Marshall Goldsmith Quotes

When you're building a business or joining a company, you have to be transparent; you can't have two sets of information for two sets of people.

Be fair in all your dealings, may it be in your family or in your business. At the end of it all, what matters is not how much money you make but how honest you are.

A business of high principle generates greater drive and effectiveness because people know that they can do the right thing decisively and with confidence.

There is a yearning for people to return to elementary moral virtues, such as integrity and commitment. We distrust people who have no centering of values. We greatly respect businessmen, for example, if they display those virtues, even if we don't necessarily agree with the people.

It was a department where you had honesty and integrity stamped right on you when you came into the Los Angeles Police Department. If you violated that, or if you were a dishonest cop, you were terrible. We got rid of you as quickly as possible.

Honesty and integrity are by far the most important assets of an entrepreneur.

Convinced that behavior and conduct are every bit as important as skills and expertise, I sought to build the firm into an enduring, values-based institution.

I try to live with honor, even if it costs me millions of dollars and takes a long time. It's very unusual in Hollywood. Few people are trustworthy - a handshake means nothing to them. They feel they're required to keep an agreement with you only if you're successful or they need you.

Ethics or simple honesty is the building blocks upon which our whole society is based, and business is a part of our society, and it's integral to the practice of being able to conduct business, that you have a set of honest standards.

My rule for the corporate stuff is the same as with my music - I do whatever means I can sleep at night and whatever means I can be dignified.

History has shown that one cannot legislate a culture of integrity. And yet, one of the paramount responsibilities and challenges of corporate leadership is to ensure such a culture.

If politicians throwing mud begin to slip in it, perhaps they will head for higher ground.

If someone committed a crime, they will no longer work in my administration.

I'm just in an unfortunate business where if you ask me a question I have to answer it honestly and if I don't answer it truthfully then I'm not respected.

Our culture does not teach us this, but what happens in Vegas does not stay in Vegas. If you cheat in Vegas, it comes right home with you. If you cheat in Vegas, you walk home as a cheater. You lie awake at a night a cheater. You cannot escape it.

I have great admiration for the way the Americans do business. They drive a hard bargain, but once they do it, they stick to their contracts.

The more people rationalize cheating, the more it becomes a culture of dishonesty. And that can become a vicious, downward cycle. Because suddenly, if everyone else is cheating, you feel a need to cheat, too.

Every young man would do well to remember that all successful business stands on the foundation of morality.

Branding jails corporate America, but honesty sets entrepreneurs free.

I think character is real important. And you know, and I think the public does.

Character in leadership is the most important balance for leadership. Without character, leaders have no safety. Leadership has no protection without character.

There is no truth without responsibility following in its wake.

There's one thing very important to me in business and for the long-term: always be honest with people. For the past 60 years, I always pay my debts.

In all my public and private acts as your president, I expect to follow my instincts of openness and candor with full confidence that honesty is always the best policy in the end.

Let us be tried by our actions.