Jack Welch Quotes: Popularly known as the legendary CEO and chairman of General Electrics, Jack Welch was a top-notch American business executive and also the person to receive the largest severance payment of $417 million. His net worth is estimated to be more than $800 million. He joined General Electric in 1960 as a junior chemical engineer and by 168, he became the head and vice president of GE’s plastics division. After getting numerous promotions, he finally became the youngest CEO and chairman of GE in 1981. Under his leadership and guidance, GE grew from $12 billion to $450 billion. He took numerous steps to eradicate the hierarchy and introduced the policy of informality to make sure all employees have business life experienced. After retirement, he became a regular advisor of numerous private equity firms. To know more about the leadership genius and efficient management of Jack Welch, peek into motivational Jack Welch quotes on leadership, change, personal development, and teamwork that will give you a meticulous analysis of how a giant corporation is handled.
Jack Welch Quotes
Before you are a leader, success is all about growing yourself. When you become a leader, success is all about growing others. » Jack Welch
Control Your Own Destiny or Someone Else Will » Jack Welch
Face reality as it is, not as it was or as you wish it to be. » Jack Welch
When you were made a leader you weren’t given a crown, you were given the responsibility to bring out the best in others. » Jack Welch
An organization’s ability to learn, and translate that learning into action rapidly, is the ultimate competitive advantage. » Jack Welch
Change before you have to. » Jack Welch
If you don’t have a competitive advantage, don’t compete. » Jack Welch
Good business leaders create a vision, articulate the vision, passionately own the vision, and relentlessly drive it to completion. » Jack Welch
There’s no such thing as work-life balance. There are work-life choices, and you make them, and they have consequences. » Jack Welch
Number one, cash is king… number two, communicate… number three, buy or bury the competition. » Jack Welch
If you pick the right people and give them the opportunity to spread their wings and put compensation as a carrier behind it you almost don’t have to manage them. » Jack Welch
If you are not confused, you don´t know what is going on. » Jack Welch
Common mission trap for companies: trying to be all things to all people at all times. » Jack Welch
I was never the smartest guy in the room. From the first person I hired, I was never the smartest guy in the room. And that’s a big deal. And if you’re going to be a leader – if you’re a leader and you’re the smartest guy in the world – in the room, you’ve got real problems. » Jack Welch
You’ve got to eat while you dream. You’ve got to deliver on short-range commitments, while you develop a long-range strategy and vision and implement it. The success of doing both. Walking and chewing gum if you will. Getting it done in the short-range, and delivering a long-range plan, and executing on that. » Jack Welch
You can look at the situation and feel victimized. Or you can look at it and be excited about conquering the challenges and opportunities it presents. » Jack Welch
Globalization has changed us into a company that searches the world, not just to sell or to source, but to find intellectual capital – the world’s best talents and greatest ideas. » Jack Welch
It is better to act too quickly than it is to wait too long. » Jack Welch
You can’t grow long-term if you can’t eat short-term. Anybody can manage short. Anybody can manage long. Balancing those two things is what management is. » Jack Welch
Don’t lose youself on the way to the top. » Jack Welch
You got to be rigorous in your appraisal system. The biggest cowards are managers who don’t let people know where they stand. » Jack Welch
The team with the best players wins. » Jack Welch
Take every opportunity to inject self-confidence into those who have earned it. Use ample praise, the more specific the better. » Jack Welch
Be candid with everyone. » Jack Welch
When launching something new, you have to go for it—“playing not to lose” can never be an option. » Jack Welch
Culture drives great results. » Jack Welch
The mission announces exactly where you are going, and the values describe the behaviors that will get you there. » Jack Welch
My main job was developing talent. I was a gardener providing water and other nourishment to our top 750 people. Of course, I had to pull out some weeds, too. » Jack Welch
No vision is worth the paper it’s printed on unless it is communicated constantly and reinforced with rewards. » Jack Welch
Management is all about managing in the short term, while developing the plans for the long term. » Jack Welch
If you have a reputation as a big, stiff bureaucracy, you’re stuck. » Jack Welch
Giving people self-confidence is by far the most important thing that I can do. Because then they will act. » Jack Welch
Effective people know when to stop assessing and make a tough call, even without total information. Little is worse than a manager who can’t cut bait. » Jack Welch
Willingness to change is a strength, even if it means plunging part of the company into total confusion for a while. » Jack Welch
I’ve learned that mistakes can often be as good a teacher as success. » Jack Welch
Face reality as it is, not as it was, or as you wish it to be. » Jack Welch
If GE’s strategy of investment in China is wrong, it represents a loss of a billion dollars, perhaps a couple of billion dollars. If it is right, it is the future of this company for the next century. » Jack Welch
When you are a leader, your job is to have all the questions. You have to be incredibly comfortable looking like the dumbest person in the room. Every conversation you have about a decision, a proposal, or a piece of market information has to be filled with you saying, “What if?” and “Why not?” and “How come? » Jack Welch
Don’t manage – lead change before you have to. » Jack Welch
What’s important at the grocery store is just as important in engines or medical systems. If the customer isn’t satisfied, if the stuff is getting stale, if the shelf isn’t right, or if the offerings aren’t right, it’s the same thing. You manage it like a small organization. You don’t get hung up on zeros. » Jack Welch
The biggest cowards are managers who don’t let people know where they stand.
IT’S SAID that you can only live life forward and understand it backward. » Jack Welch
I don’t feel under-taxed in any way at all. » Jack Welch
Differentiation favors people who are energetic and extroverted and undervalues people who are shy and introverted, even if they are talented. » Jack Welch
Strong managers who make tough decisions to cut jobs provide the only true job security in today’s world. Weak managers are the problem. Weak managers destroy jobs. » Jack Welch
Underneath, you would surely see that the best care passionately about their people—about their growth and success. And you would see that they themselves are comfortable in their own skins. They’re real, filled with candor and integrity, optimism and humanity. » Jack Welch
A strategy is something like, an innovative new product; globalization, taking your products around the world; be the low-cost producer. A strategy is something you can touch; you can motivate people with; be number one and number two in every business. You can energize people around the message. » Jack Welch
Public hangings are teaching moments. Every company has to do it. A teaching moment is worth a thousand CEO speeches. CEOs can talk and blab each day about culture, but the employees all know who the jerks are. They could name the jerks for you. It’s just cultural. People just don’t want to do it. » Jack Welch
We’ve all been guilty at one point or another in our careers of boasting of perfect hindsight. It’s a terrible sin. If you don’t make sure your questions and concerns are acted upon, it doesn’t count. » Jack Welch
the only career worth pursuing is the one that turns your crank. » Jack Welch
The Internet is the Viagra of big business. » Jack Welch
Give me a highly successful unionized industry. » Jack Welch
I was afraid of the internet… because I couldn’t type. » Jack Welch
There are no finite answers to many questions. What really counted was your thought process. » Jack Welch
Any jerk can have short-term earnings. You squeeze, squeeze, squeeze, and the company sinks five years later. » Jack Welch
The idea flow from the human spirit is absolutely unlimited. All you have to do is tap into that well. I don’t like to use the word efficiency. It’s creativity. It’s a belief that every person counts. » Jack Welch
Leaders relentlessly upgrade their team, using every encounter as an opportunity to evaluate, coach, and build self-confidence. » Jack Welch
We’ve only been wealthy in this country for 70 years. Who said we ought to have all this? Is it ordained? » Jack Welch
The third way is less common and certainly less of a layup—a culture of integrity, meaning a culture of honesty, transparency, fairness, and strict adherence to rules and regulations. In such cultures, there can be no head fakes or winks. People who break the rules do not leave the company for “personal reasons” or to “spend more time with their families.” They are hanged—publicly—and the reasons are made painfully clear to everyone. » Jack Welch
I actually think that the economy has got some positives. It’s got the market. It’s got consumer confidence and it’s got banks throwing – I mean central bankers throwing money at it around the world. » Jack Welch
Short cycle business are being impacted by credit, and are being impacted by gasoline prices, food, distribution businesses, chemical business. » Jack Welch
One of the jobs of a manager is to instill confidence, pump confidence into your people. And when you’ve got somebody who’s raring to go and you can smell it and feel it, give ’em that shot. » Jack Welch
If you don’t have public hangings for bad culture in a company, if you don’t take people out and let them say, they went home to spend more time with the family. It’s crazy. » Jack Welch
The productivity now at universities is terrible. Tenure is a terrible idea. It keeps them around forever and they don’t have to work hard. » Jack Welch
CEOs can talk and blab each day about culture, but the employees all know who the jerks are. They could name the jerks for you. It’s just cultural. People just don’t want to do it. » Jack Welch
In my lifetime, Mitt Romney is the most qualified leader I’ve ever seen run for the presidency of the United States. » Jack Welch
RULE 2. Leaders make sure people not only see the vision, they live and breathe it. » Jack Welch
Indeed, the biggest winners in the world are those who answer yes to the question, “Am I living the life I choose? » Jack Welch
as Google CEO Larry Page put it in his 2014 TED talk: “The main thing that has caused companies to fail, in my view, is that they missed the future. » Jack Welch
People development should be a daily event, integrated into every aspect of your regular goings-on. » Jack Welch
learning is truly a value, growth for every employee is a real objective, mistakes aren’t always fatal, and there are lots of people around whom you can reach out to for coaching and mentoring. » Jack Welch
At the end of the day, effective mission statements balance the possible and the impossible. They give people a clear sense of the direction to profitability and the inspiration to feel they are part of something big and important. » Jack Welch
In real life, strategy is actually very straightforward. You pick a general direction and implement it like a hell. » Jack Welch
You cannot go global on the phone or online, » Jack Welch
leadership, very simply, is about two things: 1. Truth and trust. 2. Ceaselessly seeking the former, relentlessly building the latter. » Jack Welch
Lack of candor blocks smart ideas, fast action, and good people contributing all the stuff they’ve got. It’s a killer. » Jack Welch,
Companies win when their managers make a clear and meaningful distinction between top- and bottom-performing businesses and people, when they cultivate the strong and cull the weak. Companies suffer when every business and person is treated equally and bets are sprinkled all around like rain on the ocean. » Jack Welch
Working to fulfill someone else’s needs or dreams almost always catches up with you. » Jack Welch
Every job you take is a gamble that could increase your options or shut them down. » Jack Welch
That’s more easily said than done; » Jack Welch
Only satisfied customers can give people job security. Not companies. » Jack Welch
From my days in the Pit, I learned that the game is all about fielding the best athletes. Whoever fielded the best team there won. Reuben Gutoff reinforced that it was no different in business. Winning teams come from differentiation, rewarding the best and removing the weakest, always fighting to raise the bar. I was lucky to get out of the pile and learn this my very first year at GE—the hard way, by nearly quitting the company. » Jack Welch
Over the course of your career, your Detroit will surely call you at one point or another. If you can go, that’s great. If you can’t, make peace with the reasons why. » Jack Welch
People with big personalities can make very big targets of themselves. » Jack Welch
For a large organization to be effective, it must be simple. For a large organization to be simple, its people must have self-confidence and intellectual self-assurance. » Jack Welch
Leaders get into everyone’s skin, exuding positive energy and optimism. You know that old saying “The fish rots from the head. » Jack Welch