James C. Collins
Smart people instinctively understand the dangers of entrusting our future to self-serving leaders who use our institutions, whether in the corporate or social sectors, to advance their own interests.Collection: Smart
Not all time in life is equal. How many opportunities do you get to talk about what your life is going to add up to with people thinking about the same question?Collection: Opportunity
It occurs to me,Jim,that you spend too much time trying to be interesting. Why don't you invest more time being interested?" Collin's advice from John Gardner that he took to heart.Collection: Heart
The drive for progress doesn't wait for the external world to say "It's time to change."Collection: Waiting
No matter what. Wherever your mind wanders, it seems to turn up at the same Field of Dreams. It's the vision you wake up with in the morning, and it's the last thing you picture before you fall asleep. Everytime you think of it, the idea in your head seems to get more vivid, filled in with more detail: You not only want to win a gold medal at the Olympics, you not only can see yourself standing there on the podium, but you can also feel the goose bumps as your national anthem is played; the tears are in your eyes. (That's how real a dream can be and should be)Collection: Success
I don't know where we should take this company, but I do know that if I start with the right people, ask them the right questions, and engage them in vigorous debate, we will find a way to make this company great.Collection: People
The most effective leaders of companies in transition are the quiet, unassuming people whose inner wiring is such that the worst circumstances bring out their best. They're unflappable, they're ready to die if they have to. But you can trust that, when bad things are happening, they will become clearheaded and focused.Collection: People
Be rigorous about your HR decisions. There is a difference between rigorous and ruthless.Collection: Differences
Level 5 leaders are a study in duality: modest and willful, humble and fearless.Collection: Humble
Perhaps your quest to be part of building something great will not fall in your business life. But find it somewhere. If not in corporate life, then perhaps in making your church great. If not there, then perhaps a nonprofit, or a community organization, or a class you teach. Get involved in something that you care so much about that you want to make it the greatest it can possibly be, not because of what you will get, but just because it can be done.Collection: Fall
In a truly great company profits and cash flow become like blood and water to a healthy body: They are absolutely essential for life but they are not the very point of lifeCollection: Business
I've never found an important decision made by a great organization that was made at a point of unanimity. Significant decisions carry risks and inevitably some will oppose it. In these settings, the great legislative leader must be artful in handling uncomfortable decisions, and this requires rigor.Collection: Leadership
People need BHAGs - big hairy audacious goals.Collection: People
Level 5 leaders are fanatically driven, infected with an incurable need to produce sustained results. They are resolved to do whatever it takes to make the company great, no matter how big or hard the decisions.Collection: Leadership
Those who turn good organizations into great organizations are motivated by a deep creative urge and an inner compulsion for sheer unadulterated excellence for its own sake.Collection: Leadership
Those who build and perpetuate mediocrity...are motivated more by the fear of being left behind.Collection: Marketing
For, in the end, it is impossible to have a great life unless it is a meaningful life. And it is very difficult to have a meaningful life without meaningful work.Collection: Meaningful
Genuine confidence is what launches you out of bed in the morning, and through your day with a spring in your step.Collection: Morning
Good is the enemy of great. And that's one of the key reasons why we have so little that becomes great.Collection: Keys
A dream is a feeling that sticks - and propels.Collection: Dream
The kind of commitment I find among the best performers across virtually every field is a single-minded passion for what they do, an unwavering desire for excellence in the way they think and the way they work. Genuine confidence is what launches you out of bed in the morning, and through your day with a spring in your step.Collection: Morning
Those fortunate enough to find or create a practical intersection of the three circles have the basis for a great work life.Collection: Work
Get keep right people.Collection: People
If we allow the celebrity rock-star model of leadership to triumph, we will see the decline of corporations and institutions of all types. The twentieth century was a century of greatness, but we face the very real prospect that the next century will see very few enduring great institutions.Collection: Stars
I am not failing - I am growing! Do you have the ability to reframe failure as growth in order to achieve your goals?Collection: Order
The best CEOs in our research display tremendous ambition for their company combined with the stoic will to do whatever it takes, no matter how brutal (within the bounds of the company's core values), to make the company great. Yet at the same time they display a remarkable humility about themselves, ascribing much of their own success to luck, discipline and preparation rather than personal genius.Collection: Success
Throw leaders into an extreme environment, and it will separate the stark differences between greatness and mediocrity.Collection: Greatness
Some managers are uncomfotable with expressing emotion about their dreams, but it's the passion and emotion that will attract and motivate others.Collection: Dream
To have a Welch-caliber C.E.O. is impressive.To have a century of Welch-Caliber C.E.O.'s all grown from the inside - well, that is one key reason why G.E. is a visionary company.Collection: Keys
Consider the idea that charisma can be as much a liability as an asset. Your strength of personality can sow the seeds of problems, when people filter the brutal facts from you.Collection: Ideas
A visionary company doesn't simply balance between idealism and profitability: it seeks to be highly idealistic and highly profitable.Collection: Balance
It’s what you do before you are in trouble, so that you can be strong when people most need you.Collection: Strong