Core values, principles, and beliefs. "In today's rapidly changing global marketplace, it is critical for organizations to effectively navigate in a permanent whitewater worldÉ To do this, leaders need a changeless foundation of values and principles. This changeless core gives people the capacity to deal with the dynamic changes and forces that surround them." -Dr. Stephen R. Covey
Clear vision and direction. "Strategic Leadership is about effectively navigating change. It's about taking people from where they are now to where they need to be. The best way to get people to venture into unknown terrain is to make it desirable by taking them there in their imaginations." -Noel M. Tichy
Focus on being relevant to our customers and marketplace, "your organization does not inherently have a right to exist, you exist because you have a customer that is willing to pay for a product, services, or technology." Jim Stuart
Not make the wrong strategic assumptions. "You cannot arrive at the right strategic direction without significant input from your customers. The customer is someone you must satisfy. If you don't, you have no results and pretty soon you have no business. The danger is in acting on what you believe satisfies the customer. You will inevitably make the wrong assumptions." Peter Drucker
Not have a bad strategy with flawless execution or you will execute to failure more quickly. Michael Porter
Know their organizational mission and purpose, "mission reflects the tension between why you exist and what you will change, and how particularly good at adapting to change and knowing what not to change." Jim Collins, Good to Great and How the Mighty Fall
Focus on adding customer value, "everything an organization should do well should focus on creating value for their customers." Jim Kouzes
"You can craft elegant strategies, but if you can't implement them and you don't have the tenacity to follow through on them you're not worth anything. If you look at companies that have done really well, they have great strategies, but more important, they have focused execution." Kevin Rollins
Know both strategy and execution, "what makes a great plan is the ability for monitoring execution real time and closing the feedback loop for the next planning cycle." V. Kasturi Rangan
Have disciplined execution. "Disciplined people who engage in disciplined thought and who take disciplined action: this framework captures much of what separates greatness from mediocrity." Jim Collins
Focus on a very few clear (goals) priorities that everyone can grasp. Why just a few? "First, anybody who thinks through the logic of a business will see that focusing on three or four key priorities will produce the best results from the resources at hand. Second, people in contemporary organizations need a small number of clear priorities to execute well... A leader who says, "I've got ten priorities" doesn't know what he's talking aboutÑhe doesn't know himself what the most important things are." Ram Charan
"If you can execute, you can accomplish anything. When a company has a clear mission, strategy, and goals and people know how their individual mission fits into the big picture -- everyone paddles in the same direction." Stephen Cooper
Define the right measures and outcomes of success. "Without clear measures, the same goal will mean a hundred different things to a hundred different people. What gets measured gets managed, what gets managed -- gets done." Peter Druker
Passion for execution. "Tentative effort leads to tentative outcomes. Give yourself fully to your endeavors. Decide to construct your character through excellent actions and determine to pay the price for worthwhile goals." Bronco Mendenhall
Focused and aligned actions. "Excellence never happens by accident. We have to make it happen. Our methods and actions matter every bit as much as our results." Price Pritchett
Planning on the vital few. "[I recommend that at] every year-long planning cycle where you develop your annual priorities, that you be rigorous about what your top few priorities areÑand that should be a very short list." Jim Collins
Decisive ability to choose yes or no. "People think focus means saying yes to the thing you've got to focus on. But that's not what it means at all. It means saying no to the 100 other good ideas that there are. You have to pick carefully." Steve Jobs
Get the right behavior change. "Leaders engage and foster having the right behavior. The central issue [of leadership] is never strategy, structure, culture, or systems. The core of the matter is always about changing the behavior of people." John Kotter.
"We must all suffer from one of two pains: the pain of discipline or the pain of regret." Jim Rohn
"It is easy to say NO to the unimportant, no matter how urgent it is when you have a clear sense of your mission and key goals." Dr. Stephen Covey
"The nicest thing about not planning is that failure comes as a complete surprise, rather than being preceded by a period of worry and depression." Sir John Harvey Jones
"A key to execution of goals is to posses the ability to carry out worthwhile behaviors and decisions after the emotion of making the commitment has passed." Hyrum Smith
"Any excuse for non-performance, however valid, softens the character. It is a sedative against one's own conscience. When a person attempts to convince themselves and convince others that unsatisfactory performance is somehow acceptable - the user is dishonest with themselves as well as others. No matter how good or valid, the excuse never changes the poor performance." William L. Fluckinger
"Follow-through is the cornerstone of execution, and every leader who's good at executing follows through religiously. Following through ensures that people are doing the things they have committed to do." Larry Bossidy
The disciplines of execution is a systematic way of exposing reality and acting on it. Most organizations don't face reality very well...that's the basic reason they have a difficult time focusing on and executing their key goals." Ram Charan and Larry Bossidy
