Jack Welch Quotes

I might not be the brightest bulb in the chandelier, but I'm pretty good at getting most of the other bulbs to light up.

Be candid with everyone.

Before you are a leader, success is all about growing yourself. When you become a leader, success is all about growing others.

Change before you have to.

If you don't have a competitive advantage, don't compete.

Good business leaders create a vision, articulate the vision, passionately own the vision, and relentlessly drive it to completion.

On the face of it, shareholder value is the dumbest idea in the world.

Shareholder value is a result, not a strategy . . . Your main constituencies are your employees, your customers and your products.

If the rate of change on the outside exceeds the rate of change on the inside, the end is near.

Willingness to change is a strength, even if it means plunging part of the company into total confusion for a while.

An organization's ability to learn, and translate that learning into action rapidly, is the ultimate competitive advantage.

A leader's job is to look into the future and see the organization, not as it is, but as it should be

Companies don't give job security. Only satisfied customers do.

Great leaders love to see people grow. The day you are afraid of them being better than you is the day you fail as a leader.

Globalization has changed us into a company that searches the world, not just to sell or to source, but to find intellectual capital - the world's best talents and greatest ideas.

The 3Ss of Winning in business are speed, simplicity, and self-confidence.

Business is a game, and as with all games, the team that puts the best people on the field and gets them playing together wins. It's that simple.

The essence of competitiveness is liberated when we make people believe that what they think and do is important - and then get out of their way while they do it.

Keep learning; don't be arrogant by assuming that you know it all, that you have a monopoly on the truth; always assume that you can learn something from someone else.

Control your own destiny or someone else will.

The most important job you have is growing your people, giving them a chance to reach their dreams.

Face reality as it is, not as it was or as you wish it to be.

The secret of success is changing the way you think.

If work is just going in every day and getting a check, it's an ugly life. When you can make work a meaningful purpose, you've hit the jackpot for people.

No company, small or large, can win over the long run without energized employees who believe in the mission and understand how to achieve it.

There's no such thing as work-life balance. There are work-life choices, and you make them, and they have consequences.

Strategy is not a lengthy action plan. It is the evolution of a central idea through continually changing circumstances.

You got to be rigorous in your appraisal system. The biggest cowards are managers who don't let people know where they stand.

In real life, strategy is actually very straightforward. You pick a general direction and implement like hell.

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.

The world belongs to passionate driven people.

Number one, cash is king... number two, communicate... number three, buy or bury the competition.

It's the internet like the flu - it just spreads like crazy.

Protecting underperformers always backfires.

A leader's role is not to control people or stay on top of things, but rather to guide, energize and excite.

The team with the best players usually does win - this is why you need to invest the majority of your time and energy in developing your people.

Never miss out on an opportunity like a good recession.

Excellence and competitiveness aren't incompatible with honesty and integrity.

Take time to get to know people. Understand where they are coming from, what is important to them. Make sure they are with you.

When you were made a leader you weren't given a crown, you were given the responsibility to bring out the best in others.

I've learned that mistakes can often be as good a teacher as success.

Any company trying to compete...must figure out a way to engage the mind of every employee.

Someone, somewhere has a better idea.

Cash is king. Get every drop of cash you can get and hold onto it.

The team with the best players wins.

Every employee, not just the senior people, should know how a company is doing.

The most important quality of leadership is intellectual honesty. The reality principle - the ability to see the world as it really is, not as you wish it were.

Don't lose youself on the way to the top.

Lack of candor blocks smart ideas, fast action, and good people contributing all the stuff they've got. It's a killer.

As a leader, your job is to energize people around the mission and vision you've articulated.