Walmart CEO Mike Duke leads the world's biggest retailer, which has 2.1 million employees and serves 200 million customers each week. Here are excerpts from a recent interview Duke did with The Associated Press:
‘Q. What ideals from Sam Walton do you embrace?
A. Leadership is about showing respect to every individual, about humility over arrogance, about listening and getting feedback from a broad array of constituents. It's about a passion for customers and knowing customers first-hand, not theoretical, not through some data, but by having personal, passionate communication with customers.
And leadership is about striving for excellence. It's about setting aggressive goals and not being afraid to go after very aggressive goals and targets. I think it's even better for a leader to set an aggressive goal and come up a little short than it would be to set a soft goal and to exceed it.
Q. What should a leader value most?
A. Integrity and trust. If a leader doesn't have the trust of associates, of customers, of shareholders, then all the other things, the ability to speak eloquently and to sing and dance and entertain, (don't) mean a thing if a leader is not trusted.’
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