Zig Ziglar Quotes

There is no substitute for accurate knowledge. Know yourself, know your business, know your men.

My experience has shown me that the people who are exceptionally good in business aren't so because of what they know but because of their insatiable need to know more.

The person who knows "how" will always have a job. The person who knows "why" will always be his boss

Organization can never be a substitute for initiative and for judgment.

If any successes has come to me, it came because I insisted on thinking things through. That's all I was capable of doing in life, was thinking pretty hard about trying to get the right answer, and then acting on it. I never learned to do anything else.

Throughout my career, I've been someone who's led... and solved problems we had.

Candidates need to demonstrate strategic thinking and strong problem solving skills. And, just as importantly, they need to know when and how to ask for help.

When you are in a situation or a crisis, you need to define, what is the unique role that I can play?

Great leaders don't rush to blame. They instinctively look for solutions.

The experience of learning how to get straight to the core of a problem proved to be of immense value later when I had a long succession of responsibilities in large, complex government departments.

Management teams aren't good at asking questions. In business school, we train them to be good at giving answers.

This wealth of experiences, personal and professional, have helped me appreciate the variety of perspectives that present themselves in every case that I hear.

Great CEOs are not just born with shiny hair and a tie.

I learned hard lessons, and I've taken that lesson and it's helped me become a better business person and a better leader.

A president, like a college freshman, can't know in advance which questions he'll have to answer or what topics he'll have to master. He has to be flexible, supple, and responsive. He has to be comfortable with multiple-choice.

Men of routine or men who can do what they are told are not hard to find; but men who can think and plan and tell the routine men what to do are very rare.

As a leader, you have to have the ability to assimilate new information and understand that there might be a different view.

Great leaders are almost always great simplifiers, who can cut through argument, debate and doubt, to offer a solution everybody can understand.

A good part of my leadership skills is crafted from learning from experiences early in my career that were not positive experiences.

One man with a head on his shoulders is worth a dozen without.

I've learned a lot on the fly, and I think, actually, my academic and management consulting background has enabled me to quickly pick up on a lot of disciplines.

An executive is a person who always decides sometimes he decides correctly, but he always decides.

Men of routine or men who can do what they are told are not hard to find; but men who can think and plan and tell the routine men what to do are very rare. They are paid in proportion to the supply and demand of them

Questions matter. In business, remarkable performers are brilliant at getting to the right question: the one that speeds them to the place they need to get to and offers them the missing piece they need to find.

The biggest learning during my tenure as a captain was that, a lot of time, I used to think that this is common sense. But no, there is nothing called common sense.