Leadership Quote by Lee Scott

Power is rarely as candid as it is here: communication, in Lee Scott's framing, isn't a dialogue. It's a one-man broadcast with consequences attached. The line collapses two ideas that corporations usually keep politely separate: internal messaging and discipline. By declaring that no one will talk about "it" except him, Scott isn't just controlling information; he's defining reality. The only sanctioned version of events is the version that travels downward from the CEO's mouth to the store floor.

The subtext is a managerial worldview where silence equals alignment. "Except me" reads like an admission that open discussion is a liability, not a value. And then comes the kicker: "that is communication". It's a redefinition that turns what most people would call intimidation into a leadership virtue. Communication becomes the act of delivering an ultimatum clearly enough that nobody feels safe to misunderstand it.

Context matters because Scott, as Walmart's CEO, operated at a scale where culture is enforced through systems, not charisma. His reference to "visits" and "meetings with our store managers" signals a chain-of-command enforcement model: corporate compliance translated into local fear. The phrase "terminated, period" is American corporate vernacular at its most blunt, designed to travel well in a massive organization. It's not persuasion; it's deterrence.

What makes the quote effective is its accidental honesty. It reveals how power often works in the modern workplace: keep the message narrow, keep the penalties vivid, and call the resulting obedience "communication."