John T. Chambers

I think at least my philosophy of leadership is you focus more on the areas you have to improve or the mistakes than you do on your successes. And that's just how I am in real life. I don't want to let down my customers, my employees, my shareholders.

Digital is going to have five times the impact than the information era. Just because you led the first transition as a company or country, that doesn't mean you will lead in this one.

By exciting citizens about the new digital opportunity, breaking down silos of competing groups to form a truly open innovation ecosystem and shifting day-to-day resources to focus on big long-term investments for the future, countries can ensure that they break through and bridge the digital gap.

A well-run organization turns over 10% of their organizations, including senior leadership. I don't have the heart to do that.

The number one objective is that people who make the investment in digitization, whether they are governments or service providers, get a reasonable return.

When a leader doesn't do his or her job, it isn't just a problem with the person. They take their whole organization down.

Today's world requires a different leadership style - more collaboration and teamwork, including using Web 2.0 technologies. If you had told me I'd be video blogging and blogging, I would have said, 'No way.' And yet our 20-somethings in the company really pushed me to use that more.

To go back to a 1950s voice mentality with Title II and net neutrality would be a tremendous mistake for our country.

If we're going to acquire, what are we going to do differently? We came up with six rules of thumb. Whenever I've violated two of them, I usually get into trouble.

At Cisco, we are moving to collaboration teams, groups coming together that represent sales, engineering, finance, legal, etc. And we're training leaders to think across silos.

Cities, too, are embracing digitization. Barcelona has installed in-ground parking sensors and launched connected public transportation as part of its Smart City strategy.

I think India should be our top ally in Asia Pacific. And the two countries have so much in common, including being the largest and most powerful democracies.