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True leadership has people who follow when they have the freedom not to.

James C. Collins

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James C. Collins
Age: 66
Born: 1958
Born: January 25
Author
Businessperson
Journalist
Writer
Boulder
Colorado
Follow
Leadership
Freedom
True
People

More quotes by James C. Collins

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The critical question is not whether you'll have luck, but what you do with the luck that you get.
James C. Collins
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I am completely Socratic.
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Profit is like oxygen, food, water, and blood for the body they are not the point of life, but without them, there is no life.
James C. Collins
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The greatest leaders build organizations that, in the end, don't need them.
James C. Collins
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A great company will have many once-in-a-liftetime opportunities.
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Growth! is not a Hedgehog Concept. Rather, if you have the right Hedgehog Concept and make decisions relentlessly consistent with it, you will create such momentum that your main problem will not be how to grow, but how not to grow too fast.
James C. Collins
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The secret to a successful retirement is to find your retirement sweet spot. The sweet spot is where your passions, what you do best, and what people will pay you to do overlap.
James C. Collins
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It occurs to me,Jim,that you spend too much time trying to be interesting. Why don't you invest more time being interested? Collin's advice from John Gardner that he took to heart.
James C. Collins
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Good is the enemy of great. And that's one of the key reasons why we have so little that becomes great.
James C. Collins
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Comparison, a great teacher once told me, is the cardinal sin of modern life. It traps us in a game that we can't win. Once we define ourselves in terms of others, we lose the freedom to shape our own lives.
James C. Collins
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If I'm going really, really fast, I can do a page of finished text a day, on average.
James C. Collins
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Greatness is not a function of circumstance. Greatness, it turns out, is largely a matter of conscious choice, and discipline.
James C. Collins
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To have a Welch-caliber C.E.O. is impressive.To have a century of Welch-Caliber C.E.O.'s all grown from the inside - well, that is one key reason why G.E. is a visionary company.
James C. Collins
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A visionary company doesn't simply balance between idealism and profitability: it seeks to be highly idealistic and highly profitable. A visionary company doesn't simply balance between preserving a tightly held core ideology and stimulating vigorous change and movement it does both to an extreme.
James C. Collins
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By definition, it is not possible to everyone to be above the average.
James C. Collins
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We are not imprisoned by circumstances, setbacks, mistakes or staggering defeats, we are freed by our choices.
James C. Collins
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I've never found an important decision made by a great organization that was made at a point of unanimity. Significant decisions carry risks and inevitably some will oppose it. In these settings, the great legislative leader must be artful in handling uncomfortable decisions, and this requires rigor.
James C. Collins
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The only way to remain great is to keep on applying the fundamental principles that made you great.
James C. Collins
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Consider the idea that charisma can be as much a liability as an asset. Your strength of personality can sow the seeds of problems, when people filter the brutal facts from you.
James C. Collins
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The inner experience of fallure is totally different than failure. Going to fallure means 100% commitment - you leave nothing in reserve, no mental or physical resource untapped, you never give yourself a psychological out. Failure means making a decision to let go, to be less than 100% committed, when confronted by fear, pain and uncertainty.
James C. Collins