600 Inspirational Quotes From Successful CEOs (2023)
1. Mark Caine – “The first step toward success is taken when you refuse to be a captive of the environment in which you first find yourself. ”
2. “Risk more than others think is safe. Dream more than others think is practical.” – Howard Schultz, Co-Founder and Interim CEO of Starbucks
3. “Whether you think you can or think you can’t – you’re right.” – Henry Ford, late Founder of Ford Motor Company
4. “Build your own dreams, or someone else will hire you to build theirs.” – Farrah Gray
5. “Do you want to know who you are? Don’t ask. Act! Action will delineate and define you.” ~ Thomas Jefferson
6. “There exist limitless opportunities in every industry. Where there is an open mind, there will always be a frontier.” – Charles F. Kettering
7. “I cannot give you the formula for success, but I can give you the formula for failure, which is: Try to please everybody.” – Herbert Swope
8. “A true servant leader is like being a compassionate coach, someone who raises their people up to their full potential. It can be, and often is, uncomfortable. You must be fierce, strong, and occasionally unpopular. To me, having the courage and willingness to embrace this is selfless.” – Tasia Duske, CEO of Museum Hack 2018-Present
9. “Don’t limit yourself. Many people limit themselves to what they think they can do. You can go as far as your mind lets you. What you believe, remember, you can achieve.” – Mary Kay Ash, late Founder of Mary Kay Cosmetics [Check out these 50 inspiring quotes from trailblazing women.]
10. “Do not follow where the path may lead. Go instead where there is no path and leave a trail.” – Harold R. McAlindon
11. “I’m not a perfectionist, but I like to feel that things are done well.” – Elvis Presley
12. The lessons I learned from the dark days at Alibaba are that you've got to make your team have value, innovation, and vision. Also, if you don't give up, you still have a chance. And, when you are small, you have to be very focused and rely on your brain, not your strength. Jack Ma, Alibaba.
13. “So, first of all, let me assert my firm belief that the only thing we have to fear is fear itself – nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance. In every dark hour of our national life a leadership of frankness and vigor has met with that understanding and support of the people themselves which is essential to victory. ” ~ Franklin D. Roosevelt
14. “Without passion, you don’t have energy. Without energy, you have nothing.”
15. “A good leader inspires people to have confidence in the leader, a great leader inspires people to have confidence in themselves.” ~ Eleanor Roosevelt
16. T. S. Eliot – “Only those who will risk going too far can possibly find out how far one can go.”
17. “There will be plenty of times where being a woman is probably not helping your career, so when it does, take the opportunity and then stand out. Really show that you’re something special.”
18. “You don’t need to be a genius or a visionary, or even a college graduate for that matter, to be successful. You just need framework and a dream.”
19. “Everyone needs to be viewed and treated as a leader, because roles and responsibilities will always be in flux.”
20. “When you innovate, you must prepare yourself for everybody to tell you that you’re nuts.”
21. “To win in the marketplace you must first win in the workplace”.
22. “Purpose may point you in the right direction but it’s passion that propels you.” – Travis McAshan
23. George Addair – “Everything you’ve ever wanted is on the other side of fear.”
24. “Success is empty if you arrive at the finish line alone. The best reward is to get there surrounded by winners.”
25. Tony Robbins – “If you do what you’ve always done, you’ll get what you’ve always gotten.”
26. “Each generation goes further than the generation preceding it because it stands on the shoulders of that generation. You will have opportunities beyond anything we’ve ever known.” ~ Ronald Reagan
27. “Bahira Shami is a young CEO tasked with ensuring the successful operation and growth of Beauty Elite Group. It's her mission to keep every department focused on their task and to her high standards. Bahira Shami plans to continue her growth with this company, gathering a team of like-minded professionals. She is proud of the company culture she has fostered at Beauty Elite Group. Bahira Shami got named Woman of the Year by the Houston Major.”
28. “If you pay peanuts, you get monkeys.”
29. “Anyone in this video, please don’t apply to work at Dell [Technologies or] at VMware. And also please don’t apply to [SecureWorks, The Michael & Susan Dell Foundation, Boomi] or MSD Capital.”
30. “So go ahead. Fall down. The world looks different from the ground.” – Oprah Winfrey, CEO of OWN: Oprah Winfrey Network 2011-Present
31. “Whatever you do, throw yourself into it. Throw your head, heart and hands into it.”
32. “Stay self-funded as long as possible.” – Garrett Camp, Founder of Expa, Uber and StumbleUpon
33. “High expectations are the key to absolutely everything.”
34. “I’m not the kind of person who tries to be cool or trendy. I’m definitely an individual.” – Elvis Presley
35. “Dreams are extremely important. You can’t do it unless you can imagine it.” – George Lucas
36. “Do not follow where the path may lead. Go instead where there is no path and leave a trail.” ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson
37. Many great ideas have been lost because the people who had them could not stand being laughed at. — Unknown
38. “A man must be big enough to admit his mistakes, smart enough to profit from them and strong enough to correct them.” – John C. Maxwell, Founder of The John Maxwell Company
39. “It’s amazing what you can accomplish if you do not care who gets the credit.” ~ Harry S. Truman
40. “Success is often achieved by those who don’t know that failure is inevitable.” – Coco Chanel
41. “Find your passion, and it’s no longer work.”
42. “All progress takes place outside the comfort zone.” – Michael John Bobak
43. “It’s really a wonder that I haven’t dropped all my ideals, because they seem so absurd and impossible to carry out. Yet I keep them, because in spite of everything, I still believe that people are really good at heart.”
44. “Don’t worry about failure; you only have to be right once.” – Drew Houston, CEO of Dropbox 2007-Present
45. “Be undeniably good. No marketing effort or social media buzzword can be a substitute for that.” – Anthony Volodkin, Founder of Hype Machine
46. “Leadership is about making others better as a result of your presence and making sure that impact lasts in your absence.” – Sheryl Sandberg
47. “Change is the law of life. And those who look only to the past or present are certain to miss the future.” ~ John F. Kennedy
48. “Don’t be silent in the room. Even if you think you’re gonna make a mistake, that’s better than sitting there quiet because you begin to suffocate… So just get it out there and feel like you have value.” – Rosalind Brewer, CEO of Sam’s Club 2012-2017, CEO of Walgreens Boots Alliance 2021-Present
49. “I try to give my audience a little of what they came for, a little of what they didn’t expect.” – Elvis Presley
50. Employees who believe that management is concerned about them as a whole person - not just an employee - are more productive, more satisfied, more fulfilled. Satisfied employees mean satisfied customers, which leads to profitability. Anne M. Mulcahy, Xerox.
51. “If you limit your choices only to what seems possible or reasonable, you disconnect yourself from what you truly want, and all that is left is a compromise.” – Robert Fritz
52. “I don’t want to be just a memory.” – Elvis Presley
53. Walter Anderson – “Our lives improve only when we take chances, and the first and most difficult risk we can take is to be honest with ourselves.”
54. “Our theory is, if you need the user to tell you what you’re selling, then you don’t know what you’re selling, and it’s probably not going to be a good experience."
55. “At AIA, we believe that supporting the sustainable development of our communities is one of the most important things we can do, today and in the future. By signing the Principles, we are reinforcing our commitment to drive tangible, measurable and reportable ESG outcomes within our businesses.
56. “To me, leadership is not about necessarily being the loudest in the room, but instead being the bridge, or the thing that is missing in the discussion and trying to build a consensus from there.”
57. “The challenge of leadership is to be strong, but not rude: be kind, but not weak; be bold, but not bully; be thoughtful, but not lazy; be humble but not timid; be proud, but not arrogant; have humour, but without folly.” Jim Rohn
58. “When a customer enters my store, forget me. He is king.” John Wanamaker is remembered most for this famous customer-driven quote, Wanamaker worked at Field’s store for more than 20 years, breathed and adopted the ideologies by Marshall Field on customer services.
59. “With kids, they don’t do what you want them to do when you want them to do it. Organizations don’t necessarily, either. You’ve got to listen. You’ve got to learn how to influence.
60. “Treat [the customer] as guests when they come and when they go, whether or not they buy.” This Selfridge customer service quote challenges employees to treat all customers as equals; whether they walk out without buying anything or purchased $27 (or $1844 in today dollars).
61. “I learned to always take on things I’d never done before. Growth and comfort do not coexist.”
62. “Businesses often forget about the culture, and ultimately, they suffer for it because you can’t deliver good service from unhappy employees.”
63. “Pessimists may be right in the end, but an optimist has a much better time getting there.”
64. “I’m just an entertainer, that’s all.” – Elvis Presley
65. “The next time you are in a meeting, ask the quietest person what they think. Invite everyone into the conversation.” – Satya Nadella, CEO of Microsoft 2014-Present
66. “Lean in, speak out, have a voice in your organization, and never use the word, ‘sorry’.”
67. “Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man’s character, give him power.” ~ Abraham Lincoln
68. “Don’t worry about failure; you only have to be right once.”
69. “As we express our gratitude, we must never forget that the highest appreciation is not to utter words, but to live by them.” ~ John F. Kennedy
70. Deepak Chopra – “The universe has no restrictions. You place restrictions on the universe with your expectations.”
71. We have professional cleaners sanitizing all surfaces in our building multiple times a day. We’re utilizing virtual meeting technology for most of our meetings and staggering the number of employees in the building and in common areas. Our list of protective measures grows daily, and we are constantly asking ourselves what else we can do to keep our employees and their families healthy and safe. These are unprecedented times that require unprecedented measures.” ~ Cindi Bigelow, President & CEO, Bigelow Tea
72. “Leadership is the art of giving people a platform for spreading ideas that work.” – Seth Godin
73. “To be a good leader all that you have to do is remember what it was like to follow.”
74. “A leader’s role is to raise people’s aspirations for what they can become and to release their energies so they will try to get there.” – David Gergen
75. “You have to be authentic, you have to be true, and you have to believe in your heart that this is going to work.”
76. “Success is not sustainable if it is defined by how big you become or by growth for growth’s sake. Success is very shallow if it doesn’t have emotional meaning.”
77. The real damper on employee engagement is the soggy, cold blanket of centralized authority. In most companies, power cascades downwards from the CEO. Not only are employees disenfranchised from most policy decisions, they lack even the power to rebel against egocentric and tyrannical supervisors. Gary Hamel, Gary Hamel Consulting.
78. “The best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago. The second best time is now.” — Chinese Proverb
79. “I realized that if I was willing to step up and be in the spotlight, I’d be able to make everyone else around me much more powerful as well.”
80. “I’m not just a performer, I’m a student of music. I’m always learning and growing as an artist.” – Elvis Presley
81. “Speak softly and carry a big stick.” ~ Theodore Roosevelt
82. “Don’t worry about people stealing your design work. Worry about the day they stop.” – Jeffrey Zeldman, Founder of “A List Apart” magazine
83. “The most important factor in determining whether you will succeed isn’t your gender; it’s you. Be open to opportunity and take risks. In fact, take the worst, the messiest, the most challenging assignment that you can find, and then take control."
84. “You have to have a 100% belief in your core reason for being.”
85. “High expectations are the key to absolutely everything.” – Sam Walton, CEO of Walmart 1962-1988
86. If you want a CEO role, you have to prepare for it with a vengeance. Denise Morrison, Campbell Soup Company.
87. “The value of an idea lies in the using of it.” – Thomas Edison, late Co-Founder of General Electric
88. “Timing, perseverance and 10 years of trying will eventually make you look like an overnight success.” – Biz Stone, Co-Founder of Twitter
89. Zen saying – “Leap and the net will appear.”
90. “When work is at the center and home and family is on the fringe, your entire life can fall apart at the drop of a downsizing. Structure your life in such a way that home is at the center and work is on the fringe to protect you and your family.”
91. “To lead people, walk behind them.” ~ Lao Tzu
92. “Your reputation is more important than your paycheck, and your integrity is worth more than your career.” – Ryan Freitas, Co-Founder of About.me
93. “Live as if you were to die tomorrow. Learn as if you were to live forever.”
94. “I’m not afraid to take risks and try new things, even if it means going against the norm.” – Elvis Presley
95. “The future belongs to those who see possibilities before they become obvious.” – John Scully
96. “Exits are great but it’s better to do it as a choice, not a consequence of bad moda operandi.”
97. “You don’t concentrate on risks. You concentrate on results. No risk is too great to prevent the necessary job from getting done.” – Chuck Yeager
98. “Treating employees benevolently shouldn’t be viewed as an added cost that cuts into profits, but as a powerful energizer that can grow the enterprise into something far greater than one leader could envision.”
99. “The greatest leader is not necessarily the one who does the greatest things. He is the one that gets the people to do the greatest things.” ~ Ronald Reagan
100. “Seguros Bolivar is committed to achieving inclusive economic growth, in which no one is left behind from the benefits of development, while taking care of the planet.
101. “You cannot be a solid leader without sacrificing self-interest and self-obsession,”
102. “Do what you love, and success will follow. Passion is the fuel behind a successful career.”
103. “The heart and soul of a company is creativity and innovation.” – Robert Iger, CEO of The Walt Disney Company
104. “Train them to trust their own judgment and make decisions, and then give them the autonomy to do what they need to do. It’s about finding that balance between managing and letting go. You have to allow people to make mistakes, as we learn from mistakes. If you don’t, people will never make a move.” – Dottie Herman, CEO of Douglas Elliman Real Estate 2003-2021
105. “I do not think that there is any other quality so essential to success of any kind as the quality of perseverance. It overcomes almost everything, even nature.” – John D. Rockefeller
106. “You have to embrace the world if you want to live in it now.”
107. “A president’s hardest task is not to do what is right, but to know what is right.” ~ Lyndon Johnson
108. “Let me assert my firm belief that the only thing we have to fear is fear itself.” ~ Franklin D. Roosevelt
109. “If you’re walking down the right path and you’re willing to keep walking, eventually you’ll make progress.”
110. “Your connections with other people are important, our connection to the earth.”
111. “My best successes came on the heels of failures,"
112. “Those who let things happen usually lose to those who make things happen.” – Dave Weinbaum
113. Maxwell Maltz – “Often the difference between a successful man and a failure is not one’s better abilities or ideas, but the courage that one has to bet on his ideas, to take a calculated risk, and to act.”
114. “I’ve been on more sales calls with more CEOs in the last two months than at any time in my career, and there’s universal agreement among them: Digital transformation, while this isn’t a one app [solution], it’s a must-have. Organizations and governments around the world have a digital transformation imperative like never before, and many of them are accelerating their plans for a digital-first work-from-anywhere environment.”
115. “The hottest places in hell are reserved for those who, in times of great moral crisis, maintain their neutrality.” ~ John F. Kennedy
116. “Leaders don’t create followers, they create more leaders.” ~ Tom Peters
117. “The pessimist complains about the wind. The optimist expects it to change. The leader adjusts the sails.” ~ John Maxwell
118. “Make every detail perfect and limit the number of details to perfect.” – Jack Dorsey, Co-Founder and former CEO of Twitter
119. Michael Jordan – “I’ve missed more than 9000 shots in my career. I’ve lost almost 300 games. Twenty-six times I’ve been trusted to take the game-winning shot and missed. I’ve failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed.”
120. “Leaders aren’t born, they are made. And they are made just like anything else, through hard work. And that’s the price we’ll have to pay to achieve that goal, or any goal.” ~ Vince Lombardi
121. “To love what you do and feel like it matters, how could anything be more fun?”
122. “Don’t bunt. Aim out of the ballpark. Aim for the company of immortals.” – David Ogilvy, Founder of Ogilvy & Mather
123. “An entrepreneur is someone who has a vision for something and a want to create.” – David Karp, Founder of Tumblr
124. “Build something you’re passionate about. As an entrepreneur, you have to have the passion and drive to stay the course."
125. For Gold’s Gym, that meant making the difficult decision last month to temporarily shut down operations of all company-owned gyms due to COVID-19. While this puts a strain on our business, I knew it was essential that we put the health and safety of our customers and employees at the forefront. We can’t control how these events will turn out, or when this will all come to an end, but we are confident that “this too shall pass.” And in the meantime, I’m working around the clock with my team to come up with alternative ways to serve our members from the safety of their homes, and to simultaneously keep the spirits of my team up. Consistent communication with all parties – our members, our franchisees, our corporate team – has been a key piece in reassuring everyone that all initiatives put in place during this time of uncertainty are designed with the greater good in mind.” ~ Adam Zeitsiff, President & CEO, Gold’s Gym
126. “Any time is a good time to start a company.” – Ron Conway, Founder and Co-Managing Partner of SV Angel
127. “Walt Disney told his crew to ‘build the castle first’ when constructing Disney World, knowing that vision would continue to serve as motivation throughout the project. Oftentimes when people fail to achieve what they want in life, it’s because their vision isn’t strong enough.”
128. “I’m just trying to do the best I can” – Elvis Presley
129. “No man will make a great leader who wants to do it all himself or get all the credit for doing it.” ~ Andrew Carnegie
130. Sheryl Sandberg – “If you’re offered a seat on a rocket ship, don’t ask what seat! Just get on.”
131. ”There is a hero in all of us. What you need is a leader to make people realise that they don’t have to be less than ordinary, that they can be more than ordinary.” – Christo Wiese
132. “It is important to have setbacks, because that is the reality of life. Perfection doesn’t exist.”
133. “Having a personality of caring about people is important. You can’t be a good leader unless you generally like people. That is how you bring out the best in them.” – Sir Richard Branson
134. “If you can 'hire tough,' you can 'manage easy.”
135. “The most important factor in determining whether you will succeed isn’t your gender; it’s you. Be open to opportunity and take risks. In fact, take the worst, the messiest, the most challenging assignment that you can find, and then take control.” – Angela Braly, CEO of WellPoint (Anthem) 2007-2012
136. “You always want to win. That is why you play tennis, because you love the sport and try to be the best you can at it.”
137. “People vote with their hearts, not their heads.”
138. “If you’re not making some notable mistakes along the way, you’re certainly not taking enough business and career chances."
139. “I didn’t learn to be quiet when I had an opinion. The reason they knew who I was is because I told them.”
140. “I’ve always been a bit of an introvert, but just because you don’t fit the classic mold doesn’t mean you can’t be a leader. You just need to find your own style and someone with a similar style who you can learn from.”
141. “What’s happening in the U.S. is abhorrent. It’s far overdue for all of us to take action to eradicate systemic racism, xenophobia, inequality and all forms of bigotry in America. How we respond will be an important moment in our nation’s history. Cisco will lead. #blacklivesmatter”
142. “When you innovate, you must prepare yourself for everybody to tell you that you’re nuts.” – CEO of Oracle
143. “Remember, before they promoted to the chair of CEO, they were the best employees of their companies.”
144. Andre Gide – “Man cannot discover new oceans unless he has the courage to lose sight of the shore.”
145. “Success is a lousy teacher. It seduces smart people into thinking they can’t lose”
146. “Embrace what you don’t know, especially in the beginning, because what you don’t know can become your greatest asset. It ensures that you will absolutely be doing things different from everybody else.” – Sara Blakely, CEO of SPANX 2000-Present
147. “I don’t want to be just a memory” – Elvis Presley
148. “Humanity & Humility are all but forgotten by those at the top.”
149. “Innovation distinguishes between a leader and a follower.” – Steve Jobs
150. “The heart and soul of a company is creativity and innovation.”
151. “Always deliver more than expected.” – Larry Page, CEO of Google 1997-2001, CEO of Alphabet Inc. 2011-2015.
152. “You have to be very nimble and very open minded. Your success is going to be very dependent on how your adapt.”
153. “A man can fail many times, but he isn’t a failure until he begins to blame somebody else.” – John Burroughs
154. “In this ever-changing society, the most powerful and enduring brands are built from the heart. They are real and sustainable. Their foundations are stronger because they are built with the strength of the human spirit, not an ad campaign. The companies that are lasting are those that are authentic.”
155. “Only successful businesses can create and secure jobs.”
156. Sidney Crosby – “I don’t think you’re human if you don’t get nervous.”
157. I never set out to be CEO. I always set out to be a good team member, a good colleague. John Stumpf, Wells Fargo.
158. “We need to start work with the idea that we’re going to learn every day. I learn, even at my position, every single day.”
159. When you start a company, it's more an art than a science because it's totally unknown. Instead of solving high-profile problems, try to solve something that's deeply personal to you. Ideally, if you're an ordinary person and you've just solved your problem, you might have solved the problem for millions of people. Brian Chesky, Airbnb.
160. “People ask the difference between a leader and a boss. The leader leads, and the boss drives.” ~ Theodore Rooselvelt
161. “Change before you have to.” ~ Jack Welch
162. “Employees are a company’s greatest asset – they’re your competitive advantage. You want to attract and retain the best; provide them with encouragement, stimulus and make them feel that they are an integral part of the company’s mission.” – Anne M. Mulcahy, CEO of Xerox Corporation 2001-2009
163. ”I never dreamed about success. I worked for it.” – Estée Lauder
164. “Leaders don’t inflict pain, they share pain.” – Max de Pree
165. “This must be awful for you. You get a job, and then next thing you know you’re dealing with a car chase, a bitchy manager, the SEC, and a boss dying to visit a secluded island with his admin assistant.” A slow grin grew on his face.
166. “Go through some difficult experiences. If you can live through them and learn from them, you have a much better chance of knowing what to do when the chips are down, and everyone else is freaking out.”
167. “If you think it’s expensive to hire a professional, wait until you hire and amateur.” – Red Adair, Innovator
168. “People are not your most important asset. The right people are.”
169. “Telling people not what they want to hear but what they need to hear is a key element of being able to lead.” – John Smith
170. A successful team beats with one heart. Michael Gokturk, Payfirma.
171. I always believe that, as you start out, while you should have a big dream - a big goal - but it's also important to move step by step. So, you know, frankly, if you ask me, when I started as a management trainee in 1984, I don't know that I really thought that I would become the CEO. Chanda Kochhar, ICICI Bank.
172. “The most dangerous poison is the feeling of achievement. The antidote is to every evening think what can be done better tomorrow.” – Ingvar Kamprad
173. “Why join the navy if you can be a pirate?” – Steve Jobs, CEO of Apple 1997-2011
174. “We’re women. Not girls. I am a twenty-seven-year-old pioneer in the wellness space who reincorporated her company as a B-corp without needing to hire a lawyer. Would you refer to my male equivalent as a boy?”
175. “I’m not trying to be sexy. It’s just my way of expressing myself when I move around.” – Elvis Presley
176. “The customer is always right.” As mentioned, this short five-word quote sums up the importance and necessity of the customer’s happiness over everything.
177. “I’m not a politician. I’m just an entertainer” – Elvis Presley
178. “Success is 99 percent failure.” – Soichiro Honda
179. “Fail often so you can succeed sooner.” – Tom Kelley
180. “Embrace what you don’t know, especially in the beginning, because what you don’t know can become your greatest asset. It ensures that you will absolutely be doing things different from everybody else.” – Sara Blakely, Founder and CEO of SPANX
181. “There are countless ways of achieving greatness, but any road to achieving one’s maximum potential must be built on a bedrock of respect for the individual, a commitment to excellence, and a rejection of mediocrity.” – Buck Rodgers
182. “Balance suggests a perfect equilibrium. There is no such thing. That is a false expectation…. There are going to be priorities and dimensions of your life, how you integrate them is how you find true happiness.”
183. Ellen DeGeneres – “When you take risks you learn that there will be times when you succeed and there will be times when you fail, and both are equally important.”
184. “You have to follow your dreams and be true to yourself, even if that takes you down a less popular road.”
185. “It’s not about having a specific set time; both personal and professional lives are 24/7. It’s simply more about making the right allocation to each one and recognizing that it’s going to be different every single day.” – Ellen Kullman, former CEO of DuPont
186. “It takes humility to realize that we don’t know everything, not to rest on our laurels, and to know that we must keep learning and observing. If we don’t, we can be sure some startup will be there to take our place.”
187. “Train people well enough so they can leave, treat them well enough so they don’t want to.”
188. “Desperation is a necessary ingredient to learning anything or creating anything. Period. If you ain’t desperate at some point, you ain’t interesting.”
189. “It’s becoming very clear that our IT ecosystem is a vital link to enable companies to continue with work-from-home efforts. Vendors, distribution and resellers are enabling the world to be able to do that. ... The community becomes very small and tight when crisis emerges. We turn to one another with any challenges and issues and hope to resolve them. ... I would encourage any part of the ecosystem to reach out. If Tech Data can assist in any way, we’re happy to help.”
190. Pablo Picasso – “I am always doing that which I cannot do, in order that I may learn how to do it.”
191. “It’s hard to beat a person who never gives up.” ~Babe Ruth
192. “Earn your leadership every day.” ~ Michael Jordan
193. “An employee’s job is to give his or her best work every day. A manager’s job is to give the employee a good reason to come back to work tomorrow.”
194. “Chase the vision, not the money; the money will end up following you.” – Tony Hsieh, late CEO of Zappos
195. “I don’t want to be a figurehead, I just want to be an instrument of God.” – Elvis Presley
196. “If things didn’t work out last year doing them a certain way, you should hire someone who has done it before to teach you how to do it this year.”
197. “The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy.” ~ Martin Luther King, Jr.
198. “When you accept that failure is a good thing, it can actually be a huge propeller toward success.”
199. “What counts is not necessarily the size of the dog in the fight- it’s the size of the fight in the dog.” ~ Dwight D. Eisenhower
200. “Don’t criticize what you don’t understand, son. You never walked in that man’s shoes.” – Elvis Presley
201. Software innovation, like almost every other kind of innovation, requires the ability to collaborate and share ideas with other people, and to sit down and talk with customers and get their feedback and understand their needs. Bill Gates, Microsoft.
202. “Rule No. 1: Never lose money; Rule No. 2: Don’t forget Rule No. 1.”
203. Jack Canfield – “Don’t worry about failures, worry about the chances you miss when you don’t even try.”
204. “I just want to be remembered as a good performer.” – Elvis Presley
205. As the CEO, I have to take care of the short term, mid term and the long term. Carlos Ghosn, Nissan.
206. “If you want to lift the performance of the organisation, you have to lift yourself … my message to my team was always meet my bar, and that bar would constantly be moved up.”
207. “Unless you choose to do great things with it, makes no difference how much you are rewarded, or how much power you have.” – Oprah Winfrey
208. “My fellow Americans, ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country.” ~ John F. Kennedy
209. “Every day I get up and look through the Forbes list of the richest people in America. If I’m not there, I go to work.” – Vinnie Rege
210. “Nothing stops an organisation faster than people who believe that the way you worked yesterday is the best way to work tomorrow.” – Jon Madonna
211. “The speed of the leader is the speed of the gang.” ~ Mary Kay Ash
212. “With kids, they don’t do what you want them to do when you want them to do it. Organizations don’t necessarily, either. You’ve got to listen. You’ve got to learn how to influence.”
213. “Your career is your business, as a CEO of your own career company, it is important to manage your company in the right direction with proper planning and executions to achieve your goals.”
214. “Average leaders raise the bar on themselves; good leaders raise the bar for others; great leaders inspire to raise their own bar.” – Orrin Woodward
215. It is so much easier to be nice, to be respectful, to put yourself in your customers' shoes and try to understand how you might help them before they ask for help, than it is to try to mend a broken customer relationship. Mark Cuban, AXS TV.
216. “Don’t worry about failure: you only have to be right once” – Drew Houston, CEO of Dropbox
217. When I first joined MassMutual more than 30 years ago, I don’t think I fully appreciated what it meant to be purpose-driven, even though we have been since our 31 founders pooled $100,000 to start the company in 1851. Every year in this role, I’m grateful to have such clarity about why we exist – to help people secure their futures and protect the ones they love – but never more so than now. Since the crisis began, we’ve made a number of decisions backed by this purpose – decisions like moving quickly to working from home, using technology to connect customers with their trusted financial professionals, and talking to our managers about leading with empathy as people balance work and personal obligations. There’s no universal playbook for organizations to follow right now – we each have parts to play, and if you know your purpose, it’s much easier to determine what you are best positioned to contribute in difficult times.” ~ Roger Crandall, Chairman, President & CEO, MassMutual
218. “Leadership quotes won’t get you anywhere if you don’t take action.” ~EverythingSupplyChain.com
219. “It takes 20 years to build a reputation and 5 minutes to ruin it. If you think about that, you’ll do things differently.” – Warren Buffett, CEO of Berkshire Hathaway
220. “I’ve never gotten over what they call stagefright. I go through it every show. I’m pretty concerned, I’m pretty much thinking about the show. I never get completely comfortable with it, and I don’t let the people around me get comfortable with it, in that I remind them that it’s a new crowd out there, it’s a new audience, and they haven’t seen us before. So it’s got to be like the first time we go on.” – Elvis Presley
221. “I always did something that I was a little not ready to do. I think that is how you grow. When there’s a moment of ‘Wow, I’m not so sure that I can do this,’ and you push through those moments, it’s then that you have a breakthrough. Sometimes that’s a sign that something really great is about to happen. You’re about to grow and learn a lot more about yourself.” – Marissa Mayer, former President and CEO of Yahoo
222. “Before you are a leader, success is all about growing yourself. When you become a leader, success is all about growing others.” – Jack Welch
223. “I try not to make any decisions that I’m not excited about.” – Jake Nickell, CEO of Threadless 2000-Present
224. “Life is fragile. We’re not guaranteed a tomorrow, so give it everything you’ve got.” – Tim Cook, CEO of Apple
225. “Leaders get out in front and stay there by raising the standards by which they judge themselves – and by which they are willing to be judged.”
226. We know the how, what and why we exist. The team and I have never communicated better. Through great communication, we’re learning, we’re adapting, we’ve become more nimble, efficient and effective.” ~ Mark Del Rosso, President & CEO, Genesis Motor North America
227. “Leaders think and talk about the solutions. Followers think and talk about the problems.” – Brian Tracy
228. M. Scott Peck – “There can be no vulnerability without risk. There can be no community without vulnerability. There can be no peace, and ultimately no life, without community.”
229. When you innovate, you've got to be prepared for everyone telling you you're nuts. – Larry Ellison, Oracle.
230. “Before you are a leader, success is all about growing yourself. When you become a leader, success is all about growing others.” – Jack Welch, CEO General Electric 1981-2001
231. “Goodwill is the one and only asset that competition cannot undersell or destroy.” What Field is saying here is that tangible items and money are easily adjusted to bring customers into your store, but it’s the intangibles (e.g. goodwill, courtesy, respect, dignity) that make the difference.
232. “success isn't supposed to feel comfortable”
233. As a wife, daughter, friend, and the founder and CEO of LearnVest, my schedule is anything but simple. But I learned early on how to meticulously manage my time. Alexa Von Tobel, LearnVest.
234. “I’m not just a singer, I’m an entertainer. I want to give my audience a show they’ll never forget.” – Elvis Presley
235. “Avoiding the dumb things is the most important. Learn more, know limitations, avoid the dumb things.” – Warren Buffet, CEO of Berkshire Hathaway 1970-Present
236. “I knew what my job was; it was to go out and meet the people and love them.”
237. “Fearlessness is like a muscle. I know from my own life that the more I exercise it, the more natural it becomes to not let my fears run me.” – Arianna Huffington, Co-Founder and CEO of Thrive Global and Co-Founder of The Huffington Post
238. “High expectations are the key to absolutely everything.” – Sam Walton, late Founder of Walmart and Sam’s Club
239. “A leader is a dealer in hope.” ~ Napoleon Bonaparte
240. “It is better to lead from behind and to put others in front, especially when you celebrate victory when nice things occur. You take the front line when there is danger. Then people will appreciate your leadership.” ~ Nelson Mandela
241. “If you do what you’ve always done, you’ll get what you’ve always gotten.” – Tony Robbins
242. “If we are to succeed in our mission to provide financial security for Canadians and Canadian communities, then we must account for the interconnected economic, social and environmental issues that put their security at risk. We believe the challenges of the future will be greater than the challenges of the past. The complex issues we face require holistic, collaborative and imaginative solutions, and compel us to take a longer-term view of success – not just for our own organizations, but for our clients, communities and the planet.”
243. Talent is the No. 1 priority for a CEO. You think it's about vision and strategy, but you have to get the right people first. Andrean Jung, Grameen America.
244. “What you do has far greater impact that what you say.” – Stephen Covey
245. Elia Kazan – “You’ve got to keep fighting; you’ve got to risk your life every six months to stay alive.”
246. “I don’t want to be a figurehead, I just want to be an instrument of God” – Elvis Presley
247. Mary Schmich – “Do one thing every day that scares you.”
248. “A leader … is like a shepherd. He stays behind the flock, letting the most nimble go out ahead, whereupon the others follow, not realising that all along they are being directed from behind.”
249. “An important attribute of success is to be yourself. Never hide what makes you, you.”
250. “Rowing harder doesn’t help if the boat is headed in the wrong direction.” – Kenichi Ohmae
251. “We the people tell the government what to do, it doesn’t tell us.” ~ Ronald Reagan
252. Ayn Rand – “The question isn’t who is going to let me; it’s who is going to stop me.”
253. “Nothing is impossible; the word itself says ‘I’m possible!’”
254. “The first responsibility of a leader is to define reality. The last is to say thank you. In between, the leader is a servant.” – Max dePree
255. “The single biggest way to impact an organization is to focus on leadership development. There is almost no limit to the potential of an organization that recruits good people, raises them up as leaders and continually develops them.” ~ John Maxwell
256. “The only thing that can change my mind is a better idea.” – Elvis Presley
257. Never forget that you only have one opportunity to make a first impression - with investors, with customers, with PR, and with marketing. Natalie Massenet, Net-a-Porter.
258. “The quality of a leader is reflected in the standards they set for themselves.” – Ray Kroc
259. “I ain’t no saint, but I’ve tried never to do anything that would hurt my family or offend God…I figure all any kid needs is hope and the feeling he or she belongs. If I could do or say anything that would give some kid that feeling, I would believe I had contributed something to the world.” – Elvis Presley
260. “Dating and hiring have a lot in common.”
261. “The growth and development of people is the highest calling of leadership.” – Harvey S. Firestone
262. “Chase the vision not the money, the money will follow.” – Tony Hsiev, CEO of Zappos
263. “Always look for the fool in the deal. If you don’t find one, it’s you.” – Mark Cuban, Owner of the Dallas Mavericks and Co-Owner of 2929 Entertainment
264. “Whatever it is that you think you want to do, and whatever it is that you think stands between you and that, stop making excuses. You can do anything.”
265. “Whether you think you can or you can’t; you’re right.” – Henry Ford
266. “I’ve been very lucky, from the beginning. I’ve found that as long as you’re fundamentally good – as long as you’re not being bad to people – people give you a lot of room to be yourself, because being yourself is being honest. And that’s what people want to see.”
267. “I’m just trying to do the best I can.” – Elvis Presley
268. “You won’t go anywhere if you don’t start moving.” ~SupplyChainToday.com
269. “When you hire people that are smarter than you are, you prove that you are smarter than they are.”
270. “Today a reader, tomorrow a leader.” – Margaret Fuller
271. “I’ve read that many major CEOs and assorted other captains of industry are sociopaths,” she replied, almost conversationally. “I imagine you fit right in.”
272. “I always did something I was a little not ready to do. I think that’s how you grow. When there’s that moment of ‘Wow, I’m not really sure I can do this,’ and you push through those moments, that’s when you have a breakthrough.”
273. “You have to be very nimble and very open-minded. Your success is going to be very dependent on how you adapt.” – Jeremy Stoppelman, CEO of Yelp 2004-Present
274. “Don’t just stand for the success of other women – insist on it.”
275. Peter F. Drucker – “People who don’t take risks generally make about two big mistakes a year. People who do take risks generally make about two big mistakes a year.”
276. “People ask the difference between a leader and a boss. The leader works in the open, and the boss in covert. The leader leads, and the boss drives.” ~ Theodore Roosevelt
277. “Don’t take too much advice. Most people who have a lot of advice to give with a few exceptions generalize whatever they did. Don’t over-analyze everything. I myself have been guilty of over-thinking problems. Just build things and find out if they work.” – Ben Silbermann, CEO of Pinterest 2010-2022
278. “Building a brand means knowing your story and building and sharing that story.”
279. Richard Branson – “Screw it, Let’s do it!” (this one is my personal favorite.
280. “I’m a one-man army” – Elvis Presley
281. “As a human being, you breathe, you eat, you dream. You cannot not dream. And luxury sparks that.”
282. “Sometimes you climb the mountain, and you fall and fail. Maybe there is a different path that will take you up. Sometimes a different mountain.”
283. “The task of leadership is not to put greatness into humanity, but to elicit it, for the greatness is already there.” – John Buchan
284. “We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard, because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills.” ~ John F. Kennedy
285. “Experience has taught me a few things. One is to listen to your gut, no matter how good something sounds on paper. The second is that you’re generally better off sticking with what you know. And the third, is that sometimes your best investments are the ones you don’t make.”
286. “It’s fine to celebrate success but it is more important to heed the lessons of failure.”
287. My goal was never to just create a company. A lot of people misinterpret that, as if I don't care about revenue or profit or any of those things. But what not being just a company means to me is not being just that - building something that actually makes a really big change in the world. Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook.
288. “Have the courage to follow your heart and intuition: they somehow know what you want to become” – Steve Jobs
289. “The most difficult thing is the decision to act, the rest is merely tenacity. The fears are paper tigers. You can do anything you decide to do. You can act to change and control your life; and the procedure, the process is its own reward.”
290. “It is hard to fail, but it is worse never to have tried to succeed.” ~ Theodore Roosevelt
291. “Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.” ~ Abraham Lincoln
292. “Leaders don’t create followers, they create more leaders.” ~Tom Peters
293. “Leadership and learning are indispensable to each other.” ~ John F. Kennedy
294. “The best way to get the best out of people is to not force them to be something other than they naturally are. Now, what do they have to be? They have to be respectful.” – Ursula Burns, CEO of Xerox Corporation 2009-2016
295. “Try and fail, but don’t fail to try.” ― John Quincy Adams
296. “A leader is a person you will follow to a place you would not go by yourself.” – Joel Barker
297. “Innovation distinguishes between a leader and a follower.” ~ Steve Jobs
298. “Get the confidence of the public and you will have no difficulty in getting their patronage.” Focusing on the intangibles again, The first sentence of Harry Gordon Selfridge’s longer, oft-quoted thought on business invokes how critical it is for your company to have the trust and confidence of your customers. Once you have that, everything will fall into place.
299. “To learn to succeed, you must first learn to fail.”
300. “If you’re changing the world, you’re working on important things. You’re excited to get up in the morning.”
301. “You don’t need to be a genius or a visionary, or even a college graduate for that matter, to be successful. You just need framework and a dream.” – Michael Dell, CEO of Dell
302. “No man can be successful, unless he first loves his work.”
303. “When I was a child, ladies and gentlemen, I was a dreamer. I read comic books and I was the hero of the comic book. I saw movies and I was the hero in the movie. So every dream I ever dreamed has come true a hundred times…I learned very early in life that: ‘Without a song, the day would never end; without a song, a man ain’t got a friend; without a song, the road would never bend – without a song.’ So I keep singing a song. Goodnight. Thank you.” – Elvis Presley
304. As an entrepreneur, I try to push the limits. Pedal to the metal. Travis Kalanick, Uber.
305. “A live concert to me is exciting because of all the electricity that is generated in the crowd and on stage. It’s my favorite part of the business – live concerts.” – Elvis Presley
306. My advice is to avoid that temptation. As the COVID-19 outbreak became real, our leadership team turned to the guiding principles we established years ago. While we’ve shifted priorities, adhering to these principles helps us remain disciplined and gives us a framework for decision-making. As a result, our franchise partners and team members understand and embrace the actions we are taking. A&W is weathering the crisis well because of that. I believe we will emerge an even stronger organization.” ~ Kevin Bazner, President & CEO, A&W Restaurants
307. “Our emerging workforce is not interested in command and control leadership. They don’t want to do things because I said so, they want to do things because they want to do them.”
308. “You have to be very nimble and very open-minded. Your success is going to be very dependent on how you adapt.” – Jeremy Stoppelman, CEO of Yelp
309. “It takes humility to realise that we don’t know everything, not to rest on our laurels, and to know that we must keep learning and observing. If we don’t, we can be sure some startup will be there to take our place.” – Cher Wang
310. “The cost of being wrong is less than the cost of doing nothing.”
311. “Do what you can, with what you have, where you are.” ~ Theodore Roosevelt
312. As a leader in this new paradigm, it’s important to provide employees with flexibility in how and when their work gets done, and trust and empower them to find the right life balance in these trying times.” ~ James Parker, CEO, Masergy
313. “You don’t have to hold a position in order to be a leader.”
314. “Leadership and culture aren’t about being the boss or being in control; they are about creating shared visions and goals, and then inspiring, empowering and influencing others to achieve more than they ever thought possible.” – Gary Brooks
315. “If you think you are leading and turn around to see no one following, then you are just taking a walk.” – Benjamin Hooks
316. “The role of the CEO is to enable people to excel, help them discover their own wisdom, engage themselves entirely in their work, and accept responsibility for making change. (164)”
317. “It’s about getting the best people, retaining them, nurturing a creative environment and helping to find a way to innovate.” – Marissa Mayer, CEO of Yahoo! 2012-2017
318. “I’m not trying to prove anything with my music” – Elvis Presley
319. Mark Cuban – “Because if you’re prepared and you know what it takes, it’s not a risk. You just have to figure out how to get there. There is always a way to get there.”
320. “I’m not trying to prove anything with my music.” – Elvis Presley
321. “If you do every job like you’re going to do it for the rest of your life, that’s when you get noticed.”
322. “Life is like riding a bicycle. To keep your balance, you must keep moving.”
323. “Outstanding leaders go out of their way to boost the self-esteem of their personnel. If people believe in themselves, it’s amazing what they can accomplish.”
324. “A leader is best when people barely know he exists, When his work is done, his aim fulfilled, They will say: We did it ourselves.” ~ Lao Tzu
325. Mark Twain – “Keep away from people who belittle your ambitions. Small people always do that, but the really great make you feel that you, too, can become great.”
326. “When the whole world is silent, even one voice becomes powerful.”
327. “Whatever you are, be a good one.” ~ Abraham Lincoln
328. “One of the tests of leadership is the ability to recognise a problem before it becomes an emergency.” – Arnold Glasow
329. “I am always doing that which I cannot do, in order that I may learn how to do it.”
330. “A true leader has the confidence to stand alone, the courage to make tough decisions, and the compassion to listen to the needs of others. He does not set out to be a leader, but becomes one by the equality of his actions and the integrity of his intent.” ~ Douglas McCarther
331. “The question I ask myself like almost every day is, ‘Am I doing the most important thing I could be doing?’… Unless I feel like I’m working on the most important problem that I can help with, then I’m not going to feel good about how I’m spending my time. And that’s what this company is.”
332. “You've got your CEOs pulling four hundred or five hundred times what the American man does. Is there any man worth four hundred or five hundred other men? I've never met one. Have you?" -David Efaw in Wildland”
333. “The distance between number one and number two is always a constant. If you want to improve the organization, you have to improve yourself and the organization gets pulled up with you. That is a big lesson.” – Indra Nooyi CEO of PepsiCo 2006-2017
334. “I am convinced that most people can achieve their dreams and beyond if they have the determination to keep trying.”
335. “You don’t have to wake up at 4am just because a few CEO’s are doing that. Different people are creative at different times of the day.”
336. “Lots of companies don’t succeed over time. What do they fundamentally do wrong? They usually miss the future.”
337. “In business, what’s dangerous is not to evolve.”
338. “Reality leaves a lot to the imagination.”
339. To build a great company, which is a CEO's job, sometimes you have to stand up against conventional wisdom. Carly Fiorina, Hewlett-Packard.
340. “Just practice. Persevere. If you approach every day like that, when a crisis comes, you’re prepared for it.” – Vicki Hollub, CEO of Occidental Petroleum 2016-Present
341. “The best executive is the one who has sense enough to pick good men to do what he wants done, and self-restraint enough to keep from meddling with them while they do it.” ~ Theodore Roosevelt
342. Mario Andretti – “If things seem under control, you are just not going fast enough.”
343. “You are never too young to lead, nor too old to act. And you should never doubt your capacity to triumph where others have not.”
344. “No man will make a great leader who wants to do it all himself, or go to get all the credit for doing it.” – Andrew Carnegie
345. “The things we fear most in organisations – fluctuations, disturbances, imbalances – are the primary sources of creativity.” – Margaret Wheatley
346. “Leaders get out in front and stay there by raising the standards by which they judge themselves – and by which they are willing to be judged.” – Frederick W. Smith
347. Barbara Sher – “When you play it too safe, you’re taking the biggest risk of your life. Time is the only wealth we’re given.”
348. Roger von Oech – “Everyone has a ‘risk muscle.’ You keep it in shape by trying new things. If you don’t, it atrophies. Make a point of using it at least once a day.”
349. “My work is my life, I put everything I am into it” – Elvis Presley
350. I am who I am, and I'm focused on that, and being a great CEO of Apple. Tim Cook, Apple.
351. “Leadership is service to others.”
352. “No matter how brilliant your mind or strategy, if you’re playing a solo game, you’ll always lose out to a team.” – Reid Hoffman
353. Steve Jobs – “You can’t connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something–your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in my life.”
354. “The first responsibility of a leader is to define reality. The last is to say thank you. In between, the leader is a servant.” – Max DePree, CEO of Herman Miller 1980-1987
355. “I don’t think just trying to maximise profits is a very good long-term strategy for a business. It doesn’t inspire the people who work for you.” – John Mackey
356. “Fail often so you can succeed sooner.” – Tom Kelley, Founder and Chairman of D4V and Partner of Ideo
357. “If you do not treat people with the respect they deserve, do not expect any kind of commitment to your productivity goals and target.“ – Ian Fuhr, CEO of Sorbet group 2004-2019, CEO of Hatch Institute 2020-Present
358. “I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been.” ~ Wayne Gretzky
359. “Outstanding leaders go out of their way to boost the self-esteem of their personnel. If people believe in themselves, it’s amazing what they can accomplish.” ~ Sam Walton
360. “I’ve left my mark, and I hope it’s a good one” – Elvis Presley
361. “Mankind must put an end to war — or war will put an end to mankind. ” ~ John F. Kennedy
362. Jim Rohn – “If you are not willing to risk the unusual, you will have to settle for the ordinary.”
363. Deepak Chopra – “Always go with your passions. Never ask yourself if it’s realistic or not.”
364. “Becoming a leader is synonymous with becoming yourself. It is precisely that simple and it is also that difficult.” – Warren Bennis
365. “Entrepreneurs must love what they do to such a degree that doing it is worth sacrifice and, at times, pain. But doing anything else, we think, would be unimaginable.”
366. “The question, ‘Who ought to be boss?’, is like asking, ‘Who ought to be the tenor in the quartet?’ Obviously, the man who can sing tenor.” – Henry Ford, CEO of Ford Motor Company 1906-1945
367. “Management is efficiency in climbing the ladder of success; leadership determines whether the ladder is leaning against the right wall.” – Stephen R. Covey
368. “The greatest people are self-managing – they don’t need to be managed. Once they know what to do, they’ll go figure out how to do it. What they need is a common vision. And that’s what leadership is: having a vision; being able to articulate that so the people around you can understand it; and getting a consensus on a common vision.”
369. “The distance between number one and number two is always a constant. If you want to improve the organization, you have to improve yourself and the organization gets pulled up with you. That is a big lesson. I cannot just expect the organization to improve if I don’t improve myself and lift the organization, because that distance is a constant.”
370. “I’m just an ordinary person who has become a king” – Elvis Presley
371. “You can only accomplish things with the cooperation of other people. This is the most valuable thing I’ve learned over the years.”
372. “I wanted to start a revolution, using art to build the sort of society I myself envisioned.”
373. “If you are not embarrassed by the first version of your product, you’ve launched too late.” – Reid Hoffman, Co-Founder of LinkedIn
374. “When I’m 80 years old, I want to have minimized the number of regrets I have. I think our biggest regrets, in most cases, turn out to be acts of omission. It’s paths not taken and they haunt us. Once I thought about it that way, it was immediately obvious to me…It would be 100 percent chance of regret if I didn’t try and basically a zero percent chance of regret if I tried and failed. So I think that’s a useful metric for any important life decision.” – Jeff Bezos, CEO of Amazon 1994-2021
375. “Forgive your enemies, but never forget their names.” ~ John F. Kennedy
376. “You have to be very nimble and very open minded. Your success is going to be very dependent on how you adapt” – Jeremy Stoppelman
377. “Taking initiative pays off. It is hard to visualise someone as a leader if she is always waiting to be told what to do.”
378. “Integrate what you believe in every single area of your life. Take your heart to work and ask the most and best of everybody else too.”
379. “There are only three measurements that tell you nearly everything you need to know about your organization’s overall performance: employee engagement, customer satisfaction, and cash flow… It goes without saying that 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.”
380. “If you are committed to creating value and if you aren't afraid of hard times, obstacles become utterly unimportant. A nuisance perhaps, but with no real power. The world respects creation; people will get out of your way."
381. “Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man’s character, give him power.” ~ Abraham Lincoln
382. “Great leaders are not defined by the absence of weakness, but rather by the presence of clear strengths.” – John Zenger
383. “I’m not in the music business for the fame or the money, I’m in it because I love it.” – Elvis Presley
384. “We set our heart on winning the peak of Mount Everest. We consider only being on top of the world and waving to the land is a success. But every step you need to take to be at the peak is a tiny success, aren’t they? So, to be on the peak of Mount Everest, you need to clinch approximately 85,238 tiny successes before you finally achieve the last one (the biggest success), the final step on the top. Aren’t each one is equally crucial?
385. “All of the great leaders have had one characteristic in common: it was the willingness to confront unequivocally the major anxiety of their people in their time. This, and not much else is the essence of leadership.” – John Kenneth Galbraith
386. “You can’t connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something—your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in my life.”
387. “Assume that the customer is right until it is plain beyond all question he is not.” Those that regurgitate the first quote in every instance aren’t aware that Field also placed common sense restrictions on the catch-all phrase. Basically, go above and beyond to make the customer happy, but also be smart about it.
388. “Example is not the main thing in influencing others; it is the only thing.” – Albert Schweitzer
389. “In order to be irreplaceable, one must always be different.”
390. “So many people trip in front of them because they’re looking over there or up ahead.”
391. “Don’t limit yourself. Many people limit themselves to what they think they can do. You can go as far as your mind lets you. What you believe, remember, you can achieve.” – Mary Kay Ash
392. As you work through the immediate issues of this crisis, think if you were to look back two weeks from now on the decisions you made today. Would you regret them or done things differently? That’s how we’re making some of the most important and hardest decisions we will ever face here at Hartford HealthCare. Lastly, take care of yourself so you can take care of others – and be a role model for your team so they, too, will delegate and empower others. Together, we will get through this.” ~ Jeffrey Flaks, President & CEO, Hartford HealthCare
393. “No Budget Babe brings financial empowerment and support to women as they build wealth and navigate finances.”
394. J. B. Priestley – “Many a man is praised for his reserve and so-called shyness when he is simply too proud to risk making a fool of himself.”
395. “A good objective of leadership is to help those who are doing poorly to do well and to help those who are doing well to do even better.” ~ Jim Rohn
396. “If you can’t find a good companion to walk with, walk alone, like an elephant roaming the jungle. It is better to be alone than to be with those who will hinder your progress.” – Elvis Presley
397. Albert Einstein – “I am thankful for all of those who said NO to me. It’s because of them I’m doing it myself.”
398. “Every time you make the hard, correct decision you become a bit more courageous, and every time you make the easy, wrong decision you become a bit more cowardly…these choices will lead to a courageous or cowardly company.” – Ben Horowitz, CEO of Opsware 1999-2007
399. “Nothing works better than just improving your product.” – Joel Spolsky, Co-Founder of Stack Overflow, Trello, HASH and Fog Creek Software (now Glitch)
400. “It takes 20 years to build a reputation and five minutes to ruin it. If you think about that, you’ll do things differently.”
401. “You cannot have faith in people unless you take action to improve and develop them.” – Sumatra Ghoshal
402. “If your actions inspire others to dream more, learn more, do more and become more, you are a leader.” ~ John Quincy Adams
403. “Lean in, speak out, have a voice in your organization, and never use the word, ‘sorry.’”
404. E. E. Cummings – “Once we believe in ourselves we can risk curiosity, wonder, spontaneous delight, or any experience that reveals the human spirit.”
405. “There’s no scientific answer for success. You can’t define it. You’ve simply got to live and do it.” – Anita Roddick
406. “There is no place for hate and racism in our society. Empathy and shared understanding are a start, but we must do more. I stand with the Black and African-American community and we are committed to building on this work in our company and in our communities.”
407. “Happiness lies in the joy of achievement and the thrill of creative effort.” ~ Franklin D. Roosevelt
408. “Because not everyone can take charge of his or her destiny, those who do rise to positions of authority have a responsibility whose daily work keeps the enterprise running, not only to steer the correct course, but to make sure that no one is left behind.”
409. “You cannot be a leader, and ask other people to follow you, unless you know how to follow, too.” – Sam Rayburn
410. Millions of people are counting on us for science-based information and answers, research that gets to the core of big unanswered questions, resources for the frontlines, community programs and patient support. While there’s no denying the complexity of managing through crisis, leaders can find clarity by testing every decision against touchstones that define their culture. I’m incredibly humbled to witness the collective influence of 40 million AHA volunteers, supporters, staff and communities come together with resilience and focus to hero our mission as a relentless force for a world of longer, healthier lives.” ~ Nancy Brown, CEO, American Heart Association
411. “Don’t worry about failure; you only have to be right once.” – Drew Houston
412. “As a business leader, my quest has never been just about winning or making money. It has also been about building a great, enduring company, which has always meant striking a balance between profit and social conscience.”
413. “I never took a day off in my twenties. Not one.” – Bill Gates, Co-Founder of Microsoft Corporation
414. “Without passion, you don’t have any energy, and without energy, you simply have nothing”
415. “Honesty always pays.” Selfridge’s more-famous quotes tended to focus less on the external and more toward the internal. This particular 3-worder was part of a larger quote, but we picked this out because it underlines the importance of how doing the right thing, having good values will always translate into good business (and good karma, presumably).
416. “Our mission statement about treating people with respect and dignity is not just words but a creed we live by every day. You can’t expect your employees to exceed the expectations of your customers if you don’t exceed the employees’ expectations of management.”
417. “The most dangerous poison is the feeling of achievement. The antidote is to every evening think what can be done better tomorrow.” – Ingvar Kamprad, late Founder of IKEA
418. “I don’t believe in being a one-hit wonder. I want to have a long and successful career.” – Elvis Presley
419. “Leadership is diving for a loose ball, getting the crowd involved, getting other players involved. It’s being able to take it as well as dish it out. That’s the only way you’re going to get respect from the players.” ~ Larry Bird
420. “Even when you go after a more ambitious goal, even if you fail to achieve that one, all the side effects that come along the way can be that much more rewarding and significant in their own right.” – Sergey Brin
421. “To laugh often and much; to win the respect of intelligent people and the affection of children; to earn the appreciation of honest critics and endure the betrayal of false friends; to appreciate beauty; to find the best in others; to leave the world a bit better, whether by a healthy child, a garden patch, or a redeemed social condition; to know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived. This is to have succeeded.”
422. “We are really competing against ourselves, we have no control over how other people perform.”
423. “Don’t let others define you. Define yourself.”
424. “Pessimists may be right in the end, but an optimist has a much better time getting there.” – CEO of Deere
425. “The leaders who work most effectively, it seems to me, never say “I.” And that’s not because they have trained themselves not to say “I.” They don’t think “I.” They think “we”; they think “team.” They understand their job to be to make the team function. They accept responsibility and don’t sidestep it, but “we” gets the credit. This is what creates trust, what enables you to get the task done.” ~ Peter Drucker
426. “I don’t pay good wages because I have a lot of money; I have a lot of money because I pay good wages.”
427. “I always did something that I was a little not ready to do. I think that, that is how you grow. When there’s a moment of ‘Wow, I’m not so sure that I can do this, and you push through those moments, it’s then that you have a breakthrough. Sometimes that’s a sign that something really great is about to happen. You’re about to grow and learn a lot more about yourself.”
428. “In my position, you have to read when you want to write, and talk when you would like to read.”
429. “The Chinese use two brush strokes to write the word ‘crisis.’ One brush stroke stands for danger; the other for opportunity. In a crisis, be aware of the danger–but recognize the opportunity.” ~ John F. Kennedy
430. “Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart.” – Steve Jobs, late CEO of Apple
431. “Comfort zone is a nice place, but nothing grows there. Take the leap today and start your business!"
432. “Whenever teenage girls and corporate CEOs covet the same new technology, something extraordinary is happening.” – Michael J. Saylor, CEO of MicroStrategy 1989-2022
433. “Courtesy is the one coin you can never have too much of or be stingy with.” This well-known Wanamaker quote highlighted the constant dilemma with making customers happy -- money. Modern day companies struggle with customer service, prioritizing bottom lines and short term goals over customer experience.
434. “The best executive is one who has sense enough to pick good people to do what he wants done, and self-restraint enough to keep from meddling with them while they do it.” ~ Theodore Roosevelt
435. “Work like hell. I mean, you just have to put in 80- to 100-hour weeks every week. [This] improves the odds of success. If other people are putting in 40-hour workweeks and you’re putting in 100-hour workweeks, then even if you’re doing the same thing, you know that you will achieve in four months what it takes them a year to achieve.” – Elon Musk, Co-Founder of SpaceX, Co-Founder and CEO of Tesla Motors, and CEO of Twitter
436. “Sometimes it takes a lowly, title-less man to humble the world. Kings, rulers, CEOs, judges, doctors, pastors, they are already expected to be greater and wiser.”
437. “A leader has the vision and conviction that a dream can be achieved. He inspired the power and energy to get it done.” – Ralph Lauren
438. “I wake up every morning and think to myself, ‘How far can I push the company forward in the next 24 hours.”
439. “No matter how senior you get in an organization, no matter how well you’re perceived to be doing, your job is never done.”
440. “Life is fragile. We’re not guaranteed a tomorrow so give it everything you’ve got.”
441. “The road to success and the road to failure are almost exactly the same.” – Colin R. Davis
442. Robert Frost – “Two roads diverged in a wood, and I … I took the one less traveled by, and that has made all the difference.”
443. “Anything that is measured and watched improves.” – Bob Parsons, Founder of GoDaddy and CEO of Parsons Xtreme Golf
444. “If you're a CEO of Big Pharma who raises the price of a life-saving drug 600%, it's not competition you lack, it's a conscience. It's not poorly lit alleyways that are responsible for rape -- it's rapists. Let's address the real problem: CORPORATE GREED.”
445. “Eagles don’t flock – you have to find them one at a time.” ~ H. Ross Perot
446. “I don’t think I have ever been as relaxed on stage as I am now.” – Elvis Presley
447. “It’s a different world today than it was five, 10, 20 years ago. Employees expect their companies to have opinions on a broad array of issues that in the past they probably didn’t expect their companies to have opinions on. I think it’s healthy.” – Andy Jassy, CEO of Amazon 2021-Present
448. “Control is not leadership; management is not leadership; leadership is leadership. If you seek to lead, invest at least 50% of your time in leading yourself – your own purpose, ethics, principles, motivation, conduct. Invest at least 20% leading those with authority over you and 15% leading your peers.” – Dee Hock
449. “Chase the vision, not the money; the money will end up following you.” – Tony Hsieh
450. “If you’re the smartest person in the room, you’re in the wrong room.”
451. “We can’t be in survival mode. We have to be in growth mode.”
452. “No matter what the industry you choose to ultimately invest all your time and energy in, be sure you're the owner, founder, and CEO. Remember, if you don't own it, you can't control it nor can you depend on it.”
453. “Start now, because as soon as you stop thinking “I’m too young”, you will start thinking “I’m too old.” – Michael Alexis, CEO of teambuilding.com 2020-Present
454. “Criticism can be devastating to an employee. I prefer to praise employees for what they’re doing right, and it tends to lead to them doing more of the same. Not always, but it’s the way I choose to bet.” – Sir Richard Branson, CEO of Virgin Group 1970-2005
455. “And as in any line of business, a succeeding CEO who couldn't make a bygone cock-up look like an opportunity missed wasn't fit for management, and should take her retirement package, her annual bonus, her golden handshake and her non-disclosure kickback and tiptoe from the boardroom in disgrace.”
456. “Things work out best for those who make the best of how things work out.” ~John Wooden
457. “One of the true tests of leadership is the ability to recognize a problem before it becomes an emergency.” ~ Arnold Glasow
458. “Recruitment IS marketing. If you’re a recruiter nowdays and you don’t see yourself as a marketer, you’re in the wrong profession.”
459. “Effective leadership is not about making speeches or being liked; leadership is defined by results not attributes.” – Peter F. Drucker
460. “Treat employees like they make a difference and they will.”
461. “Great companies with the way they work, first start with great leaders.”
462. “It’s not about having a specific set time; both personal and professional lives are 24/7. It’s simply, more about making the right allocation to each one and recognizing that it’s going to be different every single day”
463. “A leader takes people where they want to go. A great leader takes people where they don’t necessarily want to go, but ought to be.” ~ Rosalynn Carter
464. “Leadership is not an allowance to do minimum work, it is an accountability to do maximum work.”
465. “I’m the first one to say I’ve made a lot of mistakes, but I’ve also had a lot of successes.” – Elvis Presley
466. “The way I think about culture is that modern humans have radically changed the way that they work and the way that they live. Companies need to change the way they manage and lead to match the way that modern humans actually work and live. We’re trying to re-craft culture in a way that really matches that. I think that 99% of companies are kind of stuck in the ‘90s when it comes to their culture.”
467. Drew Barrymore – “There’s something liberating about not pretending. Dare to embarrass yourself. Risk.”
468. “There’s nothing wrong with staying small. You can do big things with a small team.” – Jason Fried, Co-Founder and CEO of 37signals
469. “I’m always looking for new ways to express myself and push the boundaries of what I can do.” – Elvis Presley
470. “Comfort zone is a nice place, but nothing grows there.” – Caroline Cummings, CEO of Varo Ventures 2015-Present
471. “Leadership is a potent combination of strategy and character. But if you must be without one, be without the strategy.” – Norman Schwarzkopf
472. “Leadership is always about the folk and rarely about the finance.”
473. “Swiss Life Group is a leading provider of life and pensions as well as of asset management services and related financial solutions in Europe. For over 160 years we have been helping private and corporate clients to prepare their financial future. “We enable people to lead a self-determined life” is the purpose of our business activities. In the pursuit of our core business we contribute directly to society.
474. “On matters of style, swim with the current, on matters of principle, stand like a rock.” ~ Thomas Jefferson
475. “If everyone is moving forward together, then success takes care of itself.” –Henry Ford
476. “Don’t be intimidated by what you don’t know. That can be your greatest strength and ensure that you do things differently from everyone else.” – Sara Blakely
477. “A live concert to me is exciting because of all the electricity that is generated in the crowd and on stage. It’s my favorite part of the business, live concerts.” – Elvis Presley
478. “Leaders get out in front and stay there by raising the standards by which they judge themselves – and by which they are willing to be judged.” – Frederick W. Smith, Founder and CEO of FedEx
479. “Always deliver more than expected.” – Larry Page, Co-Founder of Google
480. “Courtesies cannot be borrowed like snow shovels; you must have some of your own.” Wanamaker again with the emphasis on providing courtesy. In this famous quote, he points out that care and sincerity cannot be bought, underscoring that excellent customer service requires abstract qualities.
481. “People want guidance, not rhetoric; they need to know what the plan of action is and how it will be implemented. They want to be given responsibility to help solve the problem and the authority to act on it.” – Howard Schultz
482. “Become the kind of leader that people would follow voluntarily; even if you had no title or position.” ~ Brian Tracy
483. “‘Til we meet again, may God bless you. Adios.” – Elvis Presley
484. “The secret to successful hiring is this: Look for the people who want to change the world.“ – Marc Benioff, Co-CEO of Salesforce
485. Oprah Winfrey – “Do the one thing you think you cannot do. Fail at it. Try again. Do better the second time. The only people who never tumble are those who never mount the high wire. This is your moment. Own it.”
486. John A. Shedd – “A ship in harbor is safe, but that is not what ships are built for.”
487. Steve Jobs – “Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life.”
488. “If you can’t feed a team with two pizzas, it’s too large.” – Jeff Bezos, Founder and Executive Chairman of Amazon
489. “A person who is happy is not happy because everything is right in his life, he is happy because his attitude towards everything in his life is right.”
490. Chuck Yeager – “You don’t concentrate on risks. You concentrate on results. No risk is too great to prevent the necessary job from getting done.”
491. Aristotle – “There is only one way to avoid criticism: Do nothing, say nothing, and be nothing.”
492. “A sense of humor is part of the art of leadership, of getting along with people, of getting things done.” ~ Dwight D. Eisenhower
493. “I’m not just a singer, I’m a performer. I want to give my audience an experience they’ll never forget.” – Elvis Presley
494. “The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.” ~ Franklin D. Roosevelt
495. “I think it’s very important to have a feedback loop, where you’re constantly thinking about what you’ve done and how you could be doing it better.”
496. “It’s not what the vision is, it’s what the vision does.” – Peter Senge
497. “It’s not about how to get started; it’s about how to get noticed.”
498. Teaching your employees something new creates an instant connection, and they will respect you for it. If you can do this in a job interview, you will be sure to attract the smartest people. Money doesn't mean much to a lot of the smartest people in the world—they want to grow their intelligence rather than their wallet. If you show employees that they will progress intellectually in their career, and economically while at your company, then they will want to work for you. Taso Du Val, Toptal.
499. “To me, business isn’t about wearing suits or pleasing stockholders. It’s about being true to yourself, your ideas and focusing on the essentials.” – Sir Richard Branson, Founder of Virgin Group
500. “Understanding your employee’s perspective can go a long way towards increasing productivity and happiness.”
501. It has transformed the way we live, work, communicate and even care for our patients. For Sentara, it has prompted us to evolve our organization’s processes, adapting practices to fit CDC guidelines and social distancing protocols while simultaneously addressing the needs this crisis presents for our patients and staff on the front lines. The pandemic has also forced a change in our operating and business model as we have stopped doing elective procedures to preserve critical bed capacity and staff protective supplies. It has resulted in a significant reduction in revenues and margin while we are staffing up for critically ill COVID-19 patients. This combination of actions are severely adverse economically to hospitals and health systems.
502. We see our customers as invited guests to a party, and we are the hosts. It's our job every day to make every important aspect of the customer experience a little bit better. Jeff Bezos, Amazon.
503. “Money is just a consequence. I always say to my team, ‘Don’t worry too much about profitability. If you do your job well, the profitability will come.’”
504. “Executives owe it to their organization and to their fellow workers not to tolerate nonperforming individuals in important jobs.”
505. “Successful people do what unsuccessful people are not willing to do. Don’t wish it were easier; wish you were better.”- Jim Rohn
506. “If one girl with courage is a revolution, imagine what feats we can achieve together.”
507. “I’m not just a musician, I’m a storyteller. I want to take my audience on a journey through my songs.” – Elvis Presley
508. “High expectations are the key to absolutely everything.” – Sam Walton
509. Earl Nightingale – “You can measure opportunity with the same yardstick that measures the risk involved. They go together.”
510. “There’s an entrepreneur right now, scared to death, making excuses, saying, ‘It’s not the right time just yet.’ There’s no such thing as a good time. I started an apparel-manufacturing business in the tech-boom years. I mean, come on. Get out of your garage and go take a chance and start you business.”
511. “I’m just a simple country boy at heart.” – Elvis Presley
512. “The only thing worse than starting something and failing … is not starting something.” – Seth Godin, Founder of Squidoo and Yoyodyne
513. “Some people tap their feet, some people snap their fingers, and some people sway back and forth. I just sorta do ‘em all together, I guess.” – Elvis Presley
514. “I’m the king of rock and roll, but I didn’t invent it” – Elvis Presley
515. “The first time that I appeared on stage, it scared me to death. I really didn’t know what all the yelling was about. I didn’t realize that my body was moving. It’s a natural thing to me. So to the manager backstage I said, ‘What’d I do? What’d I do?’ And he said “Whatever it is, go back and do it again.” – Elvis Presley
516. R. D. Laing – “Creative people who can’t help but explore other mental territories are at greater risk, just as someone who climbs a mountain is more at risk than someone who just walks along a village lane.”
517. “A woman with a voice is by definition a strong woman. But the search to find that voice can be remarkably difficult."
518. “My job is not to be easy on people. My job is to make them better.” ~ Steve Jobs
519. “Data beats emotions.” – Sean Rad, Co-Founder of Adly and Tinder
520. “Give the lady what she wants.” Marshall Field coined the customer service-centric phrase “Give the lady what she wants” to impact on the importance of serving the customer. The phrase was famously used in his store to make the service staff put customer's needs and wants first.
521. “If the leader is filled with high ambition and if he pursues his aims with audacity and strength of will, he will reach them in spite of all obstacles.” – Carl von Clausewitz
522. “The employer generally gets the employees he deserves.” ~ J. Paul Getty
523. “A CEO is known by the company he reaps.”
524. “You don’t need to be a genius or a visionary, or even a college graduate for that matter, to be successful. You just need framework and a dream.” - Michael Dell, CEO of Dell
525. “I try not to make any decisions that I’m not excited about.” – Jake Nickell
526. “There are moments in our lives when we summon the courage to make choices that go against reason, that go against common sense and the wise counsel of people we trust. But we lean forward, nonetheless, because, despite all risks and rational argument, we believe that the path we are choosing is the right and best thing to do.”
527. “You know, as most entrepreneurs do, that a company is only as good as its people. The hard part is actually building the team that will embody your company culture and proper you forward.” – Kathryn Minshew
528. “When you have vision it affects your attitude. Your attitude is optimistic rather than pessimistic.” – Charles R. Swindoll
529. “You don’t lead by pointing and telling people some place to go. You lead by going to that place and making a case.” – Ken Kesey
530. “Healthy striving is self-focused: ‘How can I improve?’ Perfectionism is other-focused: ‘What will they think?’”
531. “If you’re not making some notable mistakes along the way, you’re certainly not taking enough business and career chances.”
532. “Her feet went out from under her, but she didn't let go. She slammed onto the bridge, taking him with her...Then the ground slipped away from her as they both crashed through the flimsy guardrail and dropped into the water below.”
533. “The greatest leader is not necessarily the one who does the greatest things. He is the one that gets the people to do the greatest things.”
534. “I do not think that there is any other quality so essential to success of any kind as the quality of perseverance. It overcomes almost everything, even nature.” – John D. Rockefeller, late Founder and CEO of Standard Oil Company
535. “When you innovate, you’ve got to be prepared for everyone telling you you’re nuts.” – Larry Ellison, Co-Founder and CEO of Oracle
536. Dhirubhai Ambani – “If you don’t build your dream, someone else will hire you to help them build theirs.”
537. “I’m always thinking about creating. My future starts when I wake up every morning… Every day I find something creative to do with my life.” – Elvis Presley
538. Chuck Palahniuk – “The only way to find true happiness is to risk being completely cut open.”
539. “Don’t take too much advice. Most people who have a lot of advice to give with a few exceptions generalize whatever they did. Don’t over-analyze everything. I myself have been guilty of over-thinking problems. Just build things and find out if they work.” – Ben Silbermann, Co-Founder and Executive Chairman of Pinterest
540. “Hire people who are smarter than you are—whose talents surpass yours—and give them opportunities for growth. It's the smart thing to do and it is a sign of high personal humility.”
541. “Don’t ever be afraid to ask for help. Always be cultivating a support network so that when you stumble — and you will — they’ll be there to catch you.”
542. Leo F. Buscaglia – “The person who risks nothing does nothing, has nothing, is nothing, and becomes nothing. He may avoid suffering and sorrow, but he simply cannot learn and feel and change and grow and love and live.”
543. “Leave nothing for tomorrow which can be done today.” ~ Abraham Lincoln
544. “What I’ve learned is that if you really want to be successful at something, you’ll find that you put the time in. You won’t just ask somebody if it’s a good idea, you’ll go figure out if it’s a good idea.” – Mark Cuban
545. “Don’t be afraid to give up the good to go for the great.” – John D. Rockefeller
546. “The thing that I learned early on is you really need to set goals in your life, both short-term and long-term, just like you do in business. Having that long-term goal will enable you to have a plan on how to achieve it. We apply these skills in business, yet when it comes to ourselves, we rarely apply them.”
547. W. E. B. Du Bois – “The most important thing to remember is this: to be ready at any moment to give up what you are for what you might become.”
548. “Don’t be intimidated by what you don’t know. That can be your greatest strength and ensure that you do things differently from everyone else.”
549. “How people themselves perceive what they are doing is not a question that interests me. I mean, there are very few people who are going to look into the mirror and say, 'That person I see is a savage monster'; instead, they make up some construction that justifies what they do. If you ask the CEO of some major corporation what he does he will say, in all honesty, that he is slaving 20 hours a day to provide his customers with the best goods or services he can and creating the best possible working conditions for his employees. But then you take a look at what the corporation does, the effect of its legal structure, the vast inequalities in pay and conditions, and you see the reality is something far different.”