X Leadership Principles

We earn our expertise every day by learning from the best leaders in the world. Here are our "teachers"

”Earn your leadership every day.”

Michael Jordan

This is what these X Leadership Principles are meant for: we share our experiences gained in having developed high-performing leaders all around the world for almost 20 years to accompany you in your daily re-development.

Mary Barra,

CEO General Motors

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Sundar Pichai,

CEO Google

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Satya Nadella,

CEO Microsoft

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Whitney Wolfe Herd,

co-founder Tinder

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Jeff Bezos,

CEO Amazon

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Corie Barry,

CEO Amazon

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Lisa Su,

CEO AMD

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Elon Musk,

CEO AMD

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Jack Ma,

Founder Alibaba

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Larry Page,

co-Founder Google

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A.G Lafley,

ex-CEO P&G

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Steve Jobs,

co-Founder Apple

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Adena Friedman,

CEO Nasdaq, Inc.

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Safra A. Catz,

CEO Oracle Corporation

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Akio Toyoda,

CEO Toyota

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Sue Y. Nabi,

CEO Coty Inc.

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Carol Tomé,

CEO United Parcel Service

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X Leadership Principles

To lead others,
lead yourself first

Throughout your career, people don’t listen to you. They are too busy observing what you do. In life and in business, actions speak louder than words. Never negotiate your values. Preserve them while being willing to change everything else to stay in the lead.

Play to win

A company must seek to win in a particular market and in a particular way. If it doesn’t seek to win, it is wasting the time of its people and the money of its capital investors. When a company sets out to participate, rather than win, it will inevitably fail to make the tough choices and the significant investments that would make winning even a remote possibility. Therefore, to play merely to participate is self-defeating. It is a recipe for mediocrity. It’s the recipe to lose. Winning with your customers and against your competitors is what matters—and it is the ultimate criterion of a successful business strategy.

Make the
customer the boss

The customer can fire everybody in the company from the chairman on down, simply by spending his money with someone else. To win, you need to make the customer the boss: understand them, uncover their unmet needs, and design solutions for them better than any competitor can.

Shape the change

Change is the only constant in life and business. One cannot manage change. One can only be ahead of it. Those who resist change will not survive; those who adapt to change may survive but they will not lead; and those who shape change will lead and win decisively and disproportionately. Shaping the change is the only way to play to win.

Deliver
what is needed

Hope is not strategy, waiting is not an action, and luck is not a method. To deliver what is needed, execution must follow commitment as day follows night. To win, activity must deliver results. Your customers don’t reward your effort or your past achievements, they only reward the smiles you put in their life every day.

Go and see

When you and your teams spend too much time buried deep in spreadsheets, you spend too much time showing customers your behind. Go and see is our prior responsibility as leaders. This means being able to understand, together with our teams, the customer requirements where the value is created, where the customer experience is delivered, and where the customer expectations are satisfied. The more deeply you understand your business, people and customers, the more capable and empowered you are to make the choices to win.

Manage by altitude

High Performance Leaders are those who have the ability to balance strategy and execution. They hover at +10,000 feet to see the full picture that gives the direction. They also dive to -500 feet to understand the details and be able to help to execute with excellence. Strategic choices provide direction, but it’s execution that delivers results. After all, execution is the only strategy that your customers will ever witness.

Leverage the
power of diversity

Make diversity a business strategy. You won’t win in the market unless you make your organization understand, value and reflect the diversity of the customers you serve. The learning rate of an organization depends on how much it is fueled by different ideas and experiences. Diverse organizations will out-think, out-innovate, and out-perform homogenous organizations every single time.

Design your organization to win

All organizations are perfectly designed to get the results they get. Goals, strategies and values without work and organization design to support them are empty promises. Greatness is not a result of circumstance; greatness is mainly a matter of conscious choice and discipline. To deliver superior results, learn to assess and design your organization holistically — the work processes, and management systems that enable your teams to contribute to their full potential, outpace your competitors and win.

Sow what you
want to reap

If you want corn, plant corn. Live your life and perform your job with the mindset that whatever you leave behind will come back to you sometime in the future. The reality is that your legacy will always come back to you at some point and in some way. Don’t forget that, as a leader, you are in the unique position to develop the next generation of leaders. Leaders who deserve the trust of their teams, families and communities they serve. Greatness is not a result of circumstance; greatness is mainly a matter of conscious choice and discipline. To deliver superior results, learn to assess and design your organization holistically — the work processes, and management systems that enable your teams to contribute to their full potential, outpace your competitors and win.

Every day throw away your trophies and start over again

The greatest enemy of excellence is not mediocrity. It is the tolerance of mediocrity. Be intolerant with it. Choose to push boundaries and go further after each accomplishment. Recognize the people who do the hard jobs, those jobs that are the easiest to avoid. Reward those who are ahead of change, those who embrace new experiences and challenges in the search for greater achievements. These actions will fight against complacency and will create the culture of courage to continuously shape the future and win.

Download the
X Leadership Principles

New business challenges, unprecedented business perspectives.

X Leadership Principles

We earn our expertise every day by learning from the best leaders in the world. Here are our "teachers"

Michael Jordan

This is what these X Leadership Principles are meant for: we share our experiences gained in having developed high-performing leaders all around the world for almost 20 years to accompany you in your daily re-development.

Mary Barra,

CEO General Motors

Sundar Pichai,

CEO Google

Satya Nadella,

CEO Microsoft

Whitney Wolfe Herd,

co-founder Tinder

Jeff Bezos,

CEO Amazon

Corie Barry,

CEO Amazon

+ INFO

Lisa Su,

CEO AMD

Elon Musk,

CEO AMD

Jack Ma,

Founder Alibaba

Larry Page,

co-Founder Google

A.G Lafley,

ex-CEO P&G

Steve Jobs,

co-Founder Apple

Adena Friedman,

CEO Nasdaq, Inc.

Safra A. Catz,

CEO Oracle Corporation

Akio Toyoda,

CEO Toyota

Sue Y. Nabi,

CEO Coty Inc.

Carol Tomé,

CEO United Parcel Service

Download theX Leadership Principles

Throughout your career, people don’t listen to you. They are too busy observing what you do. In life and in business, actions speak louder than words. Never negotiate your values. Preserve them while being willing to change everything else to stay in the lead.

The customer can fire everybody in the company from the chairman on down, simply by spending his money with someone else. To win, you need to make the customer the boss: understand them, uncover their unmet needs, and design solutions for them better than any competitor can.

Download theX Leadership Principles

Download X Leadership Principles

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Download the
X Leadership Principles

Download the
X Leadership Principles

Success
Stories

Successful
Implementations

Business
Portfolio

Blog &
Insights