Quotes About Leadership

A small business with a handful of employees might be able to handle two or three concurrent small bets, while a large company with thousands of employees should probably be considering hundreds of potential small bets and implementing scores of them.

Great companies [inevitably] develop a rowboat mentality," says Sir Howard Stringer, chairman and CEO of Sony. They are "always looking behind to past successes" with awe and admiration as they row into the future.

Hackett found that leaders at "above average" companies are surprisingly different in this critical measure. They identify an average of just twenty-one priorities instead of 372. Editing the list isn't easy, but the payoff is huge. Time and money get tightly focused on the crucial activities that drive the firm's competitive advantage, and everyone has a clearer idea what to do and no problem deciding who's accountable.

The ability of an organization to embrace radical change and reinvention is determined by the ego of the person in charge; substantive change is never initiated from the mid level or bottom ranks of an organization.

A.T. Kearney research shows that the best performing companies had five hundred fewer managers per billion dollars in sales than poorer performing organizations.

When a leader fails to provide the proper culture, one will still exist; it can best be described as one of every man for himself, each acting in his own best interests and to heck with the interests of the company.

We have a history of wanting our leaders to be taller than average. That's probably because in ancient times everyone thought that tall leaders could see farther.

We have a history of wanting our leaders to be taller than average. That's probably because in ancient times everyone thought that tall leaders could see farther. We still want leaders to see far enough to tell us which way to go. But many CEOs fail.

thousand CEOs, business owners, and highly successful entrepreneurs about their businesses and how they lead companies through good times and bad. One of the most important questions I ask them is "What's the biggest worry keeping you awake at night?

successful entrepreneurs about their businesses and how they lead companies through good times and bad. One of the most important questions I ask them is "What's the biggest worry keeping you awake at night?

It was an unexpected conclusion that rocked the Harvard research team. "Well-led teams have higher error rates than average or poorly led teams," the researchers concluded. Harvard was studying acute-care hospitals and other settings, including executive boardrooms. The results were consistent: Teams led by the best leaders made significantly more mistakes.

awake at night?" The response is practically unanimous: Leaders worry about creating a sense of urgency in their organizations and operating quickly in an increasingly complex world. They want to create strong teams that are primed to handle any hurdle that comes their way and

Poorly led teams "systematically underreported" their mistakes. In layman's terms, they covered up their mistakes.

There are two ways to run a big company: by rules or by values,

In the early days of IBM, when a newly promoted executive lost a lot of money on a bet that went wrong, founder Thomas Watson let everyone know he wasn't going to be fired. "Why would I fire him?" he asked. "We just spent thirty thousand dollars educating him.

Decisions about who goes and who stays, who leads and who follows will determine any enterprise's ability to embrace constant change, growth, and reinvention.

The right people are those who take the initiative to get things done, who make things happen and whom you come to count on for ideas for constant change and improvement.

When confronted with problems, most companies try to make small changes or Band-Aid fixes and hope things get better or that the problem goes away. This approach doesn't work and ensures that they'll waste vast amounts of time and energy.

The most natural action of a senior official is to breed junior officials.

CEOs and senior leaders who are thinking about leaving a company have effectively already left, and the biggest favor they can do the organization is to get out of the way and allow the business to change and grow.

The refrain we constantly heard from the entrepreneurs and leaders during our research was to never bet the ranch but to make lots of small bets, learn from them, and then scale.

The main job of the leader is to be a destination expert, to let everybody know where the company is going and make certain that everyone understands and is willing to embrace constant change in order to get there.

He saw his judgments as "something you polish." You look for confirming evidence and get tunnel vision. Judgments close your mind in dynamic situations, and you miss important but subtle bits of information that are critical to success. In many instances Gleason believed that if the leader made sense he could let go and have the crews make their own decisions.

grow double digits each year for decades. To scale any business you must first create a reliable system for all functions—manufacturing, sales, promotion, talent acquisition, innovation, even leadership from the CEO.