Many give lip service, but few delegate authority in important matters. And that means all they delegate is dog-work. A real leader does as much dog-work for his people as he can: he can do it, or see a way to do without it, ten times as fast. And he delegates as many important matters as he can because that creates a climate in which people grow.

Charisma is not generally associated with a true leader, in my opinion. It is more associated with the opposite: the corporate politician, who is what is the matter with our country. There are too many of this type in our corner offices.

Business fads may come and go, but there will always be a need for such pure voices in the wilderness.

As it turned out, I later followed Bob’s advice and attended the leadership program at Cal Tech.

commitment to product (service) quality, true delegation, encouragement of healthy dissent, and, above all, the virtue of putting customers first.You

Things get done in our society because of a man or a woman with conviction.

you don’t do it excellently, don’t do it at all. Because if it’s not excellent it won’t be profitable or fun, and if you’re not in business for fun or profit, what the hell are you doing here?

INCENTIVE COMPENSATION AND PROFIT SHARING

once a month to put everything that was wrong at Radica on one sheet of paper—he’d told me he’d assume the best if I didn’t tell him otherwise. If a memo about a problem ever exceeded one page, he told me I didn’t understand the problem. Once a year, he asked for a one-page plan in case I went down in an airplane—that was the beginning of our succe