Top 50 Quotes & Sayings by Jeffrey R. Immelt

There is no real magic to being a good leader. But at the end of every week, you have to spend your time around the things that are really important: setting priorities, measuring outcomes, and rewarding them.

Leadership is an intense journey into yourself. You can use your own style to get anything done. It's about being self-aware. Every morning, I look in the mirror and say, 'I could have done three things better yesterday.'

I grew up in Cincinnati, Ohio, and my parents are really right wingers. My dad watches, like, five or six hours of 'Fox News' every day and stuff like that.

I think this notion that it's the population of the U.S. against the big companies is just wrong.

I think that if you run a big company, you've got to, four or five times a year, just say, 'Hey team, look, here's where we're going.' If you do it 10 times, nobody wants to work for you. If you do it zero times, you have anarchy.

Business leaders should provide expertise in service of our country. My predecessors at GE have done so, as have leaders of many other great American companies.

I think we should have basically the same tax policy that Germany, Japan, the U.K., everybody else has, which is a tax rate in the mid-20s and no loopholes. Zero. The U.S. has the most antiquated tax system. And that means some people are going to pay more taxes, and some people are going to pay less.

President Obama has asked me to chair his new President's Council on Jobs and Competitiveness.

GE sells more than 96 percent of its products to the private sector, where America's future must be built. But government can help business invest in our shared future.

I'd be lying if I didn't say there were days when I went back and said, 'I wish I'd done this. I should have done that. I handled this the wrong way.' But it's always in the motivation of getting better. I've never once looked in the mirror and said, 'Oh boy, can't do this one.'

When I was a young guy, when I first started with G.E., Jack Welch sent us all to Japan because in those days Japan was gonna crush us. And we learned a lot about Japan when we were there. But over the subsequent 30 years, the Japanese companies all fell behind. And the reason why they fell behind is because they didn't globalize.

You can stay too long in a job, that's for sure. But by the same token, in the 12 years I have been CEO of GE, there have been four CEOs of Toshiba. So there's too short a time to do it, and there's too long a time to do it.

September 11 was horrific, but I've been through enough crises before that I had my own pattern as to how to collect facts, what a leader should do, how to communicate with people, how to set up operating mechanisms to work our way through it.

When you take over a company like GE, you think you're going to visit 100 businesses. You're going to go see the factories you haven't seen before. You're going to see a site in Texas and one in Canada and stuff like that. That has fallen by the wayside.

As one of America's largest exporters, GE remains committed to producing more products in the United States, which is our home and largest market.

Every leader needs to clearly explain the top three things the organization is working on. If you can't, then you're not leading well.

I do business in 170 countries; none of them is perfect. There is not even one country that I think of, and I am like, 'God, that did everything that I wanted it to do.'

Many bought into the idea that America could go from a technology-based, export-oriented powerhouse to a services-led, consumption-based economy - and somehow still expect to prosper. That idea was flat wrong. Our economy tilted instead toward the quicker profits of financial services.

Enron and 9/11 marked the end of an era of individual freedom and the beginning of personal responsibility.

I have learned that nothing is certain except for the need to have strong risk management, a lot of cash, the willingness to invest even when the future is unclear, and great people.

The one thing that people don't get about GE is that, to the people who work here, it's not a company. It's not just a job. You feel like you're part of a 120-year-old ever-growing, ever-improving family.

Is France a completely open market to G.E.? No, of course not. I think we're more discerning about China because it's China, and they're big, and they're more concerning. But the best global companies are ones that are nuanced.

I love working with customers. Sales has really influenced everything I do. It has instilled in me the important traits of operating with a sense of urgency and listening to people.

I'm a complete globalist. I think like a global CEO. But I'm an American. I run an American company. But in order for GE to be successful in the coming years, I've gotta sell my products in every corner of the world.

I think there's a need for somewhat of a mindset change. We need to have a consistent external focus. We've always had the research labs. We've always had the resources to be innovative, and we've been innovative in a number of businesses. But, in any big company, you have to constantly push people to look at markets and customers, rather than look internally at themselves.

And people is the most important part of my job. I spend one third of my time on people.

Really, the one thing that actually works - you know, state-run communism may not be your cup of tea, but [China's] government works.

Values can't just be words on a page. To be effective, they must shape action.

Managing innovation better may be the only way out of the abyss called commodity hell.

Surviving a failure gives you more self-confidence. Failures are great learning tools - but they must be kept to a minimum.

The reason people come to work for GE, they want to be apart of something bigger than themselves, they want to work for a company that makes a difference, a company that is doing great things in the world.

You can't delegate growth or customer satisfaction.

In business as in life, sometimes bad things happen to good people, and sometimes good things happen to bad people. But over time, if you play long enough, everybody gets what he deserves - good and bad.

I was never afraid of failure. I realized that I was responsible for my own success and that every day offers a new beginning and I was confident in my ability to improve.

I grew up in Cincinnati, Ohio, and my parents are really right wingers. My dad watches, like, five or six hours of Fox News every day and stuff like that.

It's the sustained ability to change that really counts.

The most important thing I've learned since becoming CEO is context. It's how your company fits in with the world and how you respond to it.

Good leaders are very curious, and they spend a lot of time trying to learn things.

I'm out talking about this company (General Electric) seven days a week, 24 hours a day, with nothing to hide. We're a 130-year-old company that has a great record of high-quality leadership and a culture of integrity.

People ought to invest in us because they like our company and the way they run it. We still do quarterly earnings guidance, but we tell people openly that they ought to look at the company for the long term and that's how they ought to invest.

Every leader needs to clearly explain the top three things the organization is working on. If you can't, you are not leading well.

I was Chairman for two days. I had an airplane with my engines, hit a building I insured, was covered by a network I owned and I still have to increase earnings by 11 percent.

The best thing you can give as a leader is a reason to trust. People want to trust. They're hungry for it. But they're selective. They'll only give it to a motivator, a communicator, a teacher, a real person. Someone who in good times and bad always does the right thing.

Good leaders don't tell people what to do, they give teams capability and inspiration.

I've been seeing the change. It's been steady. It's been more controlled than people think. And my own belief is that China knows it also needs to be part of the world, and that it needs to be able to have trade with Europe and the United States in order to house and feed a billion people. That's really kind of single-mindedly what they see their role as being.

Live with passion. Live with purpose.

Seeing people in person is a big part of how you drive any change process. You have to show people a positive view of the future and say "we can do it"

I'm an optimist. I've always believed the future is going to be better than the past. And I also believe I have a role in that. The great thing about human beings, myself in particular, is that I can change. I can do better. If you can get up every day, stay optimistic, and believe the future is better than the past, those few things get you through a lot of tough times.

If the only common thread you have as an industrial company is the fact that you think you're well managed, you can still be a pretty good company, but you're not going to be a dominant company, a competitive company over time.

Work hard with passion and courage. Life is a marathon of contribution. You really must work hard to accomplish something... Find your passion and get good at it.