As I began to write about leadership and stories, I realized
there was a deeper issue to be addressed. Many organizations were
suffering not only because their old stories had died, but because
the quality of their leadership had deteriorated in parallel to the
quality of the stories people in those organizations held about the
nature of leadership. At least since the 1960s, most of our popular
stories about leadership have been variations on the theme of Peter
Pan — the charismatic boy leader who always plays and never
has to grow up and experience the consequences of his choices. Michael
Milliken of junk bonds fame, Steve Case of AOL, Michael Armstrong
of AT&T, Larry Ellison of Oracle all come to mind as examples,
as do most of the dot-com-era CEOs. Such a story about leadership
does not hold either the power or the profound moral center needed
for the world in which we are now living.
So I began my own journey. At first, I wondered if I should
focus on specific categories of leadership. There are so many —
business, political, sports, scientific, cultural, religious, intellectual,
people who lead from the front of the room, people who lead from the
back of the room. I realized that I wanted to focus on the essence
of leadership, on what could be said about all forms of great leadership,
in all places, at all times. I also realized that I did not equate
leadership with power — nor with management — though a
relationship obviously exists. Many people with power are not leaders
and there are leaders like the Dalai Lama who have no visible source
of power.
My experience is that I was called to study leadership at all levels
and in all categories and called to write this book. What are you called
to do? Ask yourself:
Is there something
you feel you can’t “not” do?
