Success Quote by Jim Barksdale

“Jump with our own parachutes” is corporate swagger with a moral spine. Jim Barksdale isn’t selling daredevil heroics so much as a governance principle: if you’re going to push people out of the plane, you’d better be wearing the same gear. The line works because it turns an abstract demand - accountability - into a visceral image of consequence. You can’t outsource gravity.

The specific intent is reassurance and provocation at once. To employees and investors, it signals that leadership has skin in the game, that incentives aren’t rigged so executives win even when the company craters. To competitors and would-be skeptics, it’s a challenge: we’re not floating on hype, subsidies, or financial engineering; our fate is tied to our decisions.

Subtextually, Barksdale is taking aim at a familiar corporate sin: executives who preach “ownership” while insulating themselves with golden parachutes, severance packages, and downside protection. The phrase “our own company as an example” tries to preempt cynicism - don’t trust the slogan, look at the structure. It’s a subtle nod to the late-20th-century shift toward performance culture, stock options, and entrepreneurial management, when “alignment” became both a mantra and, often, a cover story.

Context matters because Barksdale’s era (and his reputation in tech and telecom-adjacent leadership) prized speed, risk, and disruption. In that world, credibility comes from visible exposure: leaders who bet alongside their people earn loyalty; leaders who hedge invite quiet revolt. The beauty of the metaphor is that it admits the jump is real. The pitch isn’t safety. It’s shared risk - and the insistence that shared risk is the only honest way to lead.