Top 200 Jack Welch Quotes (2025 Update)
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151. “In my lifetime, Mitt Romney is the most qualified leader I’ve ever seen run for the presidency of the United States.”

— Jack Welch

152. “In the future, those who are not coaches will not be promoted.”

— Jack Welch

153. “Your goal, in other words, should be to make your bosses smarter, your team more effective, and the whole company more competitive because of your energy, creativity, and insights.”

— Jack Welch

154. “I think the move by Mr. Greenspan was welcomed by everyone here.”

— Jack Welch

155. “That’s all managing is: just coming up with the right questions and getting the right answers.”

— Jack Welch

156. “Some people have better ideas than others; some are smarter or more experienced or more creative. But everyone should be heard and respected.”

— Jack Welch

157. “If you want risk taking, set an example yourself and reward and praise those that do.”

— Jack Welch

158. “Any jerk can have short-term earnings. You squeeze, squeeze, squeeze, and the company sinks five years later.”

— Jack Welch

159. “Trust is enormously powerful in a corporation. People won’t do their best unless they believe they’ll be treated fairly. The only way I know how to create that kind of trust is by laying out your values and then walking the talk. You’ve got to do what you say you’ll do, consistently, over time.”

— Jack Welch

160. “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

161. “Not surprisingly, work-life moaners tend to be a phenomenon of below-average performers.”

— Jack Welch

162. “Change has no constituency and a perceived revolution has even less.”

— Jack Welch

163. “This shows you are never too old to get surprised.”

— Jack Welch

164. “There is no straight line to a dream.”

— Jack Welch

165. “We know where most of the creativity, the innovation, the stuff that drives productivity lies – in the minds of those closest to the work.”

— Jack Welch

166. “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

167. “Most organizations fail in driving change.”

— Jack Welch

168. “If you managed a baseball team, would you listen more closely to the team accountant or the director of player personnel?”

— Jack Welch

169. “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

170. “If you’ve got a company that has a mentality inside that is filled with searching for a better idea every day, not just as a slogan but as a real concept, you will have innovation around you all the time.”

— Jack Welch

171. “I’ve learned that mistakes can often be as good a teacher as success.”

— Jack Welch

172. “When the amount of change externally exceeds the amount of change internally, the end is in sight.”

— Jack Welch

173. “Trying to get people to face reality and see the world the way it really is is an absolutely critical aspect of leadership, in my view.”

— Jack Welch

174. “Getting every employee’s mind into the game is a huge part of what a CEO job is all about. Taking everyone’s best ideas and transferring them to others is the secret. There’s nothing more important.”

— Jack Welch

175. “What Sam Walton did was to go into one of the most mature industries of all and find a way to make it grow, grow, grow, double-digit, month after month, year after year. He did it by innovation, customer focus, and above all, speed.”

— Jack Welch

176. “So every time you think about your work-life balance issue, remember what your boss is thinking about – and that’s winning. Your needs may get heard – and even successfully resolved – but not if the boss’s needs aren’t met as well.”

— Jack Welch

177. “You never know how diverse your career can be. I think it’s wonderful. My life has always been the next page, not the last page.”

— Jack Welch

178. “If you have a reputation as a big, stiff bureaucracy, you’re stuck.”

— Jack Welch

179. “People aren’t the same. Business is, in my opinion, all about the team that fields the best players. It’s not about an idea. An idea goes away. Somebody catches up with it. It’s not about a widget.”

— Jack Welch

180. “I believe that in any initiative, you can’t have a flavor of the month. When you believe something is profound in a company, you can not be a logical leader. You have to go to the lunatic fringe. There is no way that logic is what you need to change people.”

— Jack Welch

181. “The main social responsibility for a company is to win.”

— Jack Welch

182. “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

183. “An overburdened, overstretched executive is the best executive, because he or she doesn’t have the time to meddle, to deal in trivia, to bother people.”

— Jack Welch

184. “I’m not perfect, but if there are any points given for caring about people with every fiber of your being and giving life all you’ve got every day, then I suppose I have a shot.”

— Jack Welch

185. “Getting candor right – with your reports, your peers, and your boss – is a skill that can make or break your career.”

— Jack Welch

186. “If we don’t create private sector jobs and just – just creating public sector jobs, we’re going nowhere. This is a bad game. You’ve got to have innovation. You’ve got to have tax policies that support innovation.”

— Jack Welch

187. “The binders, the charts, the grids may seem formidable, but the meetings themselves are built around informality, trust, emotion and humor.”

— Jack Welch

188. “Ideally, the star will be replaced within eight hours. This sends the message that no single individual is bigger than the company.”

— Jack Welch

189. “A company has only so much money and managerial time. Winning leaders invest where the payback is the highest. They cut their losses everywhere else.”

— Jack Welch

190. “All of management is about self-confidence.”

— Jack Welch

191. “The Internet is the Viagra of big business.”

— Jack Welch

192. “The value decade is upon us. If you can’t sell a top-quality product at the world’s lowest price, you’re going to be out of the game.”

— Jack Welch

193. “What the Commission is seeking cuts the heart out of the strategic rationale of our deal.”

— Jack Welch

194. “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

195. “Don’t take a job because your mother wants you to. Don’t be a victim. You own your decision.”

— Jack Welch

196. “We have the brand, and we have the fulfillment capability. Now we had to get the Net, and that’s the easiest part of the game.”

— Jack Welch

197. “If work is just going in every day and getting a check, it’s an ugly life. When you can make work a meaningful purpose, you’ve hit the jackpot for people.”

— Jack Welch

198. “Out-innovating them is the way to beat China. And to do everything that we do in this country to support innovative policy, that drives innovation and new products and more jobs and creates jobs. You can’t – you can’t put a wall up around here. We tried that in the ’30s. It didn’t work.”

— Jack Welch

199. “When I stop learning something new and start talking about the past versus the future, I will go.”

— Jack Welch

200. “What business could be mature when you have economies with more than 2 billion people in India, China and Southeast Asia?”

— Jack Welch