Quotes from Howard Schultz

One of the fundamental aspects of leadership, I realized more and more, is the ability to instill confidence in others when you yourself are feeling insecure

People want guidance, not rhetoric. They need to know what the plan of action is, and how it will be implemented. They want to be given responsibility to help solve the problem and authority to act on it.

Remember: You'll be left with an empty feeling if you hit the finish line alone. When you run a race as a team, though, you'll discover that much of the reward comes from hitting the tape together. You want to be surrounded not just by cheering onlookers but by a crowd of winners, celebrating as one.

If you examine a butterfly according to the laws of aerodynamics, it shouldn't be able to fly. But the butterfly doesn't know that, so it flies

My passion. My commitment. This is the most important thing in my life other than my family.

There are moments in our lives when we summon the courage to make choices that go against reason, against common sense and the wise counsel of people we trust. But we lean forward nonetheless because, despite all risks and rational argument, we believe that the path we are choosing is right and best thing to do. We refuse to be bystanders, even if we do not know exactly where our actions will lead.

To stay vigorous, a company needs to provide a stimulating and challenging environment for all these types: the dreamer, the entrepreneur, the professional manager, and the leader. If it doesn't, it risks becoming yet another mediocre corporation.

Early on I realized that I had to hire people smarter and ore qualified than I was in a number of different fields, and I had to let go of a lot of decision-making. I can't tell you how hard that is. But if you've imprinted your values on the people around you, you can dare to trust them to make the right moves.

For all the promise of digital media to bring people together, I still believe that the most sincere, lasting powers of human connection come from looking directly into someone else's eyes, with no screen in between.

There's a metaphor Vincent Eades likes to use: If you examine a butterfly according to the laws of aerodynamics, it shouldn't be able to fly. But the butterfly doesn't know that, so it flies.

Work should be personal. For all of us. Not just for the artist and entrepreneur. Work should have meaning for the accountant, the construction worker, the technologist, the manager and the clerk.

To be an enduring, great company, you have to build a mechanism for preventing or solving problems that will long outlast any one individual leader.

There are moments in our lives when we summon the courage to make choices that go against reason, against common sense and the wise counsel of people we trust.

Every step of the way, I made it a point to underpromise and overdeliver. In the long run, that's the only way to ensure security in any job.

But the reasons against going to New Orleans--that spicy southern city known for jazz and Mardi Gras and hospitality--were the very reasons we had to go.

Life is a sum of all your choices," wrote Albert Camus. Large or small, our actions forge our futures, hopefully inspiring others along the way.

Whenever I see someone carrying a cup of coffee from a Starbucks competitor, whether it's an independent coffee shop or a fast-food chain, I take their decision not to come to Starbucks personally. I wonder what I, as Starbucks' chairman and ceo, might have done to keep them away and what I might do to encourage them to come back or to try us for the first time.

Protect and preserve your core customers, he [Jim Sinegal, cofounder and CEO of Costco] told our marketing team when I invited him to speak to us. The cost of losing your core customers and trying to get them back during a down economy will be much greater than the cost of investing in them and trying to keep them.

I tried to build a company my father would have been proud to work for, that he would have looked back on and said, 'That's the company that honoured me, even though I don't have an education'. I wanted to build a company that had a conscience.

Great companies that build an enduring brand have an emotional relationship with customers that has no barrier. And that emotional relationship is on the most important characteristic, which is trust.

Sometimes you have to create the thing you want to be part of.

Who wants a dream that's near-fetched?

I think what we're lacking in society, not only in the U.S. but also around the world, is to find heroes once again and to celebrate these kind of people.

China traditionally has been a tea-drinking country but we turned them into coffee drinkers.