Despite many people being involved in the process, the ultimate decision should be made solo. Only the CEO has comprehensive knowledge of the criteria, the rationale for the criteria, all of the feedback from interviewers and references, and the relative importance of the various stakeholders. Consensus decisions about executives almost always sway the process away from strength and toward lack of weakness.

Yet I know so well from experience that in the final showdown your future is strictly up to you. No book, no lecture, or rabbi, and no motivational tape, can do anything toward altering the way you live unless *you* are determined to pay the price in time and effort and sacrifice and pain. The choice is yours . . . and yours alone.

I can't make this decision for you, Allie, this one's all yours. I want you to know, though, that I love you. And I always will. I know that doesn't help, but it's all I can do.

Whatever possibilities and potentialities are latent today, the fact remains that the last word and the final decision will rest with us — the people.

There is only one good. And that is to act according to the dictates of one's conscience.

...if what I say is responsible, I alone am responsible for the saying of it...

"What took you so long? It's about time." When you are the leader, you sometimes are the only one with the authority to make a tough call,

Ultimately, you alone are responsible for the choices and decisions you make. Your future ultimately depends on what you do with your present. It's those small decisions, those choices that can change your life forever.

...I said everything that matters... Don't take my advice. Or anyone's advice. Trust yourself. For good or for bad, happy or unhappy, it's your life, and what you do with it has always been entirely up to you.

I swear, you are the only person I know who makes decisions based on what will provide the best material for a diary.

There is but one power to which I can yield a heart felt obedience, the decision of my own understanding, the dictate of my own conscience

You're on your own. And you know what you know. And YOU are the one who'll decide where to go...

You alone are responsible for what you do, don’t do, or how you respond to what’s done to you.

During the meeting, since it’s the employee’s meeting, the manager should do 10 percent of the talking and 90 percent of the listening. Note that this is the opposite of most one-on-ones. While it’s not the manager’s job to set the agenda or do the talking, the manager should try to draw the key issues out of the employee.

The solitary creator, dreaming his or her dream, unaided, seems to me to be the only artist we can trust.