Ben Horowitz on Leadership Quotes

"Innovation requires a different kind of leadership. In peacetime, you have to be one way; in wartime, another."

"Every time you make the hard, correct decision you become a bit more courageous and every time you make the easy, wrong decision you become a bit more cowardly."

"As a CEO, I found that 90 percent of my time was spent on things that were not going well."

"Wartime CEO violates protocol but captures the mountain. Peacetime CEO follows protocol to win the war."

"If you don't have the habit of telling the truth, you won't have the trust of your team."

"Wartime CEOs do not have time for consensus."

"If you run a company, you will experience overwhelming psychological pressure to be overly positive. Stand up to the pressure."

"The most important skill for a CEO is the ability to communicate effectively."

"Trust is the glue that holds the organization together."

"The most important thing for a leader is to be able to tell the truth, even when it’s hard."

"The most important thing I learned is that there is no such thing as a perfect CEO."

"The habit of listening is more important than the habit of talking."

"If you don't believe in what you are doing, you will never be able to handle the pressure of being a CEO."

"Consistency in leadership is a habit, not a trait."

"Every time I read a management or self-help book, I find myself saying, 'That’s fine, but that wasn’t the hard thing about the situation.'"

"The Struggle is when you wonder why you started the company in the first place."

"Wartime CEOs do not have the luxury of consensus; they prioritize speed and accuracy."

"Hire for strength, not lack of weakness."

"In business, you must be willing to make the bet where, if you are wrong, you are fired."

"Culture is not a set of beliefs; it's a set of actions."

"Without trust, communication breaks. In any human interaction, the required amount of communication is inversely proportional to the level of trust."

"The way you treat people who leave is the habit that defines how people feel who stay."

"If you don't treat the people who leave well, the people who stay will never trust you."

"The best vision is one that turns a group of individuals into a team with a single purpose."

"If you can't be honest about the risks, you can't be trusted with the rewards."

"Creativity in management is about finding the right incentive to make the right behavior the easiest path."

"Wartime CEO is paranoid. Peacetime CEO knows that the company has to win and utilizes the contingent to do so."

"A good product manager is the CEO of the product."

"Hire for strength rather than lack of weakness."

"You must communicate the vision so often that you are sick of hearing yourself talk about it."

"Culture is not a set of values; it is the priority of behaviors you reward."

"A leader's habit of attention determines the organization's focus."

"In wartime, the company is facing an imminent existential threat. Such a threat can come from many sources, including competition."