My bosses cautioned me about my candor. Now my GE career is over, and I'm telling you that it was my candor that helped make it work.
Interpretation
Candor, or honesty, is crucial in leadership, even if it can come with risks.
In this quote, Jack Welch reflects on the importance of being candid in a leadership role. Although he faced cautions from his superiors about his open and honest communication style, he ultimately believes that this very candor was pivotal to his career's success, suggesting that transparency can foster trust and effectiveness in leadership.
In practice
During a team meeting to discuss project progress, I shared my candid thoughts using Jack Welch's quote to emphasize the value of honesty.
You've got to eat while you dream. You've got to deliver on short-range commitments, while you develop a long-range strategy and vision and implement it. The success of doing both. Walking and chewing gum if you will. Getting it done in the short-range, and delivering a long-range plan, and executing on that.
I wanted to change the rules of engagement, asking for more- from fewer. I was insisting that we had to have only the best people...If you wanted excellence, at a minimum, the ambience had to reflect excellence.
A leader's role is not to control people or stay on top of things, but rather to guide, energize and excite.
Control your own destiny or someone else will.
The idea flow from the human spirit is absolutely unlimited. All you have to do is tap into that well. I don't like to use the word efficiency. It's creativity. It's a belief that every person counts.
An overburdened, overstretched executive is the best executive, because he or she doesn't have the time to meddle, to deal in trivia, to bother people.
Leadership can't be fabricated. If it is fabricated and rehearsed, you can't fool the guys in the locker room. So when you talk about leadership, it comes with performance. Leadership comes with consistency.
Great empires are not maintained by timidity.
I don't want people saying, 'Should we get a female director?' I want to hear, 'Should we get a great director for this movie?'
One who is mild rather than forceful has greater capacity for outreach.
If the head man in a company is not working 12 hours a day, doing things, taking risks, but also standing with his people in the trenches at the most difficult of times, then the company loses something.
I've got the greatest job in the world. There's no other job in government where cause and effect is so tightly coupled where you can make a difference every day in so many different ways and in so many different people's lives. It's a great challenge.
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