Herb Kelleher Quotes

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

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.

I'd say my mother made more of a difference to me than anyone else did. I know that's a conventional and perhaps mundane answer, but my family was blown apart at the start of World War II.

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

I've always been able to make erroneous decisions very quickly.

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.

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

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

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.

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

You can't have a mid-life crisis in the airline industry because every day is a crisis.

When I started working on Southwest Airlines, I kid you not, only people flying on business and very wealthy people ever flew.

It takes nerves of steel to stay neurotic.

You [the employees] are involved in a crusade.

You have to have the service mentality in the sense that you subjugate your own ego, and you subjugate a large part of your own life to really helping other people, being successful on their behalf.

People with different personalities, different approaches, different values succeed not because one set of values or priorities is superior but because their values and practices are genuine.

Your people come first, and if you treat them right, they'll treat the customers right.

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

Treat your employees like customers.

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

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.

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

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

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

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.

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

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

I guess the worst moment I ever had in business was the fear that Southwest Airlines wouldn't get off the ground.

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

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

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

The spirit of Southwest Airlines is exuberant, it's caring, it's dedicated, it's diligent, it's fun, it's rewarding, it's a joy.

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.

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

If employees aren't satisfied, they won't promote the product we need.