To be an excellent leader, you have to be a superb follower.
Herb KelleherRead
You don't hire for skills, you hire for attitude. You can always teach skills.
Interpretation
Attitude is more important than skills when hiring new employees.
Herb Kelleher emphasizes the importance of attitude over skills in the hiring process. While skills can be taught and developed over time, a positive attitude and the right mindset are essential for fostering a productive and cohesive team culture.
In practice
In a job interview, refer to this quote to highlight the importance of a candidate's mindset.
To be an excellent leader, you have to be a superb follower.
You [the employees] are involved in a crusade.
If you're crazy enough to do what you love for a living, then you're bound to create a life that matters.
We will hire someone with less experience, less education, and less expertise, than someone who has more of those things and has a rotten attitude. Because we can train people. We can teach people how to lead. We can teach people how to provide customer service. But we can't change their DNA.
The business of business is people.
If the employees come first, then they're happy. A motivated employee treats the customer well. The customer is happy so they keep coming back, which pleases the shareholders. It's not one of the enduring green mysteries of all time, it is just the way it works.
A leader is one who knows the way, goes the way, and shows the way.
Doing the easy thing makes you popular. Doing the hard thing makes you a leader.
To have the opportunity to lead the Solicitor General's office is the honor of a lifetime. As you know, this is an office with a long and rich tradition, not only of extraordinary legal skill but also of extraordinary professionalism and integrity. That is due, in large measure, to the people who have led it.
There must be, not a balance of power, but a community of power; not organized rivalries, but an organized peace.
The day I am afraid to do, that is the day I am no longer fit to lead.
I know that any group of people can become a team if they do the right things, but I came to realize over time that if you acquire or develop the right kind of people, that process of building a team is going to be much more effective and easier.
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