Lee Iacocca Quotes
-
Incompetency begets incompetency. The last thing a guy who isn't sure of himself wants is a guy backing him up who is sure of himself.
-
That's the American way. If little kids don't aspire to make money like I did, what the hell good is this country?
-
Your legacy should be that you made it better than it was when you got it.
-
The trick is to make sure you don't die waiting for prosperity to come.
-
If you own up to your mistakes, you don't suffer as much. But that's a tough lesson to learn.
-
I forgot to shake hands and be friendly. It was an important lesson about leadership.
-
We believe the combination of these two companies will produce very powerful synergies and puts us on a solid platform from which we should be able to realize our full growth potential.
-
The primary skill of a manager consists of knowing how to make assignments and picking the right people to carry out those assignments
-
When future historians look back on our way of curing inflation they'll probably compare it to bloodletting in the Middle Ages.
-
Over the years, many executives have said to me with pride: 'Boy, I worked so hard last year that I didn't take any vacation.' I always feel like responding, "You dummy. You mean to tell me you can take responsibility for an eighty-million-dollar project and you can't plan two weeks out of the year to have some fun?
-
In a corporation, there can only be one guy in the end: the CEO.
-
Most people are looking for security, a nice, safe, prosperous future. And there's nothing wrong with that. It's called the American Dream.
-
I was stunned. It was a complete takeover. Chrysler had $12 billion in cash and was stronger at the time and should have bought Daimler.
-
Decisiveness is the one word that makes a good manager.
-
Start with good people, lay out the rules, communicate with your employees, motivate them and reward them. If you do all those things effectively, you can't miss.
-
I'm sometimes described as a flamboyant leader and a hip-shooter, a fly-by-the-seat-of-the-pants operator. But if that were true, I could never have been successful in this business.
-
I gotta tell ya, with our $2.4 billion in profits last year, they gave me a great big bonus. Really, it's almost obscene.
-
I have always found that if I move with seventy-five percent or more of the facts that I usually never regret it. It's the guys who wait to have everything perfect that drive you crazy.
-
Any supervisor worth his salt would rather deal with people who attempt too much than with those who try too little.
-
If a guy is over 25 percent jerk, he's in trouble. And Henry was 95 percent.
-
There are times when even the best manager is like the little boy with the big dog, waiting to see where the dog wants to go so he can take him there.
-
Never rest on your oars as a boss. If you do, the whole company starts sinking.
-
If I had to sum up in a word what makes a good manager, I'd say decisiveness. You can use the fanciest computers to gather the numbers, but in the end you have to set a timetable and act.
-
One of the things the government can't do is run anything. The only things our government runs are the post office and the railroads, and both of them are bankrupt.