Herb Kelleher quotes

If you create an environment where the people truly participate, you don't need control. They know what needs to be done and they do it. And the more that people will devote themselves to your cause on a voluntary basis, a willing basis, the fewer hierarchies and control mechanisms you need.
-- Herb Kelleher

#People #Needs #Done

Think small and act small, and we'll get bigger. Think big and act big, and we'll get smaller.
-- Herb Kelleher

#Inspirational #Thinking #Think Big

We have a strategic plan. It's called 'doing things'.
-- Herb Kelleher

#Hipster #Plans

A company is stronger if it is bound by love rather than by fear.
-- Herb Kelleher

#Leadership #Stronger #Company

You must be very patient, very persistent. The world isn't going to shower gold coins on you just because you have a good idea. You're going to have to work like crazy to bring that idea to the attention of people. They're not going to buy it unless they know about it.
-- Herb Kelleher

#Crazy #Ideas #People

You don't hire for skills, you hire for attitude. You can always teach skills.
-- Herb Kelleher

#Attitude #Skills #Teach

Leading an organization is as much about soul as it is about systems. Effective leadership finds its source in understanding
-- Herb Kelleher

#Organization #Understanding #Soul

Treat your employees like customers.
-- Herb Kelleher

#Hustle #Treats #Employee

We will hire someone with less experience, less education, and less expertise, than someone who has more of those things and has a rotten attitude. Because we can train people. We can teach people how to lead. We can teach people how to provide customer service. But we can't change their DNA.
-- Herb Kelleher

#Attitude #Dna #People

The tragedy of our time is that we've got it backwards, we've learned to love techniques and use people.
-- Herb Kelleher

#People #Design #Tragedy

If the Wright brother were alive today Wilbur would have to fire Orville to reduce costs.
-- Herb Kelleher

#Brother #Fire #Live For Today

The Wright Amendment is a pain in the ass, but not every pain in the ***** is a constitutional infringement.
-- Herb Kelleher

#Pain #Ass #Amendments

It takes nerves of steel to stay neurotic.
-- Herb Kelleher

#Steel #Nerves #Neurotic

You [the employees] are involved in a crusade.
-- Herb Kelleher

#Crusades #Employee

I'm here to tell you that I am proud of a couple of things. First, I am very good at projectile vomiting. Second, I've never had a really serious venereal disease.
-- Herb Kelleher

#Couple #Vomiting #Disease

The important thing is to take the bricklayer and make him understand that he’s building a home, not just laying bricks.
-- Herb Kelleher

#Home #Important #Bricks

Sometimes you need a little courage too just to buck popular opinion.
-- Herb Kelleher

#Needs #Bucks #Littles

The people of Southwest have always been my pride, my joy and my love. Their indomitable dedication and esprit de corps have taken Southwest from a three-airplane dream to a 500-airplane reality.
-- Herb Kelleher

#Dream #Taken #Airplane

I learned it by doing it, and I was scared to death.
-- Herb Kelleher

#Life Lesson #Scared #Life Death

You have to treat your employees like your customers. When you treat them right they will treat your outside customers right.
-- Herb Kelleher

#Like You #Treats #Employee

If the employees come first, then they're happy. A motivated employee treats the customer well. The customer is happy so they keep coming back, which pleases the shareholders. It's not one of the enduring green mysteries of all time, it is just the way it works.
-- Herb Kelleher

#Green #Way #Firsts

One piece of advice that always stuck in my mind is that people should be respected and trusted as people, not because of their position or title.
-- Herb Kelleher

#People #Advice #Mind

Power should be reserved for weightlifting and boats, and leadership really involves responsibility.
-- Herb Kelleher

#Responsibility #Boat #Should

It is my practice to try to understand how valuable something is by trying to imagine myself without it.
-- Herb Kelleher

#Practice #Trying #Imagine

I think my greatest moment in business was when the first Southwest airplane arrived after four years of litigation and I walked up to it and I kissed that baby on the lips and I cried.
-- Herb Kelleher

#Baby #Airplane #Thinking

The business of business is people.
-- Herb Kelleher

#People

To be an excellent leader, you have to be a superb follower,
-- Herb Kelleher

#Leader #Followers #Excellent

The clear, unmistakable sign of a bureaucrat is somebody who worries about whether he has a window.
-- Herb Kelleher

#Worry #Window #Clear

Keep costs low and spirits high, and the people of Southwest Airlines will keep LUV in the air.
-- Herb Kelleher

#Air #People #Cost

Wild Turkey whiskey and Philip Morris cigarettes are essential to the maintenance of human life!
-- Herb Kelleher

#Turkeys #Essentials #Maintenance

Your employees come first. And if you treat your employees right, guess what? Your customers come back, and that makes your shareholders happy. Start with employees and the rest follows from that.
-- Herb Kelleher

#Firsts #Treats #Employee

I've found that many of the greatest ideas surface in bars because that's where many people cultivate inspiration.
-- Herb Kelleher

#Inspiration #Ideas #People

You have to treat your employees like customers
-- Herb Kelleher

#Treats #Employee

Everybody in Texas would tell me that they thought I was nuts trying to start Southwest Airlines. There probably weren't 10 people in the state who would have given a plug nickel for our chances of making a dollar. So sometimes, you need a little courage, too, just to buck popular opinion.
-- Herb Kelleher

#Texas #Nuts #People

If you don't treat your own people well, they won't treat other people well.
-- Herb Kelleher

#Leadership #People #Treats

The essential difference in service is not machines or 'things.' The essential difference is minds, hearts, spirits, and souls.
-- Herb Kelleher

#Heart #Differences #Soul

If you're crazy enough to do what you love for a living, then you're bound to create a life that matters.
-- Herb Kelleher

#Crazy #Matter #Enough