“The best leaders we’ve studied had a peculiar genius for seeing themselves as not all that important.”
That quote and the following are the 2nd part of series on great leadership quotes from Jim Collins’ book How The Mighty Fall. To read Part 1, click here:
- “Wal-Mart  does not exist for the aggrandizement of its leaders; it exists for its customers.”
- “(Sam) Walton engineered a smooth transition of power to a homegrown insider who deeply understood the drivers of Wal-Mart’s success and exemplified the cultural DNA.”
- “Innovation can fuel growth but frenetic innovation – growth that erodes consistent tactical excellence – can just an easily send a company cascading through the stages of decline.’
- “The greatest leaders do seek growth – growth in performance, growth in distinctive impact, growth in creativity, growth in people – but they do not succumb to growth that undermines long-term value. And they certainly do not confuse growth with excellence. Big does not equal great, and great does not equal big.
- “If a great company consistently grows revenue faster than its ability to get enough of the right people to implement that growth, it will not simply stagnate; it will die.”
- “Any exceptional enterprise depends first and foremost upon having self-managed and self-motivated people – the #1 ingredient for a culture of discipline.”
- “You don’t need to have a lot of senseless rules and mindless bureaucracy.’
- “One notables distinction between wrong people and right people is that the former see themselves has having ‘jobs’, while the latter see themselves as having responsibilities.”
- “Leaders who fail the process of succession set their enterprises on a path to decline.”
- “While no leader can single-handedly build an enduring great company, the wrong leader vested with power can almost single-handedly bring a company down.”
- “Great companies experiment with a lot of little things that might not pan out in the end.”
- “Reorganizations and restructurings can create a false sense that you’re actually doing something productive.”
- “I don’t have a sense of crisis. I have a sense of urgency that never changes, whether we’re doing well or we’re doing poorly.” – IBM CEO Louis Gerstner
- “The signature of mediocrity is not an unwillingness to change. The signature of mediocrity is chronic inconsistency.”
- “Most ‘overnight success’ stories are about twenty years in the making.”
- “Eight of the eleven fallen companies in this analysis went for an outside CEO during their era of decline.”
- “Gerstner returned to the intense, methodical, and consistent approach that produces greatness in the first place.”
- “The very moment when we need to take calm, deliberate action, we run the risk of doing the exact opposite and bringing about the outcomes we fear most.”
- “Leaders atop companies in the late stages of decline need to get back to a calm,clear-headed, and focused approach. If you want to reverse decline, be rigorous about what not to do.”
- “Breathe. Calm yourself. Think. Focus. Aim.”
Leaders, I think the message for us today is to calm down. I know I needed to hear that.
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