* Maintain your integrity. Establish your integrity and never waver from it. People might not have agreed with Welch on every issue, but they always knew they were getting it straight and honest.
* Set the tone for your company. The organization takes its cue from the person at the top. Welch always told his leaders that their personal intensity determined their organization’s intensity-how hard they worked and how many people they touched would be emulated a thousand times over.
* Maximize your organization’s intellect. Getting everyone’s mind into the game is a huge part of what being a CEO is all about; taking their best ideas and transferring them to others is the secret. Be open to the best of what everyone, everywhere has to offer, than transfer that learning across the organization.
.* Put people first, strategy second. Getting the right people in the right jobs is a lot more important than developing strategy. This truth applies to all kinds of businesses. Without the best leaders in place, the best most forward thinking strategies in the world will amount to little.
* Stress informality. Bureaucracy strangles; informality liberates. Creating an informal atmosphere is a competitive advantage. It isn’t about first names, unassigned parking spaces or casual clothing. It is about making sure everyone counts and everybody knows they count. Passion, chemistry and ideas flow from any level at any place is what maters.
* Be self-confident. Arrogance is a killer and wearing ambition on one’s sleeve can have the same effect. Legitimate self-confidence however, is a winner. The true test of self-confidence is the courage to be open to welcome change and new ideas, regardless of their source. Self-confident people also are not afraid to have their views challenged. They relish the intellectual combat that enriches ideas.
* Appraise all the time. Whether you are handing out a stock option, giving a raise or simply bumping into someone in the hallway always let your people know where you stand.
* Mind your culture. If your company joins forces with another through a merger and acquisition, establish the new entity’s culture on day one, to minimize confusion and root out resistance to your goals.
* Recognize the benefits of speed. By acting decisively on people, plants and investments, Jack Welch was able to get out of the pile very early in his career at GE. Yet upon his retirement 40 years later one of his greatest regrets was that he had not acted fast enough on a number of occasions. He never regretted taking quick action.
* Forget the zeros. The entrepreneurial benefits of being small-agility, speed and ease of communication-are often lost in a big company. Welch’s experience in plastics enabled him to come to the job of CEO knowing that isolating small projects and keeping them out of the mainstream was a smart thing to do. By focusing on such projects as separate, smaller businesses, the people involved were more energized, adventures and back by the right esources.