HP CEO Meg Whitman has led some of the world's most prominent companies. Three years on the job at HP, Whitman has helped the company navigate a turnaround, ushering in an era she calls the "new style of IT" and driving growth for HP and its partners. In addition to HP, she helped grow EBay from $4 million to $8 billion and from 30 employees to 15,000 employees in 10 years.

At the Global Technology Distribution Council (GTDC) U.S. Vendor Summit in San Jose, Calif., Whitman took the stage for a chat with GTDC CEO Tim Curran. When the two top executives opened up the panel to the audience, Whitman was asked: You've had such a diverse and successful career in leadership, what leadership lessons would you share from your experiences?

Here are Whitman's four pieces of leadership wisdom:

Get The Right People

The first lesson Whitman said she learned was how important having the right people was to the organization. But it's more than that. It's important to have the right people, in the right job, at the right time and with the right attitudes. Whitman said she faced this challenge especially as she looked to turnaround HP and EBay. In each case, some senior leaders weren't on board with company turnaround plans.

Always, Always Start With The Customer

CEOs have to make tough decisions. Whitman said she ultimately looks to the customer to figure out what direction the company should take, asking "What are the customer needs?" Leaders tend to look inside for insight into the company, when they actually need to look outside. Once you have determined customer needs and wants, she said the next step as CEO is figuring out the cost structure and steps needed to turn that into action.

Perfect Is The Enemy Of Good Enough

With the pace of technology as fast as it is today, companies don't have time to take 18 months to ensure a product is perfect before launch, Whitman said. That becomes a challenge as the company, and engineers especially, tend to want to make products perfect before release. However, she said HP is working to move more nimbly and speed up time to market by using a "test and iterate" method rather than always seeking perfection.

"We're trying to get this test and iterate notion of speed in our DNA. It's been a challenge from time to time," Whitman said.

Find The Good In An Organization, Not The Bad

When leaders come into a new organization, Whitman said the tendency is to make a to-do list of everything wrong with the company and start fixing those issues one by one. However, she said that she tries to take the opposite approach, focusing instead on what makes an organization great and amplifying that.

When a new senior executive started at HP recently, she said she told him to take a month and find the "good in HP."

"I want you to find the good in HP," she said she told him. "Find what it does really well and encourage them to do more of what they do really well."