it comes to achieving outstanding results, there’s no substitute for hard work. If you or your colleagues need some inspiration to work extra hard, you’ll love these quotes.  

1. “The value of achievement lies in the achieving.” – Albert Einstein, theoretical physicist  

2. “You don’t need a new plan for next year. You need a commitment.” – Seth Godin, author 

3. “No matter how great the talent or efforts, some things just take time. You can’t produce a baby in one month by getting nine women pregnant.” – Warren Buffett, billionaire and CEO of Berkshire Hathaway  

4. “Focus on being productive instead of busy.” – Tim Ferriss, American entrepreneur  

5. “The only place where success comes before work is in the dictionary.” – Vidal Sassoon, famed hairstylist  

6. “Do or do not. There is no try.” – Yoda, Jedi Master 

7. “Work hard, have fun, make history.” – Jeff Bezos, Amazon  

8. “Great companies are built in the office, with hard work put in by a team.” – Emily Chang, American journalist  

9. “If you love your work, you’ll be out there every day trying to do it the best you possibly can, and pretty soon everybody around will catch the passion from you – like a fever. ” – Sam Walton, Walmart  

24 Team Building Quotes for Leaders 

Even the greatest leaders sometimes need a reminder of the power of teamwork. And these quotes will certainly do the trick.  

1. “A leader must inspire, or his team will expire.” – Orrin Woodward

2. “Good management consists in showing average people how to do the work of superior people.” – John Rockefeller, American business magnate and philanthropist  

3. “I suppose leadership at one time meant muscles; but today it means getting along with people.” – Mahatma Gandhi, social activist  

4. “Good teams incorporate teamwork into their culture, creating the building blocks for success.” – Ted Sundquist, NFL player  

5. “A leader takes people where they want to go. A great leader takes people where they don’t necessarily want to go, but ought to be.” – Rosalynn Carter, former First Lady of the United States  

6. “I’ve always found that the speed of the boss is the speed of the team.” – Lee Iacocca, executive at Ford  

7. “In the end, a great leader is only known by the impact he or she has on others.” – Jim Stovall, American writer  

8. “Strategy is not a solo sport, even if you’re the CEO.” – Max McKeown, English writer, consultant, and researcher specializing in innovation strategy, leadership, and culture 

9. “There is no such thing as a self-made man. You will reach your goals only with the help of others.” – George Shinn, former pro sports team owner  
   
10. “Learning, without any opportunities to share what we’ve learned, is a little like cooking for ourselves; we do it, but we probably won’t do it as well.” – Mike Schmoker, business author  

11. “Each group and each youngster is different. As a leader or coach, you get to know what they need.” – Mike Krzyzewski, NBA coach  

12. The way to achieve your own success is to be willing to help somebody else get it first.” ― Iyanla Vanzant, inspirational speaker  

13. “If you pick the right people and give them the opportunity to spread their wings—and put compensation as a carrier behind it—you almost don’t have to manage them.” – Jack Welch, former CEO of General Electric  

14. “I’m not the smartest fellow in the world, but I sure can pick smart colleagues.” – Franklin D Roosevelt, former President of the United States  

15. “No matter how brilliant your mind or strategy, if you’re playing a solo game, you’ll always lose out to a team.” – Reid Hoffman, Co-Founder and Chairman of LinkedIn  

16. “Hire people who are better than you are, then leave them to get on with it. Look for people who will aim for the remarkable, who will not settle for the routine.” – David Ogilvy, advertising mogul  

17. “Building a mission and building a business go hand in hand.” – Mark Zuckerberg, Founder of Facebook  

18. “If your actions inspire others to dream more, learn more, do more and become more, you are a leader.” – John Quincy Adams, former President of the United States  

19. “Give us the tools and we’ll finish the job.” – Winston Churchill, former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom 

20. “If anything goes bad, I did it. If anything goes semi-good, we did it. If anything goes really good, then you did it.” – Bear Bryant, American football player  

21. “When he took time to help the man up the mountain, lo, he scaled it himself.” – Tibetan Proverb 

22. “When your team is winning, be ready to be tough, because winning can make you soft. On the other hand, when you team is losing, stick by them. Keep believing.” – Bo Schembechler, American football player and coach  

23. “Gettin’ good players is easy. Gettin’ ’em to play together is the hard part.” – Casey Stengel, former MLB player  

24. “If your teacher, coach, or mentor believes you can do something, you’re more likely to do it.” – Gwen Moran, FastCompany 

Do you have any favorite quotes that we might have missed? If so, drop us a comment in the comments section below and we’ll update this article to include it! 

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Learn About Team Building Activities That Can Benefit Your Employees   

For more information about how your team can benefit from team building activities, reach out to our Employee Engagement Consultants.   

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