John T. Chambers Quotes

Don't manage - lead change before you have to.

To build a great company, which is a CEO's job, sometimes you have to stand up against conventional wisdom.

We started Kotter International to improve leaders' ability to deal with big, important transformations in organizations - and in their lives.

Create a compelling vision, one that takes people to a new place, and then translate that vision into a reality.

Because management deals mostly with the status quo and leadership deals mostly with change, in the next century we are going to have to try to become much more skilled at creating leaders.

Once an organization has a strong sense of mission, leaders can focus on trying new things.

Well, I've ruffled a few feathers at all the institutions I've led. But I think that's part of leadership.

Visionary CEOs are not 'just' great at assuring world-class execution of a tested and successful business model: they are also world-class innovators.

There is an inexorable correlation between leadership and change.

The transformation will come from leadership.

The world is starving for original and decisive leadership.

Change before you're forced to change.

Leaders must encourage their organizations to dance to forms of music yet to be heard.

The task of the leader is to get his people from where they are to where they have not been.

To me, success in the job is setting a vision, guiding an organization through change - which is exactly what I did at Digitas, and I'm very proud of that - and bringing people together and with you. That, to me, is what it takes to be successful.

When you deal with change, you have a couple choices: you can lead it and make the rules, or you can be a fast follower, or you can be a slow follower.

The one thing we know today is we can't continue to do business the way we have in the past.

The essence of statesmanship is not a rigid adherence to the past, but a prudent and probing concern for the future.

The chief strategist of an organization has to be the leader - the CEO.

The world of marketing has changed. You can lead the change or be a victim of change.

Leaders must invoke an alchemy of great vision.

When we talk about change, we, the business leaders, have to implement it. We have to look at what we're not doing and what we should be doing.

My goal is to change NXT. It is to change every company I've ever been to, and I've changed every company.

If I had to probably define and characterize my job, and maybe the job of a CEO today in this global world, highly volatile, uncertain, and when you need to transform is to be the catalyst for change. That's probably the definition I would give to my job. I'm the catalyst.

For me, I think Bob Iger is one of the smartest men in the country.