Lee Iacocca Quotes

Everybody in an organization has to believe their livelihood is based on the quality of the product they deliver.

If you want to continue being leaders in the world, start by getting some of that [Federal] debt off your backs. Debtors can’t be leaders. It’s the guy holding the IOUs who can call the shots; the other guy is called a hostage.

In a corporation, there can only be one guy in the end: the CEO.

To succeed today, you have to set priorities, decide what you stand for.

So what do we do? Anything. Something. So long as we just don’t sit there. If we screw it up, start over. Try something else. If we wait until we’ve satisfied all the uncertainties, it may be too late.

The ability to concentrate and to use time well is everything.

I hire people brighter than me and then I get out of their way.

No matter what you’ve done for yourself or for humanity, if you can’t look back on having given love and attention to your own family, what have you really accomplished?

What is wrong with changing your mind because the facts changed? But you have to be able to say why you changed your mind and how the facts changed.

It was emotional when Chrysler sold out to the Germans.

In a corporation, there can only be one guy in the end: the CEO.

I was at Ford for 32 years. I went to Chrysler in 1978, four or five months after I got canned by Henry Ford.

I guess that’s one achievement I’m really proud of. Saving Chrysler was more than jobs, more than shareholder value. Saving Chrysler was a good idea for the whole country.

I guess I invented extended warranties, because that’s all we had to sell at Chrysler in those days.

I always go back to Harry Truman: Should we drop an atomic bomb to save 100,000 lives? That’s a hell of a decision to make. Did he make that decision by himself? No, he had advisers.

Decisiveness is the one word that makes a good manager.

Chrysler builds great cars.

A guy named Charlie Beacham was my first mentor at Ford. He taught me the importance of the dealers, and he rubbed my nose in the retail business.