Harold Geneen Quotes

16 Sourced Quotes

I don't believe in just ordering people to do things. You have to sort of grab an oar and row with them. My philosophy is to stay as close as possible to what's happening. If I can't solve something, how the hell can I expect my managers to?

Harold Geneen
Leadership cannot really be taught. It can only be learned.

Harold Geneen
It is much more difficult to measure non-performance than performance. Performance stands out like a ton of diamonds. Non-performance can almost always be explained away.

Harold Geneen
The worst disease which can afflict business executives in their work is not, as popularly supposed, alcoholism; it's egotism.

Harold Geneen
In the business world, everyone is paid in two coins; cash and experience. Take the experience first; the cash will come later.

Harold Geneen
Every company has two organizational structures: the formal one is written on the charts; the other is the everyday living relationship of the men and women in the organization.

Harold Geneen
Managers in all too many American companies do not achieve the desired results because nobody makes them do it.

Harold Geneen
A true leader has to have a genuine open-door policy so that his people are not afraid to approach him for any reason. A man should feel free to tell his chief executive to his face, 'I think you're dead wrong about such and such, and here are my reasons.'

Harold Geneen
The reliability of the person giving you the facts is as important as the facts themselves. Keep in mind that facts are seldom facts, but what people think are facts, heavily tinged with assumptions.

Harold Geneen
Leadership is practiced not so much in words as in attitude and in actions..

Harold Geneen
Management manages by making decisions and by seeing that those decisions are implemented.

Harold Geneen
You cannot run a business, or anything else, on a theory.

Harold Geneen
It is better to take over and build upon an existing business than to start a new one.

Harold Geneen
The best way to inspire people to superior performance is to convince them by everything you do and by your everyday attitude that you are wholeheartedly supporting them.

Harold Geneen
I'd hate to spend the rest of my life trying to outwit an eighteen-inch fish.

Harold Geneen
When you have mastered the numbers, you will in fact no longer be reading numbers, any more than you read words when reading a book. You will be reading meanings.

Harold Geneen