Failing to differentiate among employees — and holding on to bottom-tier performers — is actually the cruelest form of management there is.

Getting candor right - with your reports, your peers, and your boss - is a skill that can make or break your career.

Shareholder value is a result, not a strategy . . . Your main constituencies are your employees, your customers and your products.

One of the things about leadership is that you cannot be a moderate, balanced, thoughtful, careful articulator of policy. You've got to be on the lunatic fringe.

Public hangings are teaching moments. Every company has to do it. A teaching moment is worth a thousand CEO speeches. CEOs can talk and blab each day about culture, but the employees all know who the jerks are. They could name the jerks for you. It's just cultural. People just don't want to do it.

As leaders, we owe it to every employee to let them know where they stand in the organization.

The last thing you want to do is be a bore. When you wake up in the morning, give yourself a good mirror test. If you look like you’re going to be a sulking, pouting bore, slap yourself in the face before you go out to the office.