For Paper:

Write and develop an APA formatted, 4 to 6-page paper that includes:

● Introduction

● Explanation of the three to four of the most important leadership concepts you have learned in this course. Use examples from your own experience and use research along with in-text citations that provide a foundation of validity to your analysis.

● A detailed personal Leadership Improvement plan. Identify the key elements of your plan to strengthen your practice of leadership (e.g., what, when, how, resources, and so forth).

● Conclusion

Please include at least 6 peer-reviewed references

For PPT:

In addition to your CLA2 report, please prepare a professional PowerPoint presentation summarizing your findings for CLA2. The presentation will consist of your major findings, analysis, and recommendations in a concise presentation of 15 slides (minimum). You should use content from your CLA2 report as material for your PowerPoint presentation. 

Please see the attachment for the template of the paper and PPT. For the PPT, I have listed out the concept and skills that I want to include in the paper and presentation.

For the personal leadership experience, you could refer to the discussion questions that I answered.

This assignment will be the combination of the PPT and Paper. You could use the material on the paper for the PPT. Please develop the PPT based on the concepts and skills that I given. 

Leadership

(student name)

1

Agenda
Executive Summary
Leadership: Defined
Leadership Skills: Examples
Personal Experiences with Leadership
Leadership Concepts from BUS 500 course
Personal Plan for Leadership
Conclusion
Applied Learning Assignment (ALA) – Week 1
Question & Answer Period
2

Executive Summary
3

Leadership: Defined
4

Leadership Skills
5

Personal Experience with Leadership
*Refer on my Week 8 Discussion
6

Leadership Concept 1 – Five Practices of Exemplary Leadership
Model the Way
Inspire a Shared Vision
Challenge the Process
Enable Others to Act
Encourage the Heart
Reference
Kouzes, J. M., & Posner, B. Z. (2017). The leadership challenge: How to make extraordinary things happen in organizations (6th ed.). New York, NY: New York: John Wiley & Sons
7

Leadership Concept 2 – Leadership Styles (Transformational Leadership)Either Topic
Transformational Leadership
Transactional Leadership
Laissez-faire Leadership
Servant Leadership
Autocratic Leadership
Democratic Leadership
Charismatic Leadership
Etc..
My goal is to become a Transformational Leader based on the overall study on each Leadership Style.

8

Leadership Concept 3 – Trait Theory of Leadership (or Great man Theory/Behavioral Theory)Either Topic
9

Leadership Concept 4 – Kotter’s 8-Step Change Model
10

Some Leadership Skills I can Improve
Self-Identified
Delegating
Conflict Management
Negotiation
Technical Savvy
Identified by Others
Risk-taking
Decisiveness
Non-Verbal Communication

11

My Leadership Improvement Plan
Leadership Skills I choose to improve
Skill 1:
Skill 2:
Skill 3:
*Choose 3 skills from slide 11
I am thinking to choose from delegating, conflict management, negotiation or decisiveness.
12

My Plan
Leadership Skill Action I will take When I will take the action Resources/Comments

13

Barriers & Solutions
Barriers to the Improvement Plan Solutions Resources/Help

14

Conclusion
15

Questions?
16

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Welcome to the last week of your course. In this discussion question you have the opportunity to be creative and to relate what you have learned to your professional lives. Please explore and critically think about some of the learning outcomes and concepts presented in this course. Please effectively communicate how you would lead an organization (or a group of people within the organization) by applying the knowledge you have learned ethically and responsibly.  Your discussion should also include innovative thinking, and information-technology aspects (such as the Internet, social-media, computers, and so forth) that may assist you in decision-making. You may frame your discussion around any functional component of business, and in any context; problem-solving, management, leadership, organizational behavior, and so forth.

My future career goal is to become an entrepreneur of the e-commerce company. Knowledge that I learned from Organizational Leadership course is definitely indispensable for my leadership journey.

Throughout the whole session, the most important concept that I learned from the course is the “The Five Practices of Exemplary Leadership”: Model the Way, Inspire a Shared Vision, Challenge the Process, Enabling Others to Act, and Encourage the Heart which was demonstrated by Kouzes (2017) in the textbook. As a future leader, it is good to learn how to become a qualified leader and start to develop my leadership skills based on the goal that this concept navigates me. In addition, I learned various types of leadership from the course. It is great to know the characteristic of each leadership styles, so I could set up the goal for myself and moving forward to my goal. My goal is to become a Transformational leader who is: a vision-builder, a standard-bearer, an integrator, and a developer. (Bottomley, Burgess & Fox, 2014) I want to become a motivational leader who could lead the teams toward the common goals by modeling the way.

Due to the resignation of the former Cross Boarder Manager in our company, I got a chance to become a leader of the warehouse operation management who are leading the key staff of the warehouse. It is definitely a big challenge for me because I am not the expert of the fulfillment and logistic service. To become a leader who could monitor and improve the daily operational process, I need to fully understand the work of the warehouse before leading the team instead of just sitting behind the laptop. Therefore, I requested the training in the warehouse to experience the fulfillment process by myself. This action helped me to understand the whole process and build up the relationship with the team which became the starting point of my leadership journey. I will continuously improve my leadership skill by frequent communication with the team, gaining more knowledges of the warehouse management system and planning the shared vision with the team.

Reference

Bottomley, K., Burgess, S., & Fox,Moses, I.,II. (2014). Are the behaviors of transformational leaders impacting organizations? A study of transformational leadership. International Management Review, 10(1), 5-9,66. Retrieved from https://search.proquest.com/docview/1527433525?accountid=158986

1. Provide an example of when you have helped your organization mobilize behind a shared vision. 

2. State specific ways you assisted in this effort 

3. Include the end result of the effort 

4. State what would have done differently

Previously, I was working in an Asian e-commerce company Yamibuy.com as an Account Manager in the Marketplace department. When I first joined the company, there were only two business model which are: sold and shipped by Yamibuy and Marketplace.

Let me talk about the background of Marketplace business model before I start to share my experience. Marketplace: Each individual seller opens their own store on Yamibuy platforms by paying commissions, and each store have different free shipping policies. Free shipping amount cannot be applied cross-stores. For example, if the customer purchases the products from multiple stores, customer needs to fulfill multiple store’s free shipping amount to avoid the shipping charge. It is hard for customers to spend the amount to be qualified free shipping for multiple stores, so we started to plan the new business model which could help our customer to shop more easily without the worry of various shipping policies.

Our shared vision was to start a new business model which can let our customers to enjoy wild selection of products with cross-store free shipping, so we came up with the idea of “China Consolidation Project” which is called “YamiSelect” now. Idea of “YamiSelect” model is to set up the consolidation warehouse in China which collects multiple Chinese sellers’ packages and combines to one order. Then, Yamibuy consolidation warehouse directly ships the individual packages to customer’s door with cross-store free shipping over $69. After the idea of the project got approved by CEO, I was assigned to a leader position to execute the plan by leading the team with one business development specialist, one accountant, one data analyst, one IT and one logistic specialist. Our team was organized by diversity of professions. We started our project from finding and signing the contract with the third-party fulfillment center in Shanghai and carrier partner. During the preparation period, I organized daily meeting with my expert team and discussed about the cost, order predictions and logistic performance prediction with their professional knowledges. Finally, I used my strong communication skill and our prediction data to negotiate the great deal with third-party fulfillment center and carriers. At the same time, I assigned business development specialist to communicate with existing Chinese seller for joining “YamiSelect” and created the business plan for attracting new sellers for this brand-new business model. Once the preparation stage was done, we started our trial operation to monitor the whole operation process from receiving, fulfillment, shipping and logistic time. At the beginning, there were many problems such as receiving errors and slow logistic. However, our team and fulfillment team in China discussed and fixed the problems one by one through our daily meetings. As an Account Manager, I started to train the sellers for the shipping instructions and fulfillment rules to avoid any receiving errors, check the product lists from each seller and filter out the products which will unable to clear the customs, and our IT team worked on the data communication and our logistic team monitored logistic by each log to find out and solved the issues together. Finally, after a month, our whole operation process became very smooth and we were able to deliver more selection of products to our customer with low free shipping requirement. I also helped to redesign the settlement report for “YamiSelect” sellers for easier understanding and fast transactions. Even though I already left Yamibuy, I can see the selection of products under “YamiSelect” is increasing continuously. I am very proud of myself to lead the whole team from various department and successfully ran the new business model for the company.

One thing I would have done differently will be the selection of third-party fulfillment center selection. I should had chosen the fulfillment center with custom clearance certificate, so we were able to identify the products which will unable to clear the customs in the warehouse instead of got rejected by custom clearance directly to avoid unnecessary lost in the trial operation period.

Praise for the Fifth Edition of
The Leadership Challenge
“My heart goes out to Jim Kouzes and Barry Posner with the deepest gratitude for
this book, the most powerful leadership resource available. It is providential that
at a time of the lowest level of trust and the highest level of cynicism, The Leader-
ship Challenge arrives with its message of hope. When there are dark days in our
lives, Kouzes and Posner will shine a light.”
—Frances Hesselbein, former CEO, Girl Scouts of the USA;
author, My Life in Leadership
“Jim Kouzes and Barry Posner have taken one of the true leadership classics of the
late twentieth century and made it freshly relevant for today’s twenty-first century
leaders. It is a must-read for today’s leaders who aspire to contribute in a more
significant way tomorrow.”
—Douglas R. Conant, New York Times bestselling author, TouchPoints;
retired CEO, Campbell Soup Company
“For twenty-five years, the names Jim Kouzes and Barry Posner have been synony-
mous with leadership. There is a reason for that. This book, in its new and updated
form, demonstrates that leadership is a challenge you must win every day. It shows
that every leader is unique, with his or her own style, and it helps you find your
style. But the real beauty of this book is that it does not just tell you about leader-
ship. It takes you by the hand, and walks you through the steps necessary to be
better at what you do. It also gives you the confidence to take the kinds of risks
every leader needs to take to succeed. I loved this book twenty-five years ago, and
I love it today.”
—Joel Kurtzman, author, Common Purpose; editor-in-chief,
Korn/Ferry Institute’s Briefings on Talent & Leadership
“We consider this twenty-fifth anniversary, fifth edition, the best leadership book
out there because it combines solid research, marvelous stories, and highly usable
advice. It struck us, as readers of prior editions, that Jim Kouzes and Barry Posner
don’t just write about leadership. They lead, and they continue to innovate and
model the way. We’re glad to be on the path behind them.”
—Jennifer Granholm and Dan Mulhern, coauthors, A Governor’s Story: The
Fight for Jobs and America’s Economic Future
“If I could recommend only one of the tens of thousands of leadership books ever
written, The Leadership Challenge would absolutely be my top choice, and by a
wide margin. This new edition builds markedly on the last but remains character-
istically Jim Kouzes and Barry Posner—a complex work in its underlying character,
but brilliant in its simplicity and practical in design. The Leadership Challenge is
the most useful leadership book ever written; I have each and every edition, and
each is better than the last.”
—Tom Kolditz, author, In Extremis Leadership

“The Leadership Challenge has inspired and continues to inspire all those who have
the will and commitment to take on the burden of responsibility entailed in
leading other people. The book lightens that burden and even ennobles it. It values
the humanity in us all and welcomes imagination and faith in the future. We are
all grateful and better off with this book on the shelf and in our hearts.”
—Peter Block, author, Flawless Consulting
“The fifth edition of The Leadership Challenge is the culmination of decades of rigor-
ous analysis of the characteristics of leadership. By modeling the behaviors
described by Jim Kouzes and Barry Posner, every person can develop their leader-
ship potential and become a more effective leader.”
—Dan Warmenhoven, executive chairman, board of directors, NetApp
“Developing generations of leaders for three decades, Jim Kouzes and Barry Posner
are yet again at the cutting edge of leadership. Their five practices of exemplary
leadership exactly put into words the characteristics of leadership that I have wit-
nessed from many of the greatest football players to ever play the game. If you
have ever aspired to be a leader, or need to take your leadership skills to the highest
levels, this is the book for you—all you need to do is take the challenge!”
—Brent Jones, former All-Pro football player;
managing partner, Northgate Capital
“The Leadership Challenge is the best research-based practical field guide for leaders
I have ever read. While the world around us has changed significantly since 1987,
when I picked up the first edition of the book, the simple relevant truths of what
great leaders do has not. I love the personal best leadership stories that highlight
the five simple-to-understand exemplary practices that really matter. Great leaders
are lifelong learners, and there is no better place to start or continue your leader-
ship learning journey than to read this book.”
—James Foster, senior vice president, chief product supply officer, the Clorox
Company
“Whether you are just beginning your leadership journey, are a seasoned CEO, or
a professor of leadership, this timeless leadership classic needs to be within constant
reach!”
—Harry Kraemer Jr., former chairman and CEO, Baxter
International; professor of management and strategy,
Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management

“There are hundreds of leadership books on the market, and you’ll probably get
something out of each of them, but none are so solidly based on research as The
Leadership Challenge. This is the book that goes beyond opinion and guides you
to those behaviors that bring out the strength in others.”
—Janelle Barlow, author, A Complaint Is a Gift and Branded Customer
Service
“The Leadership Challenge is the first book I recommend to all new leaders in Kaiser
Permanente. Twenty-five years after it was first written, it remains the best guide
to leadership success, and in a time of global competition and economic uncer-
tainty, the principles elucidated by Jim Kouzes and Barry Posner serve as a powerful
foundation for any individual hoping to help others innovate and embrace change.
Leaders should be required to re-read this book every five years of their career.”
—Robert Pearl, MD, executive director and CEO,
the Permanente Medical Group, Kaiser Permanente
“Seldom, it seems, have I been in the office of an HR professional where I did not
see a copy of The Leadership Challenge. The book has become a go-to source for
professionals looking for insight into leadership development. Now Jim Kouzes
and Barry Posner have gone back to the well to create an all-new fifth edition.
While The Five Practices of Exemplary Leadership are as timely as ever, the stories
are fresh and the insights are just as compelling. Simple and accessible, The Leader-
ship Challenge is so packed with information that people who care about leadership
need to put it on their shelves—but only after reading it cover to cover.”
—John Baldoni, president, Baldoni Consulting LLC; author,
Lead With Purpose, Lead Your Boss, and Lead By Example
“It is truly laudatory that Jim and Barry are celebrating the twenty-fifth year of a
book that never lost its appeal. The authors have observed, interviewed, consulted,
taught, and thought for all those years, and they continually bring us the best
stories, examples, and lessons to keep their work ever green. Bravo and thank you!”
—Beverly Kaye, founder, co-CEO, Career Systems International; coauthor,
Help Them Grow or Watch Them Go
“Speaking from experience, it’s not easy to make research findings engaging, practi-
cal, and a pleasure to read. In this new edition of The Leadership Challenge, Jim
Kouzes and Barry Posner have once again found that elusive balance between
focusing on the data and telling a great story. No other leadership book is as
compelling, as comprehensive, or as effective in teaching us how to go about
making the changes we must make, in order to become the kind of leaders who
can move mountains. If you could read only one book about the art and science
of leading, then this is without question the book you should read.”
—Heidi Grant Halvorson, author, Nine Things
Successful People Do Differently

“The Leadership Challenge is a proven, data-driven model for leadership that has
stood the test of time. The simple, effective framework works across industries and
cultures, helping leaders engage their organizations and deliver superior perfor-
mance; this has never been more important than in today’s interconnected, fast-
moving world.”
—Mike Splinter, CEO, Applied Materials
“The Leadership Challenge has re-energized leadership at Applied Materials. The Five
Practices of Exemplary Leadership provide a commonsense approach that is within
the reach of anybody who needs to get work done through others.”
—Mary Humiston, senior vice president, global
human resources, Applied Materials
“Kouzes and Posner have given us a handbook of hope: leadership can be learned
at almost any level in an organization. The book provides identifiable skills, prac-
tices, and abilities available to anyone willing to develop themselves—not just
those charismatic personalities at the top. Research-based, conversationally written,
and practically applied, The Leadership Challenge is absolutely the most compre-
hensive and credible book on leadership to date.”
––Dianna Booher, author, Creating Personal Presence
“The Leadership Challenge has gone from being a revelation to a standard to a classic.
It is now the defining book on leadership for our time, and there is not a business,
government, academic, or military leader in the developed world who, consciously
or not, has not been taught its lessons.”
—Mike Malone, associate fellow at Said Business
School (Oxford); author, Bill & Dave
“When Jim Kouzes and Barry Posner write on leadership, all of us had better pay
attention. The fifth edition of The Leadership Challenge will quickly become a
classic. Stop what you are doing and start reading, leading, and achieving.”
—Pat Williams, senior vice president, Orlando Magic;
author, Leadership Excellence
“The Leadership Challenge includes real-life stories of globally diverse and inclusive
people sharing their personal leadership challenges and learnings. From these real-
life stories and the authors’ extensive fact-based research, Jim and Barry challenge
each of us to continually improve our leadership skills and inspire others to do the
same, and give us the formula to do just that. This book is as close to the bible
on leadership as you will find. From business person to family person anywhere
in the world, it has lessons on leadership for all.”
—Stephen Almassy, global vice chair, OCA/Industry,
Ernst & Young Global Limited

“For the last twenty years, I have been lucky enough to have worked with some of
the world’s best mentors in the field of leadership development. Very few, I have
discovered, are equally comfortable in both the ivory tower and corporate board-
room. Jim and Barry have found the sweet spot and showcase it brilliantly in The
Leadership Challenge. It’s hard to think of a book that has had more of an influence
on my own writing, as well as my own practice advising corporate boards on CEO
succession, than this landmark book. Although I could continue gushing for pages
about the contributions that Jim and Barry have made to the field of leadership,
I can boil down my thoughts into just two words: thank you!”
—Jeffrey Cohn, coauthor, Why Are We Bad at Picking Good Leaders?
“Nobody knows leadership better than Jim Kouzes and Barry Posner. They use real,
current, and practical illustrations of what leadership looks like and then demon-
strate how to improve its practice. A must-read for every leader, The Leadership
Challenge should be a part of every entrepreneur and intrapreneur’s business plan!”
—Carol Sands, managing member, the Angels’ Forum
“Jim Kouzes and Barry Posner know how to draw upon what we know (the evi-
dence) to describe and teach what we need to do (through examples and reflection
exercises) in order to be more effective health care leaders. The book is as appropri-
ate, accessible, and helpful for new leaders as it is for those with years of experience.
I have personally observed current and future leaders using this book to strengthen
their leadership and personal effectiveness.”
—Christy Harris Lemak, director, the Griffith Leadership Center in Health
Management and Policy; associate professor, health management and
policy, University of Michigan School of Public Health
“Jim and Barry start from the most basic aspect of leadership: that human beings
need purpose, values, and respect to be motivated. Given their starting point, it is
perhaps not surprising that they hit the mark. Still the best book out there on
leadership.”
—Ken Wilcox, chairman, Silicon Valley Bank
“For twenty-five years The Leadership Challenge has been a source of inspiration and
insight for some of the best educators I know. In this latest edition, Kouzes and
Posner have added important wisdom and updated thinking to their work. The
Leadership Challenge is indispensable reading for those who take on the leadership
of our schools.”
—Kevin Skelly, superintendent, Palo Alto Unified School District

“The nation’s health care system is in transition with significant system and eco-
nomic changes. Physician leadership will be necessary to make this transformation
successful, while maintaining the focus on our patients. The Leadership Challenge
gives present and future physician leaders the leadership practices that will make
them both better leaders and physicians.”
—Fernando Mendoza, MD, MPH; professor and chief, Division of General
Pediatrics; service chief, general pediatrics, Lucile Packard Children’s
Hospital; associate dean of Minority Advising and Programs, School of
Medicine, Stanford University
“Up-to-date, superbly compelling, and full of heart, the fifth edition of Jim Kouzes
and Barry Posner’s classic draws on an unmatched trove of new data to offer fresh
context to the fundamentals of great leadership. The Leadership Challenge remains
the essential text for leaders who want to achieve the extraordinary in today’s
hypercompetitive environment.”
—Sally Helgesen, author, The Female Advantage
“Peter Drucker would probably have called the publishing of Jim Kouzes and Barry
Posner’s book The Leadership Challenge ‘a distinguished public service.’ There is no
doubt that it was that and that the twenty-fifth anniversary edition of this wonder-
ful book continues to show organizations how to get extraordinary things done.”
—William A. Cohen, Major General, USAFR, Ret; author of Drucker on
Leadership and Heroic Leadership
“This fifth edition of The Leadership Challenge is Jim Kouzes and Barry Posner’s gift
to leaders in the twenty-first century. Join them and hundreds of thousands of
others using this guide to extraordinary leadership.”
— Geoff Bellman, consultant; author, Extraordinary Groups: How Ordinary
Teams Achieve Amazing Results
“The twenty-fifth anniversary edition of The Leadership Challenge is another great
reference for leaders and would-be leaders globally. Over the years, the Kouzes and
Posner five leadership practices have crossed borders, cultures, and generations.”
—Joe Hage, associate CIO, American University of Beirut
“This fifth edition of The Leadership Challenge continues as a must-read for any
global leader or aspiring leader. The Leadership Challenge has been my compass in
guiding and developing as a leader, developing other leaders, and in engaging
future leaders. Barry and Jim’s research reinforces that active learning and unending
practice are foundational for leaders. To be a compelling leader, mastery of the
principles of The Leadership Challenge is absolutely essential.”
—Bill Maxwell, former senior vice president, human resources, Oakwood
Temporary Housing

“In the midst of great change, sometimes it is important to return to timeless ideas.
In their twenty-fifth anniversary edition, Jim Kouzes and Barry Posner reframe
their leadership principles for global challenges in the twenty-first century. If you
read it before, it’s time to read it again. If you haven’t read it, expect a master class
on leadership in these turbulent times.”
—Joel Barker, author, Paradigms: The Business of Discovering the Future
“The precious message of this insightful and important book is that leadership does
not attach to a job or any position. It is seized, by a combination of credibility
and courage. In a world where too many are simply milling around, here is a
primer for taking charge.”
—Irwin Federman, general partner, US Venture Partners
“As the entire economy undergoes a fundamental phase change, in which both the
organization and the workplace are being reinvented before our very eyes, a new
generation of leaders will find in the deep insights and engaging stories of this
updated edition of The Leadership Challenge the guidance they require.”
—Stephen Denning, author, The Leader’s Guide to Radical Management
“This classic has improved with age. Fresh examples and global cases make the fifth
edition of The Leadership Challenge more relevant to more relationships than ever.”
—Tim Scudder and Michael Patterson, coauthors, Have a Nice Conflict
“Few leadership books stand the test of time, but The Leadership Challenge continues
to show the path to being a leader of substance. Filled with great examples and
rooted in rock solid research, it is a must-read for every leader.”
—John B. Izzo, author, Stepping Up

THE LEADERSHIP CHALLENGE MOBILE TOOL
We have developed a mobile tool to work with the concepts and
practices within this book that you can use to help yourself along
on your leadership journey and development path. The Leadership
Challenge Mobile Tool Lite app is free and works with the Take Action
sections at the ends of chapters Two through Eleven, adding utility
and functionality to the activities located there. The app allows you
to immediately integrate some of these Take Action activities into
your daily life, making them an ongoing and natural part of your
behavioral and attitudinal repertoire. Features include the ability to
create and track your own personal Take Action plan, create remind-
ers, and share via social media.
The complete Leadership Challenge Mobile Tool is even more robust
with everything in the lite version and additional features such as
the ability to seamlessly request-and-receive feedback, email activi-
ties, and use calendar reminders. It also has more content, including
all of the Take Action activities in the book, videos of the authors,
a concise overview of The Leadership Challenge model, daily inspira-
tional quotes, and a news feed. Initially available in the Apple App
Store and others to come, on an ongoing basis, we will develop this
app to fit your needs.
Visit www.leadershipchallenge.com/go/tlcapp to learn more.

http://www.leadershipchallenge.com/go/tlcapp

THE
LEADERSHIP
CHALLENGE
F I F T H E D I T I O N
How to Make Extraordinary Things
Happen in Organizations
J A M E S M . K O U Z E S
B A R R Y Z . P O S N E R

Copyright © 2012 James M. Kouzes and Barry Z. Posner. All rights reserved.
Published by Jossey-Bass
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Kouzes, James M.
The leadership challenge : how to make extraordinary things happen in organizations /
James M. Kouzes, Barry Z. Posner.—5th ed.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-0-470-65172-8 (cloth); ISBN 978-1-118-28196-3 (ebk); ISBN 978-1-118-
28248-9 (ebk); ISBN 978-1-118-28431-5 (ebk)
1. Leadership. 2. Executive ability. 3. Management. I. Posner, Barry Z. II. Title.
HD57.7.K68 2012
658.4’092—dc23
2012005728
Printed in the United States of America
fifth edition
HB Printing 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

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xi
Contents
Introduction: Making Extraordinary Things
Happen in Organizations 1
1 When Leaders Are at Their Best 9
The Five Practices of Exemplary Leadership—Leadership
Is a Relationship—Putting It All Together: Credibility
Is the Foundation
PRACTICE 1
MODEL THE WAY 41
2 Clarify Values 43
Find Your Voice—Affirm Shared Values

xii
C
O
N
T
E
N
T
S 3 Set the Example 71
Live the Shared Values—Teach Others to Model the Values
PRACTICE 2
INSPIRE A SHARED VISION 99
4 Envision the Future 101
Imagine the Possibilities—Find a Common Purpose
5 Enlist Others 127
Appeal to Common Ideals—Animate the Vision
PRACTICE 3
CHALLENGE THE PROCESS 155
6 Search for Opportunities 157
Seize the Initiative—Exercise Outsight
7 Experiment and Take Risks 185
Generate Small Wins—Learn from Experience
PRACTICE 4
ENABLE OTHERS TO ACT 213
8 Foster Collaboration 215
Create a Climate of Trust—Facilitate Relationships

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9 Strengthen Others 241
Enhance Self-Determination—Develop Competence and
Confidence
PRACTICE 5
ENCOURAGE THE HEART 271
10 Recognize Contributions 273
Expect the Best—Personalize Recognition
11 Celebrate the Values and Victories 301
Create a Spirit of Community—Get Personally Involved
12 Leadership Is Everyone’s Business 329
Look to Leaders Everywhere—Know How Important
You Are—Practice—Reflect—Remain Humble and
Human—Seize the Moment—Remember the Secret to
Success in Life
Notes 347
Acknowledgments 375
About the Authors 379
Index 383

For Tae and Jackie
with all our love.
Thank you for all you do and
all that you have given us.

I N T R O D U C T I O N
Making
Extraordinary
Things Happen
in Organizations
LEADERS GET PEOPLE MOVING. They energize and mobi-
lize. They take people and organizations to places they have never
been before. Leadership is not a fad, and the leadership challenge
never goes away.
In uncertain and turbulent times, accepting that challenge is the
only antidote to chaos, stagnation, and disintegration. Times change,
problems change, technologies change, and people change. Leader-
ship endures. Teams, organizations, and communities need people
to step up and take charge. That is why we first wrote The Leadership
Challenge, and why we found it imperative to write this fifth edition.
Change is the province of leaders. It is the work of leaders to
inspire people to do things differently, to struggle against uncertain
odds, and to persevere toward a misty image of a better future.
Without leadership there would not be the extraordinary
efforts necessary to solve existing problems and realize unimagined
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E opportunities. We have today, at best, only faint clues of what the
future may hold, but we are confident that without leadership the
possibilities will neither be envisioned nor attained.
THE LEADERSHIP CHALLENGE
The Leadership Challenge is about how leaders mobilize others to
want to make extraordinary things happen in organizations. It’s
about the practices leaders use to transform values into actions,
visions into realities, obstacles into innovations, separateness into
solidarity, and risks into rewards. It’s about leadership that creates
the climate in which people turn challenging opportunities into
remarkable successes.
The publication of this edition of The Leadership Challenge
marks twenty-five years since the book was first released. We’ve spent
more than three decades together researching, consulting, teaching,
and writing about what leaders do and how everyone can learn to
be a better leader. We’re honored by the reception we’ve received in
the professional and business marketplace. Although we and other
authors regularly contribute new works, we are blessed that students,
educators, and practitioners continue to find that The Leadership
Challenge is still useful to them, both conceptually and practically,
and that it stands the test of time.
We persist in asking today the same basic question we asked in
1982 when we started our journey into understanding exemplary
leadership: What did you do when you were at your personal best as a
leader? We’ve talked to men and women, young and old, represent-
ing just about every type of organization there is, at all levels, in all
functions, from many different places around the world. Their
stories, and the behaviors and actions they’ve described, have resulted

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in the creation of The Five Practices of Exemplary Leadership®
framework described in this book. When leaders do their best, they
Model the Way, Inspire a Shared Vision, Challenge the Process,
Enable Others to Act, and Encourage the Heart.
The Leadership Challenge is evidence based. The Five Practices
are derived from research and we illustrate them with examples from
real people doing real things. With each edition of the book, we
update the research—both our own findings and those from other
scholars around the globe. And we continue to update the stories,
cases, and examples of exactly what people do when they are at their
best as leaders.
With each new edition, we become clearer ourselves about what
really makes a difference. We get the chance to reiterate what’s still
important, to discard what’s not, and to add what’s new. We get the
chance to contemporize the framework and freshen up the language
and point of view so that the book is highly relevant to current
circumstances and conditions. We get the chance to let go of tan-
gents—those important but smaller points that can be distracting
or make things more complicated than they need to be. We get the
chance to be more prescriptive about the best practices of leaders.
The more we research and the more we write about leadership, the
more confident we become that leadership is within the grasp of
everyone and that the opportunities for leadership are boundless and
boundaryless.
Of course, with each edition, we also get to address a new audi-
ence, and sometimes even a new generation of emerging leaders.
That opportunity motivates us to collect new cases, examine new
research findings, and talk with people we haven’t heard from. It
encourages us to perform a litmus test of relevance on our results:
Does this model of leadership make sense? If we started out all over
again, would we find new leadership practices? Would we eliminate

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E any of the practices? In this regard, we are aided by the ongoing
empirical data provided by the online version of the Leadership
Practices Inventory (LPI). This inventory, which assesses The Five
Practices, provides 500,000 to 750,000 responses annually and keeps
us on guard and on target in identifying the behaviors that make a
difference—and the ones that don’t seem to matter.
And, with each new edition, we get a chance to speak again with
those of you who have read earlier editions of The Leadership Chal-
lenge in school or in the workplace. If you’re reading this book for
the first time, welcome. If you are returning to it again, welcome
back. Join us in reading this new edition so that you can learn about
and be reminded of The Five Practices and what they look like in
action today. Learn more about how you can continue to grow and
to develop yourself as leader.
We expect that all of you face vexing issues that not only make
leadership more urgent but also require you to be more conscious
and conscientious about being a leader. Others are looking to you
to help them figure out what they should be doing and how they
can develop themselves to be leaders. You don’t just owe it to yourself
to become the best leader you can possibly be. You’re even more
responsible to others. You may not know it, but they’re expecting
you to do your best.
A FIELD GUIDE FOR LEADERS
How do you get other people to want to follow you? How do you
get other people, by free will and free choice, to move forward
together on a common purpose? How do you mobilize others to
want to struggle to achieve shared aspirations? These are the impor-
tant questions we address in The Leadership Challenge. Think of it as

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a field guide to take along on your leadership journey. Think of it
as a manual you can consult when you want advice and counsel on
how to get extraordinary things done in your organization.
In Chapter One, we establish our point of view about leadership
by sharing a Personal-Best Leadership Experience—a case study about
how one leader helped turn her organization around and develop it
into an award-winning venture. We provide an overview of The Five
Practices, summarize the findings from our more than three decades
of empirical studies about what leaders do when they are at their
best, and show that these leadership practices make a difference.
Asking leaders about their personal bests is only half the story.
Leadership is a relationship between leaders and followers. A com-
plete picture of leadership can be developed only if you ask followers
what they look for and admire in a leader. In the second part of
Chapter One, we reveal what characteristics people value most in
their leaders, and demonstrate that credibility is the foundation of
the relationship between leaders and their constituents.
The ten chapters that follow describe The Ten Commitments of
Leadership—the essential behaviors that leaders employ to make
extraordinary things happen—and explain the fundamental princi-
ples that support each of The Five Practices. We offer evidence from
our research, and that of others, to support the principles, provide
actual case examples of real people who demonstrate each practice,
and prescribe specific recommendations of what you can do to make
each practice your own and to continue your development as a
leader. A Take Action section concludes each of these chapters—
here’s what you need to do to make this leadership practice an
ongoing and natural part of your behavioral and attitudinal reper-
toire. Whether the focus is your own learning or the development
of your constituents—your direct reports, team, peers, manager,
community members, and the like—you can take immediate action

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E on every one of our recommendations. They don’t require a budget
or approval from top management—or anyone else. They just require
your personal commitment and discipline. If you’d like a mobile
partner or tool to help you take action along your leadership journey
and development path, download The Leadership Challenge Mobile
Tool app, which has been designed to work with these sections, the
activities within, and the practices in general.
In Chapter Twelve, we offer a call to everyone to accept personal
responsibility to be a role model for leadership. Through five editions
now of The Leadership Challenge, we keep relearning and reminding
ourselves and others that leadership is everyone’s business. The first
place to look for leadership is within yourself. Accepting the leader-
ship challenge requires practice, reflection, humility, and commit-
ment to making a difference. And, in the end, we conclude that
leadership is not an affair of the head. Leadership is an affair of the
heart.
We recommend that you first read Chapter One, but please note
that after that there is no sacred order to proceeding through the
rest of this book. Go wherever your interests take you. We wrote this
material to support you in your leadership development. Just remem-
ber that each practice is essential. Although you might skip around
in the book, you can’t skip any of the fundamentals of leadership.
Finally, technology allows us to offer you insights beyond those
in this book. On our Web site www.theleadershipchallenge.com, you
can find out more about how we conducted our research, look at
detailed information on our methodology, review statistical data,
read highlights of validation studies by other scholars of our leader-
ship paradigm, and sign up for our monthly newsletter.
The domain of leaders is the future. The leader’s unique legacy is the
creation of valued institutions that survive over time. The most

http://www.theleadershipchallenge.com

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significant contribution leaders make is not simply to today’s bottom
line; it is to the long-term development of people and institutions
so they can adapt, change, prosper, and grow. We hope this book
contributes to the revitalization of organizations, to the creation of
new enterprises, to the renewal of healthy communities, and to
greater respect and understanding in the world. We also fervently
hope that it enriches your life and that of your community and your
family.
Leadership is important, not just in your career and within your
organization, but in every sector, in every community, and in every
country. We need more exemplary leaders, and we need them more
than ever. There is so much extraordinary work that needs to be
done. We need leaders who can unite us and ignite us.
In the end, we realize that leadership development is self-
development. Meeting the leadership challenge is a personal—and
daily—challenge for everyone. We know that if you have the will
and the way to lead, you can. You have to supply the will. We’ll do
our best to keep supplying the way.
James M. Kouzes
Orinda, California
Barry Z. Posner
Santa Clara, California
May 2012

C H A P T E R 1
When Leaders Are
at Their Best
“FEARLESS.” That’s what it says in bold white letters on a black
bracelet that Barby Siegel wears.1 She borrowed it from her teenage
daughter to serve as a daily reminder of the spirit she likes to bring
to her role as CEO of Zeno Group, an award-winning, multidisci-
plinary public relations firm. And it’s exactly that kind of spirit that
fueled the extraordinary growth and willingness to take risks that
PRWeek cited in 2011 when it awarded Zeno two of its top honors—
Agency of the Year and Midsize Agency of the Year.
But Zeno wasn’t always at the head of its class. When Richard
Edelman, president and CEO of Zeno’s parent company, Daniel
J. Edelman, Inc., called Barby and asked her to lead Zeno to the
next level, the agency was languishing. Barby, who had honed her
craft over eleven years at Edelman and then for eight years at Ogilvy
PR, where she restarted their global consumer marketing practice,
was ready for a new opportunity and challenge.
Barby knew Zeno had a great team and a solid client base, but
for them to grow to the next level, she believed that they had to get
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E some early game-changing wins. And to do that they’d need some
of that fearlessness that she proudly advocates for with her bracelet.
She would tell them, “We need to stand on our own two feet and
not be afraid because we’re Zeno that we can’t go after this piece of
business or that we’re not going to be taken seriously.” She talked
about it as “playing ahead of the game—ahead of where we really
were.” It didn’t take long for this focused determination and can-do
spirit to spread.
One of Barby’s early actions was to hold a day-and-a-half leader-
ship team meeting with her direct reports. Together they talked
about such basic questions as “Who are we? What are we focusing
on?” The conversations and sharing of ideas were galvanizing, and
during that meeting they came up with the words that they envi-
sioned as describing themselves. These words—fearless, collaborative,
creative, decidedly different, and nimble—are their values and their
promise to their clients.
Zeno describes itself as providing “senior level strategy and day-
to-day engagement” and as having “no silos,” and you can see this
in Barby’s actions. For example, she has spent many a night in the
conference room with team members preparing decks for client
presentations. And if she’s not working on a presentation, she might
be at the local grocer buying snacks to take back to the room. She’s
present at client pitches. She also spends as much time as she can
with staff. Barby takes this responsibility seriously. “I often say, ‘I am
privileged to lead this team.’ I am. Without them we’d be nothing.
I need all these people to bring their best game every day. I wake up
every day and say, What can I do to make sure these people are
happy and energetic, that they’re going to stay and continue to give
our clients their best work every day?”
These sentiments are reciprocated by her associates. Alison
Walsh, account supervisor, affirms that “when you have a CEO who

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is so ingrained in the agency, staff, and each and every one of
the clients, you only want to push yourself further.” Because Barby
is so transparent about her values and vision for the organization,
“There’s no question,” according to Alison, “that people want to
follow her.”
Barby describes the Zeno corporate culture as one that promotes
hard work and continued success while also encouraging work-life
balance and individualism. “I’m sure many companies describe
themselves as a family,” says Barby. “We take it seriously.” For
example, there are a lot of women in the firm, and Barby takes her
role as a woman CEO very seriously. “I want them to see that it’s
possible to have a really great career and have a family and do all the
things that that entails.” She talks a lot about her own kids, her
husband, her two older sisters, and her elderly parents. She’ll tell her
staff when she goes out to have lunch with her parents. “I want them
to know that it’s okay to get out of the office for a couple of hours
and tend to their families.” She has a photo gallery in her office with
lots of family pictures displayed along with photos of agency get-
togethers and some of the staff and their babies. “I’m very mindful,”
says Barby, “that the staff is like me. We all have mortgages to pay.
Many have children to raise. When I make decisions about what the
firm is going to do, I am mindful that at the end of the day there
are hundreds of families depending on our doing right for our
clients.”
Unlike traditional agencies, Zeno is an organization without
walls, where everyone, regardless of level, routinely works together
on all aspects of a client engagement. “Everyone is treated with great
respect,” said Cheryl Pellegrino, senior vice president. “There is a
strong sense of collaboration and teamwork. People genuinely like
one another and work well together. It’s all for one and one for all.”
Barby has structured the organization and assignments so that people

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E literally have to work with one another, learn from one another, and
celebrate together. Marcie Kohenak, account supervisor, adds that
whereas many agencies may say they’re one team, “Zeno walks the
walk. Never before have I worked in an office where colleagues are
so collaborative, looking out for clients and the teams before them-
selves, and where individuals from different offices and fields are
always working together. Not only does this attitude benefit our
clients, who are always being served by a subject matter expert, but
as employees we have the opportunity to constantly grow, working
with and learning from colleagues across the country.”
Zeno is also unique in the PR business in how it manages its
books: all offices operate under one P&L. If a client in Chicago
needs the expertise of someone in Los Angeles, New York, Toronto,
or São Paulo, there’s no conflict or conversation about it. Barby said
that this means that “the staff can just do their best work, and don’t
need to feel pulled by one P&L or another. Everyone is focusing on
our client’s success.”
Collaborating across offices to get the job done also facilitates
innovation and experimentation. Creativity is hugely important to
Barby. “We want to be creative in everything we do, even in the most
mundane tasks,” she said. This is what, in large part, keeps Jessica
Vitale, vice president, with Zeno. “You get countless opportunities
to work on exciting projects for clients who are leaders in their field,
and the chance to work alongside incredibly smart, passionate people
across multiple offices who provide great support and encourage,
even push, you to grow,” she said. This learning environment, Barby
explained, “helps all of us to think differently, to be unafraid to
experiment and try some things that have not been done before.”
There are many celebrations over the year, such as the Friday
after-work sing-alongs and other informal get-togethers and recogni-

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tions. Barby established an annual New Year’s Eve party every June
30, the end of Zeno’s fiscal year. On that day, all the offices connect
by teleconference. They pop champagne and raise a virtual toast.
Barby reflects on what they’ve accomplished and talks about what’s
ahead in the future. Then all the offices continue with their own
celebrations.
In an end-of-year email to her staff, Barby summed up Zeno’s
achievements and culture:
Each of you played a major role in the success of our firm, and
each of you are key to the journey that continues. . . . [Words of
praise] should be aimed squarely at you for the amazing work
you and your teams have delivered and the ever-deepening client
partnerships you are forging. . . . As we close out the year, I am
more excited than ever for what’s to come, and there isn’t a
group of professionals I would rather do it with day in and
day out.
We have much to look forward to. Some days will be
harder than others but we are on a mission to take this firm to
greater heights on the shoulders of client trust and partnership,
game-changing work and a talented and highly motivated staff.
I think we have seen that when we band together we can really
do it.
Barby is not one to rest on her laurels, though. The recognition
Zeno has earned is just the beginning. “I can’t just live in the
present,” she said. “I’ve got to always be thinking about the next
thing we should be working on and where we’re headed, whether
geographically or with innovation or talent.” No doubt that the next
thing is likely to require more of that same fearlessness that got Barby
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E THE FIVE PRACTICES OF
EXEMPLARY LEADERSHIP
In undertaking the transformation at Zeno, Barby Siegel seized the
opportunity to change business as usual. And although Barby’s story
is exceptional, it is not singular. We’ve been conducting original
global research for more than thirty years, and we’ve discovered that
such achievements are actually commonplace. When we ask people
to tell us about their personal-best leadership experiences—experi-
ences that they believe are their individual standards of excellence—
there are thousands of success stories just like Barby’s.2 We’ve found
them in profit-based firms and nonprofits, agriculture and mining,
manufacturing and utilities, banking and health care, government
and education, the arts and community service, and many, many
others. These leaders are employees and volunteers, young and old,
women and men. Leadership knows no racial or religious bounds,
no ethnic or cultural borders. Leaders reside in every city and every
country, in every function and every organization. We find exem-
plary leadership everywhere we look.
And we’ve also found that in the best organizations, everyone,
regardless of title or position, is encouraged to act like a leader. That’s
because in these places, people don’t just believe that everyone can
make a difference; they act in ways to develop and grow people’s
talents, including their leadership capabilities. Joon Chin Fum-Ko,
director of people development and engagement at Infocomm
Development Authority of Singapore, underscores this thinking
when she explains how they are “working to build an organization
and culture where everyone feels that they are leaders, regardless of
what they do, and appreciates that what each one of us does has an
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We first asked people in the early 1980s to tell us what they did
when they were at their “personal best” in leading others, and we
continue to ask this question of people around the world. After
analyzing thousands of these leadership experiences, we discovered,
and continue to find, that regardless of the times or setting, people
who guide others along pioneering journeys follow surprisingly
similar paths. Although each experience was unique in its individual
expression, there were clearly identifiable behaviors and actions that
made a difference. When making extraordinary things happen in
organizations, leaders engage in what we call The Five Practices of
Exemplary Leadership. They
• Model the Way
• Inspire a Shared Vision
• Challenge the Process
• Enable Others to Act
• Encourage the Heart
These leadership practices are not the private property of the
people we studied. Nor do they belong to a few select shining stars.
Leadership is not about who you are; it’s about what you do. The
Five Practices are available to anyone who accepts the leadership
challenge—the challenge of taking people and organizations to
places they have never been before, of doing something that has
never been done before, and of moving beyond the ordinary to the
extraordinary.
Although the context of leadership has changed dramatically
since we first began our research thirty years ago, the content of
leadership has not changed much at all. The Five Practices frame-
work has passed the test of time. Our research tells us that the
fundamental behaviors and actions of leaders have remained

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E essentially the same and are as relevant today as they were when we
first began our study of exemplary leadership.
You’ve already learned how one leader (Barby Siegel) used The
Five Practices to lead her colleagues and organization to greatness,
and how she and they are not ready to rest on their laurels. In the
remainder of this chapter, we briefly introduce each of The Five
Practices and provide short examples that demonstrate how leaders
across a variety of circumstances use them to make the extraordinary
happen. When you explore The Five Practices in depth in Chapters
Two through Eleven, you’ll find over a hundred more examples from
the real-life experiences of people who have taken the leadership
challenge.
Model the Way
Titles are granted, but it’s your behavior that earns you respect. This
sentiment was shared across all the cases we collected. David Kim,
senior operations manager with Siemens Ultrasound, reflecting on
his personal-best leadership experience, remarked that “Everybody
is a leader whether you supervise a group of people or not. Even as
an individual contributor when I transitioned into the corporate
world from the army, I continued to display leadership and take
initiative to get the job done. Titles don’t make you a leader. It’s how
you behave that makes a difference.” Exemplary leaders know that
if they want to gain commitment and achieve the highest standards,
they must be models of the behavior they expect of others.
To effectively Model the Way, you must first be clear about your
own guiding principles. You must clarify values by finding your voice.
Dave Halvorson, staff engineer with Intel, observed that “you do not
need to be a manager with direct reports to be a leader, but you do
have to know what your values and guiding principles are.” Alan

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Spiegelman, veteran wealth management adviser with Northwestern
Mutual, reinforced Dave’s point when he told us, “Before you can
be a leader of others, you need to know clearly who you are and
what your core values are. Once you know that, then you can give
those values a voice and feel comfortable sharing them with others.”
But your values aren’t the only values. On every team, and in every
organization and community, others also feel strongly about matters
of principle. As a leader, you also must affirm the shared values of the
group.
Eloquent speeches about common values aren’t nearly enough,
however. Leaders’ deeds are far more important than their words
when constituents want to determine how serious leaders really are
about what they say. Words and deeds must be consistent. Exem-
plary leaders set the example by aligning actions with shared values.
Through their daily actions, they demonstrate their deep commit-
ment to their beliefs and those of the organization. Dr. Jiangwan
Majeti’s experience as research project manager at Amgen under-
scores this observation: “Leading by example is more effective than
leading by command. If people see that you work hard while preach-
ing hard work, they are more likely to follow you.” One of the best
ways to prove that something is important is by doing it yourself
and setting an example. Jiangwan’s actions spoke volumes about how
the team needed to “take ownership of things they believed in and
valued,” because there wasn’t anything that she asked others to do
that she wasn’t willing to do herself.
Inspire a Shared Vision
People describe their personal-best leadership experiences as times
when they imagined an exciting, highly attractive future for their
organizations. They had visions and dreams of what could be. They

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E had absolute and total personal belief in those dreams, and they were
confident in their abilities to make extraordinary things happen.
Every organization, every social movement, begins with a dream.
The dream, or vision, is the force that creates the future. For Taryn
Walker, product manager at Kaiser Permanente, this meant “remain-
ing focused on the long-term vision and constantly reminding others
(often when they became discouraged) of the ultimate outcome and
how important this was.”
Leaders envision the future by imagining exciting and ennobling
possibilities. You need to make something happen, to change the way
things are, to create something that no one else has ever created
before. Much as an architect draws a blueprint or an engineer builds
a model, you need to have a clear vision of what the results should
look like before starting any project. You also have to be able to
connect it to the past, to the history that got you to where you are.
In starting the “Thinker’s Club” at Juniper Networks, for example,
Vittal Krishnamurthy imagined “that one day it would be a hub for
innovative thinking, where people brainstorm on some of the most
difficult issues and seek innovative solutions, and the go-to place
where creative solutions emerge.” He wanted to improve the quality
of people’s lives by making them creative thinkers, but he also real-
ized that however noble this aspiration, visions seen only by leaders
are insufficient to create an organized movement or a significant
change in a company.
You can’t command commitment; you have to inspire it. You
have to enlist others in a common vision by appealing to shared aspira-
tions. This means, as Rajan Prajapat, product manager at Google,
pointed out, “that you have to have a vision in mind and be clear
about why it’s important to you. And you need to be equally clear
about why it should matter to those you’re sharing your vision

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with.” Rupessh Roy, project manager at NetLogic Microsystems,
realized in his personal-best leadership experience that people have
to believe that you understand their needs and have their interests
at heart. “You need to have clear goals and a vision to make a posi-
tive difference,” he said, “and you have to be able to share that vision
with others and get them to believe in it.” Unity of purpose is forged
when you show your constituents how the dream is a shared dream
and how it fulfills the common good. When you express your enthu-
siasm and excitement for the vision, you ignite that passion in others.
Challenge the Process
Challenge is the crucible for greatness. Every single personal-best
leadership case involved a change from the status quo. Not one
person claimed to have achieved a personal best by keeping things
the same. The challenge might have been an innovative new product,
a cutting-edge service, a groundbreaking piece of legislation, an
invigorating campaign to get adolescents to join an environmental
program, a revolutionary turnaround of a bureaucratic military
program, or the start-up of a new plant or business. It could also be
dealing with unexpected economic downturns, personal betrayal,
loss of physical ability, natural disasters, civil unrest, and technologi-
cal disruptions. When Katherine Winkel, marketing operations
manager at Seattle Genetics, reflected on her personal best and lis-
tened to those of her colleagues, she was struck by “how similar the
stories were and how each person had to overcome uncertainty and
fear in order to achieve his or her best.”
Leaders venture out; they don’t sit idly by waiting for fate to
smile on them. This was exactly what Rob Pearson, now R&D
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E college at Medtronic Corporate Ventures: “Change was thrust upon
me when I had to choose between being passive (guaranteed to fail)
or seizing the initiative and bending the rules to suit my needs
(increasing the possibility of success). I decided to rise up and meet
the challenge head on.” By making something happen, Rob was able
to move his project forward.
Leaders are pioneers, willing to step out into the unknown. But
leaders aren’t the only creators or originators of new products, ser-
vices, or processes. In fact, it’s more likely that they’re not. Innova-
tion comes more from listening than from telling. You have to
constantly be looking outside yourself and your organization for new
and innovative products, processes, and services. You need to search
for opportunities by seizing the initiative and by looking outward for
innovative ways to improve.
Because innovation and change involve experimenting and taking
risks, your major contribution will be to create a climate for experi-
mentation in which there is recognition of good ideas, support of
those ideas, and the willingness to challenge the system. Taking risks,
says Ryan Diemer, business planner and purchasing analyst at Stryker
Endoscopy, “is never easy and sometimes scary.” But what he learned
from his personal-best leadership experience is “that taking risks is
necessary because it requires you and those you are working with to
challenge not only what you are working on but how you work.
Sometimes the risks pay off and sometimes they do not, but what
is always true is that if you do not take a risk, you won’t get any
gain.”
When you take risks, mistakes and failures are inevitable. Proceed
anyway. One way of dealing with the potential failures of experi-
mentation is by constantly generating small wins and learning from
experience. Pierfrancesco Ronzi, associate with McKinsey & Company
in Italy, recalled how, in successfully turning around the credit

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process for a banking client in North Africa, it was necessary to break
the project down into parts so that people in the organization could
find a place to start, to determine what would work and how they
could learn from one another in the process of moving forward.
“Showing them that we were able to make something happen,” he
said, “was a great boost for their confidence in the project and their
willingness to stay involved.” As Pierfrancesco suggests, leaders
are constantly learning from their errors and failures as they experi-
ment, try new things, and incrementally move projects forward.
The best leaders are the simply the best learners, and life is their
laboratory.3
Enable Others to Act
A grand dream doesn’t become a significant reality through the
actions of a single person. It requires a team effort. It requires solid
trust and strong relationships. It requires deep competence and cool
confidence. It requires group collaboration and individual account-
ability.4 Sushma Bhope, program manager at Biomass NPL, appreci-
ated how she had to “lead by empowering those around you.” In
consolidating a customer relationship management system across
a globally dispersed company, she realized clearly that “no one
could have done this alone.” As other leaders have experienced,
Sushma found that “it was essential to be open to all ideas and to
give everyone a voice in the decision-making process. . . . The one
guiding principle on the project was that the team was larger
than any individual on the team.” Sushma clearly understands
that no leader has ever gotten anything extraordinary done by
working solo.
Leaders foster collaboration by building trust and facilitating
relationships. This sense of teamwork extends far beyond a few

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E direct reports or close confidants. You have to engage all who must
make the project work—and, in some way, all who must live with
the results. Early in her career, Lorena Compeán, founder of Co-
Creating Hong Kong, discovered that she needed to trust that other
people on the project team could and would do their jobs. As the
project manager, she found herself, at the beginning, “checking every
single analysis they did, but I noticed how they got angry with me
because I didn’t let them conclude anything by themselves.” She
discovered that she needed to “show my trust in others in order to
build their trust in me.”
Constituents neither perform at their best nor stick around for
very long if you make them feel weak, dependent, or alienated.
Giving your power away and fostering their personal power and
ownership will make them stronger and more capable. When you
strengthen others by increasing self-determination and developing
competence, they are more likely to give it their all and exceed their
own expectations. Heidi Winkler, attorney-at-law with Pihl, a
privately held construction company in Denmark, learned from
reflecting on her personal-best leadership experience “how much
easier it is to achieve shared goals (or even make goals shared) when
you involve people in the decisions to be made, trust them to
handle the execution, and give them responsibilities and credit along
the way.”
Focusing on serving the needs of others, and not one’s own,
builds trust in a leader. And the more that people trust their leaders
and each other, the more they take risks, make changes, and keep
organizations and movements alive. Derek Rupnow, business devel-
opment manager at Broadcom, points out that “you develop trust
and respect by building personal relationships, as well as treating
everyone with respect, and making sure to keep everyone up to speed
on what is going on.” He seeks out the opinions of others and uses

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the ensuing discussions not only to build up their capabilities but
also to educate and update his own information and perspective.
Derek realizes that when people are trusted and have more discre-
tion, more authority, and more information, they’re much more
likely to use their energies to produce extraordinary results. Through
that relationship, leaders turn their constituents into leaders
themselves.
Encourage the Heart
The climb to the top is arduous and steep. People become exhausted,
frustrated, and disenchanted, and are often tempted to give up.
Genuine acts of caring draw people forward. “Recognition is the
most powerful currency you have, and it costs you nothing,” says
Jessica Herrin, CEO and founder of Stella & Dot, who oversees ten
thousand mostly part-time stylists, who sell the jewelry line through
private parties. She personally contacts at least ten stylists each day
and makes it part of her regular to-do list to find and celebrate suc-
cesses.5 Right after Mark Hassin’s company won the MSN-Microsoft
Israel’s Interactive Agencies Creative Competition, he sent a picture
of the award to everyone on his team along with a note that said,
“This is YOUR prize. Go tell your family, your friends––that YOU
did this.”
Leaders like Jessica and Mark recognize contributions by showing
appreciation for individual excellence. Such recognition can be one-
to-one or with many people. It can come from dramatic gestures or
simple actions. Jennifer Dirking, associate director at Foothill–
De Anza Community Colleges Foundation, is always on the lookout
for ways to create a climate in which, she says, “people feel cared
about and genuinely appreciated.” When her team gets together to
debrief an event, they start by acknowledging the aspects that were

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E successful and giving positive feedback to the team members who
deserved credit. Then, Jennifer explains, “as we evaluate those aspects
that we want to improve, it is within this context of overall success.
This approach improves morale and contributes to a more coopera-
tive work environment.”
It’s part of your job as a leader to show appreciation for people’s
contributions and to create a culture of celebrating the values and
victories by creating a spirit of community. Recognition and celebra-
tion aren’t necessarily about fun and games, though there is a lot of
fun and there are a lot of games when people encourage the hearts
of their constituents. Neither are they about pretentious ceremonies
designed to create some phony sense of camaraderie. Encouragement
is, curiously, serious business because it’s how you visibly and behav-
iorally link rewards with performance. Make sure that people see the
benefit of behavior that’s aligned with cherished values. Celebrations
and rituals, when they are authentic and from the heart, build a
strong sense of collective identity and community spirit that can
carry a group through extraordinarily tough times.
The Five Practices of Exemplary Leadership are the core leadership
competencies that emerged from our analysis of thousands of
Personal-Best Leadership Experience cases. When leaders are doing
their best, they Model the Way, Inspire a Shared Vision, Challenge
the Process, Enable Others to Act, and Encourage the Heart.
These are the practices that people use when they are at their
personal best as leaders. But what’s the evidence that they really
matter? Do these practices truly make a difference in the engagement
and performance of people and organizations? Over the years, we’ve
been challenged to answer these questions and to test the assertion
that The Five Practices explain how leaders get extraordinary things

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done in organizations. The research and empirical evidence make
the case that they do.
The Five Practices Make a Difference
The truth is that exemplary leader behavior makes a profoundly
positive difference in people’s commitment and performance at
work. Those leaders who more frequently use The Five Practices of
Exemplary Leadership are considerably more effective than their
counterparts who use them infrequently.
That is the conclusion we draw after analyzing responses from
nearly two million people around the world to the Leadership Prac-
tices Inventory (LPI), our 360-degree instrument assessing how
frequently leaders engage in The Five Practices.6 In addition to com-
pleting the LPI, respondents answer ten demographic questions
ranging from their age and gender to their functional field, industry,
and organization size.7 They also respond to ten statements about
how they feel about their leaders and their workplaces.8
The data show that workplace engagement and commitment are
significantly explained by how the leader behaves and not at all by
any particular characteristic of the constituents.
Statistical analyses revealed that a leader’s behavior explains the
vast majority of constituents’ workplace engagement. A leader’s
actions contribute more to such factors as commitment, loyalty,
motivation, pride, and productivity than does any other single vari-
able.9 Personal and organizational characteristics of constituents, in
contrast, explain less than 1 percent of constituents’ engagement in,
commitment to, and pride in their workplaces. Workplace engage-
ment and commitment are independent of who the constituents are
(as related to factors like age, gender, ethnicity, or education) or their

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position, job, discipline, industry, or nationality or country of origin.
Figure 1.1 illustrates our findings.
In other words, the more you engage in The Five Practices of
Exemplary Leadership, the more likely you are to have a positive
influence on others and on the organization. As Caroline Wang—at
one time the highest-ranking Asian female executive at IBM glob-
ally—reflected on her experiences with the Five Practices framework,
“It is really not about the leader’s personality; it is all about how that
individual behaves as a leader.” That’s what all the data add up to:
if you want to have a significant impact on people, on organizations,
and on communities, you’d be wise to invest in learning the behav-
iors that enable you to become the very best leader you can.
Many other scholars have documented how leaders who engage
in The Five Practices are more effective than those who don’t. It
doesn’t matter whether the context is inside or outside the United
FIGURE 1.1 Explaining Workplace Engagement and
Commitment
Pe
rc
en
ta
g
e
0
40
Leadership
30
25
20
15
5
10
United States Europe Asia Pacific South America
35
Demographics

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States, the public or private sector, or within schools, health care
organizations, business firms, prisons, churches, and the like.10
Leaders who use The Five Practices more frequently than their coun-
terparts, for example,
• Create higher-performing teams
• Generate increased sales and customer satisfaction levels
• Foster renewed loyalty and greater organizational commitment
• Enhance motivation and the willingness to work hard
• More successfully represent their units to upper management
• Facilitate high patient-satisfaction scores and more effectively
meet family member needs
• Promote high degrees of involvement in schools
• Enlarge the size of their religious congregations
• Increase fundraising results and expand gift-giving levels
• Extend the range of their agency’s services
• Increase retention, reducing absenteeism and turnover
• Positively influence recruitment rates
Over a five-year period, the financial performance of organiza-
tions where senior leaders were identified by their constituents as
“strongly” engaged in using The Five Practices were compared with
those organizations whose leadership was significantly less engaged
in The Five Practices.11 The bottom line? Net income growth was
nearly eighteen times higher, and stock price growth nearly three
times higher, than their counterparts for those publicly traded
organizations whose leadership was highly engaged in The Five
Practices.
Although The Five Practices of Exemplary Leadership don’t
completely explain why leaders and their organizations are success-
ful, it’s very clear that engaging in them makes quite a difference no

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E matter who you are or where you are located. How you behave as a
leader matters, and it matters a lot.
Embedded in The Five Practices of Exemplary Leadership are
behaviors that can serve as the basis for learning to lead. We call
these The Ten Commitments of Leadership (Table 1.1). They focus
on actions that you need to apply to yourself and that you need to
take with others. These Ten Commitments serve as the template for
explaining, understanding, appreciating, and learning how leaders
get extraordinary things done in organizations, and we discuss each
of them in depth in Chapters Two through Eleven.
Before delving into The Five Practices and The Ten Commit-
ments further, however, we’d be remiss if we didn’t consider leader-
ship from the standpoint of the constituent. So, what do people look
for in a leader? What do people want from someone whose direction
they’d be willing to follow?

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Model
the Way
1. Clarify values by finding your voice and
affirming shared values.
2. Set the example by aligning
actions with shared values.
Inspire a Shared
Vision
3. Envision the future by imagining
exciting and ennobling
possibilities.
4. Enlist others in a common
vision by appealing to shared
aspirations.
Challenge the
Process
5. Search for opportunities by
seizing the initiative and
looking outward for innovative
ways to improve.
6. Experiment and take risks by
constantly generating small wins and
learning from experience.
Enable Others
to Act
7. Foster collaboration by building trust
and facilitating relationships.
8. Strengthen others by increasing
self-determination and
developing competence.
Encourage the
Heart
9. Recognize contributions by
showing appreciation for individual
excellence.
10. Celebrate the values and victories by
creating a spirit of community.
TABLE 1.1 THE FIVE PRACTICES AND TEN
COMMITMENTS OF EXEMPLARY LEADERSHIP

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E LEADERSHIP IS A RELATIONSHIP
The inescapable conclusion from analyzing thousands of personal-
best leadership experiences is that everyone has a story to tell. And
these stories are much more similar in terms of actions, behaviors,
and processes than they are different. The data clearly challenge the
myths that leadership is something that you find only at the highest
levels of organizations and society or that it’s something reserved for
only a handful of charismatic men and women. The notion that
there are only a few great people who can lead others to greatness is
just plain wrong. Likewise, it is plain wrong to believe that leaders
come only from large or great or small or new organizations, or from
established economies or from start-up companies. The truth is,
leadership is an identifiable set of skills and abilities that are available
to anyone. It is because there are so many leaders—not so few—that
extraordinary things get done on a regular basis in organizations,
especially in times of great uncertainty.
There was another crucial truth that wove itself throughout
every situation and every action we’ve analyzed. Personal-best leader-
ship experiences are never stories about solo performances. Leaders
never get extraordinary things accomplished all by themselves.
Leaders mobilize others to want to struggle for shared aspirations,
and this means that, fundamentally, leadership is a relationship. Lead-
ership is a relationship between those who aspire to lead and those
who choose to follow. It’s the quality of this relationship that matters
most when engaged in getting extraordinary things done. A leader-
constituent relationship that’s characterized by fear and distrust will
never produce anything of lasting value. A relationship characterized
by mutual respect and confidence will overcome the greatest adversi-
ties and leave a legacy of significance.12

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That is precisely what Yamin Durrani told us about his relation-
ship with Bobby Matinpour, marketing manager at National Semi-
conductor, who came aboard just after the company had gone
through a massive reorganization followed by a huge layoff. Accord-
ing to Yamin, “Company-wide there was a general lack of motiva-
tion, a sense of mistrust, insecurity, and everyone was looking after
their own interest. Our group in particular was suffering from low
motivation as we didn’t trust each other. I dreaded going to the
office, and there was too much internal competition leading to
breakdowns in communication.”
Bobby realized that he was going to have to get people to trust
one another. His very first initiative was to sit with individual team
members to understand their desires, needs, and future plans. For
the first month, he spent most of the time learning and trying to
understand what each person aspired to and enjoyed doing. He held
weekly one-on-one meetings with individual team members, asking
questions and listening attentively to what they had to say. “His
friendly style and honest, straightforward approach,” said Yamin,
“led team members to open up and feel secure. He never acted as if
he knew everything, and was open to learning new things from the
team. Bobby understood that he couldn’t gain the respect of the team
without respecting them and allowing them the freedom to take
ownership of their projects. Bobby opened up lines of communica-
tion within the team, especially by encouraging greater face-to-face
interactions.”
In management meetings when a question was asked, even
though he could have provided the answer himself, Bobby typically
referred it to one of his team members, stating, for example, “Yamin
is an expert on this topic; I will let him answer this question.” During
the annual sales conference, attended by hundreds of company
employees, he let the most junior team member deliver the group

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E presentation, while the whole team stood behind the presenter to
answer questions. Yamin observed,
Being new to the group, Bobby could have easily fallen into the
trap of trying to prove himself by individually contributing in
projects, or acting as a gatekeeper for information flow;
however, he opted to trust his team members on projects and
took advice from them about the approach to take on a
particular project. He never forced his ideas. In other words,
“my way or the highway” was not his style. He encouraged
team members to take initiative and acted as an adviser on
projects, and let the ownership remain with the individual team
member.
The results of Bobby’s leadership were significant. The unit’s
revenue increased by 25 percent, and the product pipeline over-
flowed with ideas. Team spirit soared, people felt engaged, and a
general sense of collaboration and teamwork developed. Said Yamin,
“I personally had not felt more empowered and trusted ever before.
From this experience, I’ve realized that great leaders grow their fol-
lowers into leaders themselves.”
In the way he focused on others and not on himself, Bobby
demonstrated that success in leadership, success in work, and success
in life are a function of how well people work and play together.
Success in leading is wholly dependent on the capacity to build and
sustain those relationships. Because leadership is a reciprocal process
between leaders and their constituents, any discussion of leadership
must attend to the dynamics of this relationship. Strategies, tactics,
skills, and practices are empty without an understanding of the
fundamental human aspirations that connect leaders and constitu-
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What People Look For and Want
from Their Leaders
To better understand leadership as a relationship, we investigated the
expectations that constituents have of leaders. We asked people to
tell us the personal traits, characteristics, and attributes they look for
and admire in a person whom they would be willing to follow. The
responses both affirm and enrich the picture that emerged from
studies of personal leadership bests.
We began this research on what constituents expect of leaders
more than thirty years ago by surveying thousands of business and
government executives. Several hundred different values, traits, and
characteristics were identified in response to the open-ended question
about what they looked for in a person they would be willing to
follow.13 Subsequent content analysis by several independent judges,
followed by further empirical analyses, reduced these items to a list
of twenty characteristics (each grouped with several synonyms for
clarification and completeness).
From this list of twenty characteristics, we developed the Char-
acteristics of Admired Leaders checklist. It has been administered to
well over one hundred thousand people around the globe, and the
results are continuously updated. This one-page survey asks respon-
dents to select the seven qualities, out of twenty, that they “most
look for and admire in a leader, someone whose direction they would
willingly follow.” The key word in this statement is willingly. What
do they expect from a leader they would follow, not because they
have to, but because they want to?
The results have been striking in their regularity. Over the years,
wherever this question is asked, it’s clear, as the data in Table 1.2
illustrate, that there are some essential “character tests” an individual
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Percentage of Respondents Selecting
Each Characteristic
Characteristic 1987 1995 2002 2007 2012
HONEST 83 88 88 89 89
FORWARD-
LOOKING
62 75 71 71 71
COMPETENT 67 63 66 68 69
INSPIRING 58 68 65 69 69
Intelligent 43 40 47 48 45
Broad-minded 37 40 40 35 38
Fair-minded 40 49 42 39 37
Dependable 33 32 33 34 35
Supportive 32 41 35 35 35
Straightforward 34 33 34 36 32
Cooperative 25 28 28 25 27
Determined 17 17 23 25 26
Courageous 27 29 20 25 22
Ambitious 21 13 17 16 21
Caring 26 23 20 22 21
Loyal 11 11 14 18 19
Imaginative 34 28 23 17 16
Mature 23 13 21 5 14
Self-Controlled 13 5 8 10 11
Independent 10 5 6 4 5
Note: These percentages represent respondents from six continents: Africa,
North America, South America, Asia, Europe, and Australia. The majority of
respondents are from the United States. Because we asked people to select
seven characteristics, the total adds up to more than 100 percent.
TABLE 1.2 Characteristics of Admired Leaders

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Although every characteristic receives some votes, meaning that each
is important to some people, what is most evident and striking is
that over time, four, and only four, have always received more than
60 percent of the votes (with the exception of Inspiring in 1987).
And these same four have consistently been ranked at the top across
different countries.14
What people most look for in a leader (a person whom they
would be willing to follow) has been constant over time. And our
research documents that this pattern does not vary across countries,
cultures, ethnicities, organizational functions and hierarchies,
genders, levels of education, and age groups. For people to follow
someone willingly, the majority of constituents believe the leader
must be
• Honest
• Forward-looking
• Competent
• Inspiring
These investigations of desired leader attributes demonstrate
consistent and clear relationships with what people say and write
about their personal-best leadership experiences. The Five Practices
of Exemplary Leadership and the behaviors of people whom others
think of as exemplary leaders are complementary perspectives on the
same subject. When they’re performing at their peak, leaders are
doing more than just getting results. They’re also responding to the
expectations of their constituents.15
As the themes of being honest, forward-looking, competent, and
inspiring, are woven into the subsequent chapters on The Five Prac-
tices, you’ll see in more detail how exemplary leaders respond to the
expectations of their constituents. For example, leaders cannot

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E Model the Way without being seen as honest. The leadership practice
Inspire a Shared Vision involves being forward-looking and inspir-
ing. When leaders Challenge the Process, they also enhance the
perception that they’re dynamic and competent. Trustworthiness,
often a synonym for honesty, plays a major role in how leaders
Enable Others to Act, as does the leader’s own competency. Likewise,
leaders who recognize and celebrate significant accomplishments—
who Encourage the Heart—show inspiration and positive energy,
which increases their constituents’ understanding of the commit-
ment to the vision and values. When leaders demonstrate capacity
in all of The Five Practices, they show others they have the compe-
tence to make extraordinary things happen.
PUTTING IT ALL TOGETHER:
CREDIBILITY IS THE FOUNDATION
The top four characteristics—honest, forward-looking, competent,
and inspiring—have remained constant in the ever-changing and
turbulent social, political, and economic environment of the past
thirty years. The relative importance of each has varied somewhat
over time, but there has been no change in the fact that these are
the four qualities people want most in their leaders. Whether they
believe that their leaders are true to these values is another matter,
but what they would like from them has remained the same.
These four consistent characteristics are descriptively useful in
and of themselves—but there’s a more profound implication revealed
by these data. Three of these four key characteristics make up what
communications experts refer to as “source credibility.” In assessing
the believability of sources of communication—whether news

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reporters, salespeople, physicians, or priests; whether business man-
agers, military officers, politicians, or civic leaders—researchers typi-
cally evaluate them on three criteria: their perceived trustworthiness,
their expertise, and their dynamism. People who are rated more highly
on these dimensions are considered by others to be more credible
sources of information.16
Notice how remarkably similar these three characteristics are to
the essential leader qualities of being honest, competent, and inspir-
ing—three of the top four items continually selected in surveys. Link
the theory to the data about admired leader qualities, and the strik-
ing conclusion is that people want to follow leaders who are, more
than anything, credible. Credibility is the foundation of leadership.
Constituents must be able, above all else, to believe in their leaders.
For them to willingly follow someone else, they must believe that
the leader’s word can be trusted, that she is personally passionate and
enthusiastic about the work, and that she has the knowledge and
skill to lead.
Constituents also must believe that their leader knows where
they’re headed and has a vision for the future. An expectation that
their leaders be forward-looking is what sets leaders apart from other
credible individuals. Compared to other sources of information (for
example, journalists and TV news anchors), leaders must do more
than be reliable reporters of the news. Leaders make the news, inter-
pret the news, and make sense of the news. Leaders are expected to
have a point of view about the future and to articulate exciting pos-
sibilities. Constituents want to be confident that their leaders know
where they’re going.
Even so, although compelling visions are necessary for leader-
ship, if you as a leader are not credible, the message rests on a weak
and precarious foundation. You must therefore be ever diligent in
guarding your credibility. Your ability to take strong stands,

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E challenge the status quo, and point to new directions depends on
your being highly credible. You can never take your credibility for
granted, regardless of the times or of your expertise or authority. If
you ask others to follow you to some uncertain future––a future that
may not be realized in their lifetime––and if the journey is going to
require sacrifice, isn’t it reasonable that constituents should believe
in you?
The consistency and pervasiveness of these findings about the
characteristics of admired leaders––people who would be willingly
followed––are the rationale for The Kouzes-Posner First Law of
Leadership:
If you don’t believe in the messenger, you won’t believe the
message.
When we’ve surveyed people about the extent to which their
immediate manager exhibited credibility-enhancing behaviors, the
results strongly supported this “law.”17 When people perceive their
immediate manager to have high credibility, they’re significantly
more likely to feel proud about their organization, feel a high degree
of team spirit, feel a strong sense of ownership and commitment to
the organization, and be motivated by shared values and intrinsic
factors. What happens when people don’t feel that their immediate
manager has much credibility is that they start looking for other
jobs, they feel unsupported and underappreciated, and they express
being motivated primarily by external factors like money and ben-
efits (which are never enough). Clearly, credibility makes a differ-
ence, and leaders must take this personally. Loyalty, commitment,
energy, and productivity depend on it. Consider for a moment what
researchers studying soldiers serving in “hot-combat” zones discov-
ered about what it takes to influence people to risk injury and even

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death to achieve the organization’s objectives. Soldiers’ perceptions
of their leader’s credibility, the evidence shows, determines the actual
extent of influence that leader can exercise.18
The data confirm that credibility is the foundation of leadership. But
what is credibility behaviorally? In other words, how do you know
it when you see it?
We’ve asked this question of tens of thousands of people around
the globe, and the response is essentially the same, regardless of how
it may be phrased in one company versus another or one country
versus another. Here are some of the common phrases people use to
describe credible leaders:
“They practice what they preach.”
“They walk the talk.”
“Their actions are consistent with their words.”
“They put their money where their mouth is.”
“They follow through on their promises.”
“They do what they say they will do.”
The last is the most frequent response. When it comes to decid-
ing whether a leader is believable, people first listen to the words,
then they watch the actions. They listen to the talk, then they watch
the walk. They listen to the promises of resources to support change
initiatives, then they wait to see if the money and materials follow.
They hear the pledge to deliver, then they look for evidence that the
commitments are met. A judgment of “credible” is handed down
when words and deeds are consonant. If people don’t see consistency,
they conclude that the leader is, at best, not really serious or, at worst,
an outright hypocrite. If leaders espouse one set of values but person-
ally practice another, people find them to be duplicitous. If leaders

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E practice what they preach, people are more willing to entrust them
with their livelihood and even their lives.
This realization leads to a straightforward prescription for the
most significant way to establish credibility. We refer to it as The
Kouzes-Posner Second Law of Leadership:
You build a credible foundation of leadership foundation
when you DWYSYWD—Do What You Say You Will Do.
DWYSYWD has two essential parts: say and do. The practice
of Model the Way links directly to these two dimensions of the
behavioral definition of credibility. Modeling is about clarifying
values and setting an example for others based on those values. The
consistent living out of values is the way leaders demonstrate their
honesty and trustworthiness. It’s what gives them the moral author-
ity to lead. And that’s where we begin our discussion of The Five
Practices. In the next two chapters, we examine the principles and
behaviors that bring Model the Way to life.

MODEL
THE WAY

The first step a leader must take along the path to becom-ing an exemplary leader is inward. It’s a step toward
discovering personal values and beliefs. Leaders must find their
voice. They must discover a set of principles that guide deci-
sions and actions. They must find a way to express a leadership
philosophy in their own words and not in someone else’s.
Yet leaders don’t just speak for themselves. They also
speak for their team and organization. Leadership is a dia-
logue, not a monologue. Therefore, leaders must reach out to
others. They must understand and appreciate the values of
their constituents and find a way to affirm shared values.
Leaders forge unity. They don’t force it. They give people
reasons to care, not simply orders to follow.
Leaders stand up for their beliefs. They practice what they
preach. They show others by their actions that they live by the
values they profess. They also ensure that others adhere to the
values that have been agreed on. It is consistency between
words and actions that builds credibility.
In the next two chapters, we will take a look at how you
must
• Clarify Values by finding your voice and
affirming shared values.
• Set the Example by aligning actions with
shared values.
P R A C T I C E 1
MODEL THE WAY

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WHO ARE YOU? This is the first question your constituents
want you to answer. Finding that answer is where every leadership
journey begins.
When Alex Anwar was hired as director of a new business unit
at Labo America, he faced resentment from many within the
company because they felt that he was too young and inexperienced
to manage such a diverse group and product portfolio.1 Because
many of the units were siloed and polarized, a widespread question
was whether he would be the kind of leader who would bring people
together toward a common goal. Alex’s first step was to communicate
his values to the team. He circulated an email introducing himself,
not as a manager, but as a fellow employee of the company charged
with a difficult task. Instead of telling everyone what he wanted
out of them, he stated clearly what values and performance
criteria he demanded of himself every day. In teaching his value
set, Alex ensured that people would be better prepared to under­
stand his actions and the reasoning behind certain decisions. They
Clarify Values
C H A P T E R 2

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E were able to connect the outcome with a value (for example, hard
work).
In an all­hands meeting later that week, Alex provided a few
examples of cases in which he exercised his core values of honesty
and sincerity, discussing how he handled a particular problem with
a customer. He took his constituents through the issue as though
narrating a story. He subsequently used this style of storytelling every
time he made a case for how certain company situations were to be
handled. By making these lessons easy to relate to, values centered,
and personal, he helped people both understand and retain the
intended lesson. As one of his direct reports explained, “Alex made
his values understood through clearly communicating and providing
contexts that would aid in their retention. He put all the values into
his own words, and thus gave us a clear idea about the kind of person
he was.”
The Personal­Best Leadership Experience cases we’ve collected
are, at their core, the stories of individuals who, like Alex, were clear
about their personal values and understood how this clarity gave
them the courage to navigate difficult situations and make tough
choices. People expect their leaders to speak out on matters of values
and conscience. But to speak out, you have to know what to speak
about. To stand up for your beliefs, you have to know the beliefs
you stand for. To walk the talk, you have to have a talk to walk. To
do what you say, you have to know what you want to say. To earn
and sustain personal credibility, you must first be able to clearly
articulate deeply held beliefs.
Model the Way is the first of The Five Practices of Exemplary
Leadership we discuss in this book, and one of the commit­
ments you have to make in order to effectively Model the Way is
to Clarify Values. In beginning your leadership journey, it’s essential
that you

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• FIND YOUR VOICE
• AFFIRM SHARED VALUES
To become a credible leader, you first have to comprehend fully
the deeply held beliefs—the values, standards, ethics, and ideals—
that drive you. You have to freely and honestly choose the principles
you will use to guide your decisions and actions. Then you have to
genuinely express yourself. You have to authentically communicate
your beliefs in ways that uniquely represent who you are.
However, leaders aren’t just speaking for themselves when they
talk about the values that should guide decisions and actions. When
leaders passionately express a commitment to quality or innovation
or service or some other core value, those leaders aren’t just saying,
“I believe in this.” They’re also making a commitment for an entire
organization. They’re saying, “We all believe in this.” Therefore,
leaders must not only be clear about their personal guiding principles
but also make sure that there’s agreement on a set of shared values
among everyone they lead. And they must hold others accountable
to those values and standards.
FIND YOUR VOICE
“What is your leadership philosophy?” What would you say if
someone asked you this question? Are you prepared right now to say
what it is? If you aren’t, you should be. And if you are, you need to
reflect on it daily.
Before you can become a credible leader—one who connects
what you say with what you do—you first have to find your voice.
If you can’t find your voice, you’ll end up with a vocabulary that
belongs to someone else, mouthing words that were written by some

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E speechwriter or mimicking the language of some other leader who’s
nothing like you at all. If the words you speak are not your words
but someone else’s, you will not, in the long term, be able to be
consistent in word and deed. You will not have the integrity to lead.
To find your voice, you have to explore your inner self. You have
to discover what you care about, what defines you, and what makes
you who you are. You can be authentic only when you lead according
to the principles that matter most to you. Otherwise you’re just
putting on an act. Consider Casey Mork’s experience with an inter­
nal start­up business that never got off the ground:
First, our manager never had a true voice, as he never had the
courage to pronounce solutions or suggestions beyond what our
three (never agreeing) directors input into each decision.
Oftentimes it felt like he acted as a simple conduit for mixed
messages from above . . . without his own personal voice
defining a clear road for us to travel. This made it very difficult
for the group to focus on a defined set of tasks connected to
goals.
Second, an outcome of the above was that we had no
specific organizational values to live by. Sure we all knew the
company mission, and transferred in corporate values from our
previous groups (inside the same company), but he never went
beyond the ordinary in defining values for our business. Our
customers were different, and so how should we treat them
differently than the rest of the company? We spent a lot of
money pampering our customers; how would this apply to
managing our expense accounts? Seemingly simple values went
and as a result were exploited by some team
members.
As could have been predicted, Casey says, this lack of clarity and
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and focus, and the company failed to generate a favorable customer
experience or positive business results. In contrast, Josh Fradenburg,
founder of Mindful Measures says that it was his values that drove
the products that he brought to market. “It was really the values that
formed the organization, rather than the organization forming the
values,” he recounts.
When we ask leaders how clear they are about their leadership
philosophy, those who fall into the top 10 percent on this leader­
ship behavior have quite different work attitudes than their coun­
terparts in the bottom 10 percent. Their overall attitudes toward the
workplace are significantly more positive. When asked to rate their
own effectiveness as a leader, the scores of those who are clear about
their leadership philosophy are 25 percent higher than those who
report being not very clear about their leadership philosophy.
The impact that the leader’s clarity of leadership philosophy has
on his or her constituents is even more dramatic, as shown in Figure
2.1. When asked how effective the leader is, the scores from those
working with leaders who are seen as being clear about their leader­
ship philosophy are more than 40 percent higher than those scores
received from constituents who view leaders as not very clear
about their leadership philosophy. There are statistically significant
differences between these two groups of constituents on a variety
of important dimensions. For example, feeling a sense of team
spirit, feeling proud about the organization, feeling committed to
the organization’s success, being willing to work extra hard to meet
organizational objectives, and levels of trust all differ significantly.
Leaders who have a clear leadership philosophy are nearly 30 percent
more likely to be trusted by their constituents than those unclear
about their leadership philosophy.
The evidence is clear: to be the most effective, every leader must
learn to find the voice that represents who he or she is. When you
have clarified your values and found your voice, you will also find

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E FIGURE 2.1 The Impact of Leadership Philosophy Clarity on
Constituent Work Attitudes and Engagement
Te
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Constituent Work Attitudes and Engagement
Pr
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Tr
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Le
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High
4.50
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3.50
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1.50
1.00
0.50
the inner confidence necessary to express ideas, chose a direction,
make tough decisions, act with determination, and be able to take
charge of your life rather than impersonating others.
Let Your Values Guide You
Milton Rokeach, one of the leading scholars in the field of human
values, referred to a value as an enduring belief. He noted that values
are organized into two sets: means and ends.2 In the context of our
work on leadership, we use the term values to refer to here­and­now
beliefs about how things should be accomplished—what Milt calls
means values. We will use vision in Chapters Four and Five when we
refer to the long­term ends values that leaders and constituents aspire
to attain. Leadership requires both. When sailing through the tur­

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bulent seas of change and uncertainty, crew members need a vision
of the destination that lies beyond the horizon; they also need to
understand the principles by which they must navigate their course.
If either of these is absent, the journey is likely to end with the crew
lost at sea.
Values influence every aspect of your life: your moral judgments,
your responses to others, your commitments to personal and orga­
nizational goals. Values set the parameters for the hundreds of deci­
sions you make every day, consciously and subconsciously. Options
that run counter to your value system are seldom considered or acted
on; and if they are, it’s done with a sense of compliance rather than
commitment.
Values constitute your personal “bottom line.” They serve as
guides to action. They inform the priorities you set and the decisions
you make. They tell you when to say yes and when to say no. They
also help you explain the choices you make and why you made them.
If you believe, for instance, that diversity enriches innovation and
service, then you should know what to do if people with differing
views keep getting cut off when they offer fresh ideas. If you value
collaboration over individualistic achievement, then you’ll know
what to do when your best salesperson skips team meetings and
refuses to share information with colleagues. If you value indepen­
dence and initiative over conformity and obedience, you’ll be more
likely to challenge something your manager says if you think it’s
wrong.
All of the most critical decisions a leader makes involve values.
For example, values determine how much emphasis to place on the
immediate interests of the customer or the long­term interests of the
company, how to apportion time between family and organizational
responsibilities, and what behaviors to reward or discourage. In turn,
these decisions have critical organizational impact. Indeed, in these

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E turbulent times, having a set of deeply held values allows leaders to
focus and make choices among a plethora of competing beliefs,
paradigms, and interests.
Paul di Bari’s operations section within the engineering services
group took on the new responsibility for the physical security of the
VA Palo Alto Health Care System’s 2.2­million­square­foot facility.
Along with the responsibility of hiring a new technician to manage
this system, Paul was also taking on a new contractor relationship.
Before starting any more projects, Paul called a meeting with the
new technician and contractor to figure out the status of the current
access system, any open projects, and any projects on the horizon.
Paul used this meeting to vocalize his intentions about how the
newly developed team would work, his vision moving forward, and
his expectations for all parties. His values on project timelines,
preparations, submittals, and execution would require more detailed
attention than in the past and would also, he hoped, create a new
sense of accountability. Paul explained,
If I was going to pay large sums of money for parts and
services, then I had expectations for the quality of the deliver­
able, which were far higher than the previous regime. These
higher standards of quality were necessary to fix the system
and to make it operate at a high level. I began to personally
inspect the work of the contractor as we completed six open
projects. During this time, I was also training our new techni­
cian and establishing expectations of project management
(for example, statements of work, pricing quotes, communica­
tion, workmanship, and the final product) that he would need
to carry forth. It was imperative to the long­term success of
this program and this new team that I clearly explained what
my values were, my project management style and
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Paul had to find his voice as a leader by clearly stating his leader­
ship principles and the accompanying management goals and objec­
tives. At the beginning of the project, Paul met with the contractor
and his new technician to communicate these in the context of the
security access system. By clearly defining his standards, he was
establishing a baseline for future performance and also a measuring
block on which to base accountability. “It would have been very easy
for me,” Paul said, “to sit back and supervise the program from afar,
but in order to earn the trust and respect of both people involved,
I had to establish a sense of trust through my work ethic.” Because
Paul was clear about his own values, he found it relatively easy to
talk about values and subsequently to use them in setting standards
and expectations. This tone at the top from Paul provided guidelines
for how his constituents would subsequently act and make
decisions.
As Paul’s experience illustrates, values are guides. They supply
you with a compass by which to navigate the course of your daily
life. Clarity of values is essential to knowing which way is north,
south, east, and west. The clearer you are about your values, the
easier it is for you and for everyone else to stay on the chosen path
and commit to it. This kind of guidance is especially needed in dif­
ficult and uncertain times. When there are daily challenges that can
throw you off course, it’s crucial that you have some signposts that
tell you where you are.
Say It in Your Own Words
People can speak the truth only when speaking in their own true
voice. The techniques and tools that fill the pages of management
and leadership books—including this one—are not substitutes for
who and what you are. Once you have the words you want to say,

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E you must also give voice to those words. You must be able to express
yourself so that everyone knows that you are the one who’s
speaking.
You’ll find a lot of scientific data in this book to support our
assertions about each of The Five Practices of Exemplary Leadership.
But keep in mind that leadership is also an art. And just as with any
other art form, leadership is a means of personal expression. To
become a credible leader, you have to learn to express yourself in
ways that are uniquely your own. Which is exactly what Andrew
Levine did, and in the process helped his colleague Pranav Sharma
be able to do the same.
Andrew is a head mentor at the Young Storytellers Foundation
(YSF), a nonprofit organization in the United States that provides a
creative outlet to fifth­graders whose public schools do not have
the budget for creative arts programs. He is passionate about and
committed to providing a classroom atmosphere that pushes the
imaginations of the kids they mentor, and he cares deeply for all the
YSF volunteers. According to one of those volunteers, Pranav
Sharma, Andrew’s personal values fit comfortably with the values
articulated in YSF’s mission statement. Pranav told us how Andrew
influenced him: “He had a unique voice among the mentors. His
example led me to exhibit values he shared with the organization.
He helped me understand what it meant to the kids to have a unique
voice.”
Pranav was paired with a fifth­grader named Rachel, and was
tasked to guide her in writing an original story in a ten­page screen­
play format, but he was having trouble getting Rachel to focus on
her story. Whereas other mentors were making progress on their
kids’ stories, Pranav felt that Rachel was not very motivated. The
fact that Pranav was absent a couple of times over the eight­week

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program because of the demands from his workplace didn’t help the
situation. Andrew was noticeably frustrated with Pranav and a few
other mentors’ seeming lack of interest in the program. He took two
steps to remedy the situation. First, he reminded the delinquent
mentors why they had joined the program. He talked about why he
was loyal to the program. He asked them to leave the program if they
were not making YSF a priority, which would be evidenced by future
absences. Second, he asked the volunteers to look at the program
through the perspective of the fifth­grader. What are the kids looking
for from their mentors? He suggested that the volunteers stop wor­
rying about whether they were qualified to mentor or whether the
kids would like them. All that was required, Andrew explained, was
to be present and to talk to them. Pranav got the point.
Andrew was right. He was asking us to affirm our shared values
and find our voice. What Andrew was doing was asking us to
reexamine the reasons we joined YSF. He wanted us to be
vested in YSF’s values, which included words like loyalty,
commitment, passion, and patience. He wanted us to build a
relationship with the kids by talking to them. The only way to
make a unique difference in a kid’s life was to find my own
voice. I had to find my voice if I was to make an indelible
impression on my mentee.
So Pranav gave it a shot. He reflected on the reasons he had
originally wanted to join YSF, which involved giving back creatively
to the community. He had wanted to join a nonprofit organization
that valued loyalty. He said,
Finding my voice was not easy. I talked without pretense,
allowing Rachel to guide the conversation. It was difficult at

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E first, but the enthusiasm in Rachel’s eyes encouraged me to
continue to establish my own voice and my own words. The
result was a happy child who was proud of her original story. At
the end of the program, she gave me a very creative thank­you
card highlighting me as the best mentor she had had. I was
proud of her.
The lesson here is that Andrew gave Pranav, and all the other
mentors, time to discover how their personal values meshed with
those of YSF. By telling them his own story of why he was passionate
about becoming a mentor at YSF, he helped them find the words to
express their own reasons for caring about YSF, its mission, and
especially the children. Andrew didn’t tell them what to believe; he
told them about his own beliefs and asked them to find in their own
values their reasons for being involved with the organization.
Through this reflection, they discovered their own voice and found
the words necessary to reach kids like Rachel and help them find
their way.
Leaders like Andrew and Pranav understand that you cannot
lead through someone else’s values or someone else’s words. You
cannot lead out of someone else’s experience. You can lead only out
of your own. Unless it’s your style and your words, it’s not you—it’s
just an act. People don’t follow your position or your technique. They
follow you. If you’re not the genuine article, can you really expect
others to want to follow? To be a leader, you’ve got to awaken to the
fact that you don’t have to copy someone else, you don’t have to read
a script written by someone else, and you don’t have to wear someone
else’s style. Instead, you are free to choose what you want to express
and the way you want to express it. In fact, you have a responsibility
to your constituents to express yourself in an authentic manner, in
a way they would immediately recognize as yours.

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Find Commitment Through Clarifying Values
It’s one thing to expect leaders to be clear about their values and
beliefs, but it’s another to prove that it really matters that they are.
What’s the evidence for this assertion? How much difference does
being clear about values really make? We set out to empirically
investigate the relationship between personal values clarity, organi­
zational values clarity, and a variety of outcomes, such as commit­
ment and job satisfaction. Surveying a large sample of managers in
the early 1980s, and another sample of managers nearly two decades
later, revealed few differences in the findings.3 The results of our
research clearly indicate that clarity of personal values makes a sig­
nificant difference in behavior at work.
Managers were asked about the extent of their clarity around
their personal values as well as the values of their organization. They
were also asked about their level of commitment to their organiza­
tion, how proud they were to tell others they worked in their orga­
nization, their level of motivation and productivity, their job
satisfaction, and the like. As you can see in Figure 2.2, the highest
levels of commitment are found where personal values are the clear­
est. Clarity about personal values was consistently more significant
in accounting for positive workplace attitudes and levels of engage­
ment than was clarity around organizational values.4
The people who are clear about their personal beliefs but can’t
recite the corporate credo are significantly more likely to stick around
and work hard than those people who’ve heard the organizational
litany but have never listened to their own inner voice. In other
words, personal values drive commitment. Personal values are the
route to motivation and productivity.
How can this be? How can people who are very clear about
their own values be committed to a place that has never affirmed or

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posted its organizational values? Think about it. Have you ever
had the feeling, “This place is not for me?” Have you ever walked
into a place, immediately gotten the sense, “I don’t belong here,”
and just walked right out? In contrast, have you ever just known
that you belong, that you can be yourself, and felt “This is the right
place for me”? Of course you have. Everyone has had those
experiences.
It’s the same in the workplace. There comes a point when you
just know whether it is or isn’t a good fit with your values and beliefs,
even if there was no lecture on the organization’s values. You won’t
stick around a place for very long when you feel in your heart and
in your soul that you don’t belong. This is why people’s years of
managerial experience and hierarchical level help explain differences
in the extent of personal values clarity, whereas such factors as
gender, educational level, and functional discipline do not.5 The
most talented people, no matter their age or background, gravitate
to companies where they can look forward to going to work each
day because their values “work” in that organizational setting. Julie
High
Low
4.87 6.26
4.90 6.12
Low High
Clarity of Personal Values
C
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of
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FIGURE 2.2 The Impact of Values Clarity on Commitment

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Sedlock, group vice president for operations at Aéropostale, a global
specialty retailer of casual apparel and accessories, echoes this
observation: “I love to come to work here. I can’t think of a day in
twenty years that I didn’t want to wake up and go to work.” She
explains that when you share the company’s values, you “want to
come to work, work hard, and achieve the goals that the organization
has set.”
Workplace and organizational commitment are based on align­
ment with personal values and who you are and what you are about.
People who are clearest about personal values are better prepared to
make choices based on principle—including deciding whether the
principles of the organization fit with their own!
AFFIRM SHARED VALUES
Leadership is not simply about your own values. It’s also about the
values of your constituents. Just as your own values drive your com­
mitment to the organization, their personal values drive their
commitment. Your constituents will be significantly more engaged
in a place where they believe they can stay true to their beliefs.
Although clarifying your own values is essential, understanding the
values of others and building alignment around values that everyone
can share are equally critical.
Shared values are the foundational pillars for building produc­
tive and genuine working relationships. Credible leaders honor the
diversity of their many constituencies, but they also stress their
common values. Leaders build on agreement. They don’t try to get
everyone to be in accord on everything. This goal is unrealistic,
perhaps even impossible. Moreover, to achieve it would negate the
very advantages of diversity. But to take the first step and then a

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E second and then a third, people must have some common core of
understanding. After all, if there’s no agreement about values, then
what exactly are the leader and everyone else going to model? If
disagreements over fundamental values continue, the result is intense
conflict, false expectations, and diminished capacity.6 Leaders ensure
that everyone is aligned through the process of affirming shared
values––uncovering, reinforcing, and holding one another account­
able to what “we” value.
Hilary Hall told us about how her manager helped people
examine their own values and how this built a foundation of shared
values that resulted in a spirit of camaraderie and common purpose.
At General Electric, Hilary was on a multinational internal audit
team, which consisted of a German, two Americans, a Belarusian,
and an Indian:
At the beginning of the audit, before we even began work, our
manager had us all complete a questionnaire, which included
topics such as where we grew up, favorite food, hobbies, and so
on. There were also questions that dug a little deeper and asked
us about the type of work we liked and did not like, how we
liked to work, the role we usually played on teams, and what
we respected in managers and teammates. After completing the
questionnaires individually, we gathered as a group and shared
our responses.
At the time, I thought of the exercise as a team icebreaker,
a chance for us to get to know one another and build a sense of
camaraderie, especially since we came from different corners of
the globe. Why else would I need to know that Matt enjoys
eating Mexican food, or likes to kick around ideas before having
to make a decision? Reflecting on the experience now, I
understand that the exercise was more than just an icebreaker;
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values––both personal and professional––and showing the
team what was important to him, too. This was especially
imperative since internal audit work was often stressful,
extremely deadline oriented, and required us to be at the work
site for two weeks at a time. It was a demanding work environ­
ment, and I believe our success as individual auditors was
contingent on our success as a team, which begins with mutual
respect and trust.
Hilary was clear that if the team members had not aligned
themselves around common values, their effectiveness as a team, as
well as their manager’s credibility, would have suffered. They could
have easily lost touch with one another and worked according to
their own individual standards, which would have resulted in uneven
motivation and commitment toward common work goals. “From
this experience,” says Hilary,
I have learned that a good leader takes the time to break the ice
and know his or her team on a personal level, but a great leader
goes one step further and learns about each person’s values, how
they build trust, and what is core to their motivation and drive.
They then share the team’s values, as well as their own, and
align the team around a strong focal point for working together
toward a shared goal (or goals).
Research confirms Hilary’s experience. Organizations with a
strong corporate culture based on a foundation of shared values
outperform other firms by a huge margin. Their revenue and rate
of job creation grow faster, and their profit performance and stock
price are significantly higher. Furthermore, studies of public sector
organizations support the importance of shared values to organiza­
tional effectiveness. Within successful agencies and departments,

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E considerable agreement, as well as intense feeling, is found among
employees and managers about the importance of their values and
about how those values should best be implemented.7
In our own research, we’ve found that shared values make a
significant and positive difference in work attitudes and commit­
ment.8 For instance, shared values
• Foster strong feelings of personal effectiveness
• Promote high levels of company loyalty
• Facilitate consensus about key organizational goals and
stakeholders
• Encourage ethical behavior
• Promote strong norms about working hard and caring
• Reduce levels of job stress and tension
• Foster pride in the company
• Facilitate understanding about job expectations
• Foster teamwork and esprit de corps
Periodically taking the organization’s pulse to check for values
clarity and consensus is well worthwhile. It renews commitment. It
engages the institution in discussing values (such as diversity, acces­
sibility, sustainability, and so on) that are more relevant to a changing
constituency. Once people are clear about the leader’s values, about
their own values, and about shared values, they know what’s expected
of them and how they can count on others. With this clarity, they
can manage higher levels of stress and better handle the often con­
flicting demands of work and their personal lives.
Give People Reasons to Care
Important as it is that leaders forthrightly articulate the principles
for which they stand, the values leaders espouse must be consistent

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with the aspirations of their constituents. Leaders who advocate
values that aren’t representative of the collective won’t be able to
mobilize people to act as one. There has to be a shared understanding
of what’s expected. Leaders must be able to gain consensus on a
common cause and a common set of principles. They must be able
to build and affirm a community of shared values.
It’s vitally important that leaders and constituents arrive at con­
sensus on shared values, because once they are articulated, those
values become a pledge to employees, customers, clients, business
partners, and other constituents. They are a promise to people that
everyone in the organization will do what the values prescribe.
Regardless of whether the organization is a team of two, an agency
of two hundred, a school of two thousand, a company of twenty
thousand, or a community of two hundred thousand, shared values
are the ground rules for making decisions and taking action. Unless
there’s agreement on these principles, leaders, constituents, and their
organizations risk losing credibility.
Recognition of shared values provides people with a common
language. Tremendous energy is generated when individual, group,
and organizational values are in synch. Commitment, enthusiasm,
and drive are intensified. People have reasons for caring about their
work. When individuals care about what they are doing, they are
more effective and satisfied. They experience less stress and tension.
Shared values are the internal compasses that enable people to act
both independently and interdependently.
Nicole Matouk was a student records analyst at Stanford Law
School when the school implemented a major transition from the
semester to the quarter system. Because of all the preparations that
needed to be made in advance of the transition (such as overhauling
the computer systems) and because of the quarter system itself,
which required an additional term of work, by the end of the school
year, everyone was exhausted and in need of encouragement. The

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E associate dean sent an email to the people working in the registrar’s
office, asking for their feedback about the transition and inviting
them to meet with her over coffee and talk informally about the
transition process.
Everyone had the opportunity to speak about the topics he or
she felt strongly about, and all were given equal and ample time to
express themselves. No one felt pressured, and the staff felt free
to express their opinions without any fear of retribution. The dean
asked questions about how they could make their jobs more efficient
and which new systems could be implemented to make procedures
easier for both the students and the staff. Nicole went on to explain
that
The dean’s questions kept us from taking a bath in the negative
emotions we were feeling, and they helped us refocus on our
goals as an office. She used these questions to affirm our shared
values. The dean didn’t have to struggle to think of the ques­
tions she wanted to ask, or how she would connect what we
were discussing to our goals; her values were guiding her
questions. As we talked, I could tell she was leading me in a
certain direction, but it didn’t seem manipulative. This was so
much more powerful to me than reading about the values in
the handbook. I was generating the answers to her questions, so
I felt this is what I believe, not just what I am supposed to
agree with.
Not only did this meeting help our team to individually
generate answers that were in line with our values and the
office’s values, it helped us to affirm our shared values as an
office. We came out of that meeting more united and with
the knowledge that we were all working to achieve the same
thing, instead of pulling against each other for time and
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Nicole’s experience reaffirms that people are more loyal when
they believe that their values and those of the organization are
aligned. The quality and accuracy of communication, and the integ­
rity of the decision­making process, increase when people feel part
of the same team. They are more creative because they become
immersed in what they are doing. Our research, along with the find­
ings of others, clearly reveals that when there’s congruence between
individual values and organizational values, there’s significant payoff
for leaders and their organizations.9
We found that nearly two­thirds of people surveyed felt that
organizations, and their leaders, should be spending more time
talking about values.10 The Trustmark Companies take this message
seriously. They put their entire organization (twenty­five hundred
employees) through an internal leader­led “Values Experience”
during which people had the chance to think about their values and
reflect on how their values guided their actions.11 Feedback from this
experience was so positive that Trustmark continues to give people
the opportunity to share their values in unique ways. For example,
on each floor of the company atrium, they post yards and yards of
white paper for employees to write about, draw, and otherwise depict
their values. Trustmark also instituted a “WeekEND Message” in
which senior leaders throughout the organization volunteer to write
an article to share. Each Friday, via email, they convey their thoughts
and ideas, focused on their top five values. Leaders at every level are
reaching out to others with stories that speak to their values.
Through conversations and discussions, like those at Trustmark,
leaders renew commitment by reminding people why they care
about what they are doing, and these exchanges reinforce feelings
that everyone is on the same team (especially critical in distributed
workplaces). Once people are clear about the leader’s values, about
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E of them. This clarity enriches their ability to make choices, enables
them to better handle stressful situations, and enhances understand­
ing and appreciation of the choices made by others.
Forge Unity, Don’t Force It
When leaders seek consensus around shared values, constituents are
more positive. People who report that their senior managers engage
in dialogue regarding common values feel a significantly stronger
sense of personal effectiveness than individuals who feel that they’re
wasting energy trying to figure out what they’re supposed to be
doing.
Erika Long, HR manager for Procter & Gamble (P&G), started
with the company as an intern and was immediately impressed with
how leaders demonstrated their values and the core principles of the
company in every decision they made. She says,
Leaders at P&G are constantly affirming these values. Anytime
they are faced with a difficult decision, they will look to the
PVP [the company’s Purpose, Values, and Principles] to guide
their actions. I met with the director of sales for the Hong
Kong and Taiwan regions. I asked him, how does he make sure
he is always making the right business decisions? He said,
simply, “I look to the PVP. It guides the way I do business. If I
am put in a position that is in conflict with those guidelines, I
simply don’t do it.”
Erika says that “people who work at P&G are proud to say so,
and everyone feels they are part of something special. Their core
values align with those of the organization.” When people are unsure
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off, and depart. The energy that goes into coping with, and possibly
fighting about, incompatible values takes its toll on both personal
effectiveness and organizational productivity.
“What are our basic principles?” and “What do we believe in?”
are far from simple questions. One study reported 185 different
behavioral expectations about the value of integrity alone.12 Even
with commonly identified values, there may be little agreement
on the meaning of values statements. The lesson here is that
leaders must engage their constituents in a dialogue about values.
A common understanding of values emerges from a process, not a
pronouncement.
This is precisely the experience of Charles Law, who at American
Express was assigned to lead the launch of a marketing campaign
with a team of six colleagues of different ethnicities and business
functions. At first, progress was slow, as frequent conflicts drove
down team morale. Each team member was focused on his or her
own goals, without considering the interests of others. Differences
between them led to mistrust, and worse yet, according to Charles,
he had the least experience of anyone in the group, so team members
were skeptical about his leadership competency.
Charles saw that the team needed to agree on a shared set of
values in order to function well. He noted that it was not so impor­
tant what the particular value was called or labeled but that everyone
agreed on the importance and meaning of the values. One of his
initial actions was to bring people together just for that purpose,
so that they could arrive at shared understandings of what their
key priorities and values were and what these meant in action.
He sat down and listened to each team member individually,
and reported about everyone’s opinions at their next group meet­
ing. He encouraged open discussions and worked through any
misunderstandings.

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E The last thing Charles wanted them to feel was that his values
were being imposed on them. So each person talked about his or
her own values and the reasoning behind them. In this manner, they
were able to identify as a group the common values that were
important. “With a set of shared values, created with everyone’s
consent,” Charles explained, “everyone strived to work together as a
team toward success. Shared values created a positive difference
in work attitudes and performance. My action made my colleagues
work harder, emphasized teamwork and respect of each other, and
resulted in better understanding of each other’s capabilities to meet
appropriately set mutual expectations.”
Charles understood that leaders can’t impose their values on
organization members. Instead they must be proactive in involving
people in the process of creating shared values. Imagine how much
ownership of values there can be when leaders actively engage a wide
range of people in their development. Shared values are the result of
listening, appreciating, building consensus, and resolving conflicts.
For people to understand the values and come to agree with them,
they must participate in the process: unity is forged, not forced.
For values to be truly shared, they must be more than advertising
slogans. They must be deeply supported and broadly endorsed beliefs
about what’s important to the people who hold them. Constituents
must be able to enumerate the values and have common interpreta­
tions of how those values will be put into practice. They must know
how their values influence the way they do their own jobs and how
they directly contribute to organizational success.
Jade Lui described an incident early in her career in which the
managing director, in Jade’s words, “taught us to model the com­
pany’s values.” When someone discovered that an applicant had
withheld critical information from a client, although it was not
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to share that information and possibly lose the deal. Although the
situation occurred during a particularly difficult financial time for
their company, the response from their leader about what to do
didn’t come as a surprise to Jade because it embodied the “core values
espoused by the company.” He told them that
first and foremost, we should be honest with our clients. If we
concealed the truth from the client, we would tarnish our
reputation of service excellence. Further, we are committed to
long-term partnerships with our clients. Sacrificing revenue for
the short term in exchange for the client’s appreciation of our
integrity, excellence, and commitment would bring more
business in the long run. He continued to reassure that
everyone in the company would work together to survive the
temporary business downturn.
Having everyone on the same page when it comes to operating
principles (values) ensures consistency in words and deeds for every­
one, boosting in turn not just individual credibility but organiza­
tional reputation. Jade notes that not only is that client still one of
their company’s most loyal partners, but “the lessons learned from
my managing director’s decision are still firmly engraved in my
mind.” She has subsequently “taught the next generation of staff the
same shared values.”
A unified voice on values results from discovery and dialogue.
Leaders must provide a chance for individuals to engage in a discus­
sion of what the values mean and how their personal beliefs and
behaviors are influenced by what the organization stands for. Leaders
must also be prepared to discuss values and expectations in the
recruitment, selection, and orientation of new members. Better to
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E to have members find out at some key juncture that they’re in serious
disagreement over matters of principle.
Clarify Values
The very first step on the journey to credible leadership is clari-
fying your values—discovering those fundamental beliefs that
will guide your decisions and actions along the path to success
and significance. That involves an exploration of the inner ter-
ritory where your true voice resides. It’s essential that you take
yourself on this journey because it’s the only route to authentic-
ity and because your personal values drive your commitment to
the organization and to the cause. You can’t do what you say if
you can’t say what you believe. And you can’t do what you say if
you don’t believe in what you’re saying.
Although personal values clarity is essential for all leaders,
it’s insufficient alone. That’s because leaders don’t just speak
for themselves; they speak for their constituents as well. There
must be agreement on the shared values that everyone will
commit to upholding. These give people reasons for caring
about what they do, which in turn makes a significant and posi-
tive difference in work attitudes and performance. A common
understanding of shared values emerges from a process, not
a pronouncement; unity comes about through dialogue and
debate, followed by understanding and commitment. Lead-
ers must hold themselves and others accountable to a set of
T A K E A C T I O N

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shared values, which is a topic explored more fully in the next
chapter.
Model the Way begins with clarifying values by finding your
voice and affirming shared values. This means you have to
• Examine your past experiences to identify the values you
use to make choices and decisions.
• Answer the question, What is my leadership philosophy?
• Articulate the values that guide your current decisions,
priorities, and actions.
• Find your own words for talking about what is important to
you.
• Discuss values in various recruitment, hiring, and on-
boarding experiences.
• Help others articulate why they do what they do, and what
they care about.
• Provide opportunities for people to talk about their values
with others on the team.
• Build consensus around values, principles, and standards.
• Make sure that people are adhering to the values and
standards that have been agreed on.
Use The Leadership Challenge Mobile Tool app to
immediately integrate these activities into your life and make
this practice an ongoing part of your behavioral repertoire.

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Set the Example
KANEKA TEXAS IS A specialty polymer manufacturing
company in Pasadena, Texas. In operation since 1984, the plant had
been through a number of growth spurts when Steve Skarke sud-
denly found himself tapped to be the plant manager in 2002. Steve
readily admits that he was unprepared for the job, but after a few
years of “trial-and-error leadership,” he started honing in on his own
style of leading, which usually included some rather unorthodox
ideas—at least for the mostly conservative crew at Kaneka.1
Steve wanted to make a real change in the state of housekeeping
around the site. For a couple of years, the manufacturing manage-
ment team had been discussing the vision of becoming a “World
Class Plant.” They debated the defining characteristics of a
world-class plant and agreed that a strong culture of safety and good
housekeeping should be at the top of the list. Looking around, Steve
could clearly see that the housekeeping conditions at Kaneka did not
meet the company’s shared vision. In fact, whenever they had a
pending customer visit, Steve would have to remind everyone to
C H A P T E R 3

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E make an extra effort to clean up. This included sending people out
to pick up trash in the plant, on the roads, and in the parking lot.
It was a disruption to daily activities. Steve knew there had to be a
way to make cleaning a part of their daily routine. It would take a
cultural shift.
One day while Steve was out at lunch, he stopped into a hard-
ware store and bought a two-gallon plastic bucket. He put the words
“World Class Plant” on the side of the bucket. “That afternoon,”
Steve said, “I walked through the plant and picked up as much trash
as I could fit into my bucket, and it was overflowing. I then walked
through the main control room with my bucket of trash and, with
everyone intently watching, emptied it into a trashcan and simply
walked out the other door, saying nothing. Word spread that I was
in the plant with a bucket picking up trash.”
Each time Steve ventured out with his bucket in hand, he
made sure that he would be seen. It didn’t take long for more
buckets to appear. Other managers went out into the plant to pick
up trash each day, setting the example for all to follow. Pretty soon
Steve walked through the control room, operators would ask how
much trash he was able to find. If his bucket was full, he would
walk by the supervisor’s office and hold it up for inspection. The
process that Steve had started by his visible example soon became
the norm.
“Over the course of the next few weeks or so,” Steve reported,
“trash disappeared from the plant, and it was getting more difficult
for me to put anything in my bucket. On ‘empty bucket days’ I
would make a point to stop by the control room and thank the gang
for their efforts. It became an inside joke with some of the
operators.”
In addition to the actual trash removal, the activity started
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make the job of cleaning the plant easier. Trash cans that had been
previously removed were put back in key areas where collection
would be easier. The operation staff agreed to maintain these cans
and came up with more ideas to better organize their work areas.
The maintenance technicians began carrying buckets around to
keep parts and trash contained to make cleanup quicker and easier.
During this time, a new program called “My Machine” was also
enacted: each operator was assigned a certain piece of equipment
to clean, paint, and, to ensure proper operation, learn about its
function.
“By simply deciding to venture out and start picking up trash,”
Steve told us, “I was modeling the way by aligning my actions with
the shared value of having a clean plant. It also helped me ‘find my
voice’ around this very important issue of housekeeping. I made it
personal for everyone. In a short time, many others were setting the
same example.
“I don’t really remember how long it took,” Steve recalled, “but
one day I decided to retire my bucket. I made it clear to everyone
that the team had made a real cultural shift and that I would no
longer give any advance warning of customer visits. . . . I am proud
of the team and what we accomplished, and I have been able to keep
my promise of not asking for special attention in advance of visitors.
I simply announce the visit and comment that ‘I know the plant is
ready!’ ”
They are still working to improve housekeeping at Kaneka Texas;
it’s a never-ending battle, and one that fits their shared value of
continuous improvement. But the very simple action of one leader
resulted in a huge cultural shift in the organization. And Steve still
has his bucket in his office as a reminder that setting the example
works and that his job is never finished. “What is the next shared
value that needs to be reinforced?” Steve asks. “What is the next

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E process that needs to be challenged? What else should I put in my
leadership bucket?”
Steve’s story illustrates the second commitment of Model the
Way—leaders Set the Example. They take every opportunity to show
others by their own example that they’re deeply committed to the
values and aspirations they espouse. No one will believe you’re
serious until they see you doing what you’re asking of others. You
either lead by example or don’t lead at all. Leading by example
is how you provide the evidence that you’re personally committed.
It’s how you make your values tangible.
In Chapter One, we reported that our research has consistently
revealed that credibility is the foundation of leadership. People want
to follow a leader in whom they can believe. And what makes a
leader credible? We said that when people defined credibility behav-
iorally, they told us it meant do what you say you will do, or
DWYSYWD for short. This chapter on Setting the Example is all
about the do part. It’s about practicing what you preach, putting
your money where your mouth is, following through on commit-
ments, keeping promises, walking the talk, and doing what you say.
Being a credible leader means you have to live the values. You
have to put into action what you and others stand for. You have to
be the example for others to follow. And, because you’re leading a
group of people—not just leading yourself—you also have to make
certain that the actions of your constituents are consistent with the
shared values of the organization. An important part of your job is
to educate others on what the organization stands for, why those
things matter, and how others can authentically serve the organiza-
tion. As the leader, you teach, coach, and guide others to align their
actions with the shared values because you’re held accountable for
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In order to Set the Example, you need to
• LIVE THE SHARED VALUES
• TEACH OTHERS TO MODEL THE VALUES
In practicing these essentials, you become an exemplary role model
for what the organization stands for, and you create a culture in
which everyone commits to aligning himself or herself with shared
values.
LIVE THE SHARED VALUES
Leaders are their organizations’ ambassadors of shared values. Their
mission is to represent the values and standards to the rest of the
world, and it’s their solemn duty to serve the values to the best of
their ability. People watch your every action, and they’re trying to
determine if you’re serious about what you say. You need to be con-
scious about the choices you make and the actions you take, because
other people use these signals to determine whether you’re doing
what you say.
The power of the leader’s personal example can’t be stressed
enough. Researchers Tal Yaffe of Ben-Gurion University and Ronit
Kark of Bar-Ilan University have found that leaders who model the
behaviors of a “good organizational citizen”—that is, who persist in
attaining organizational goals, promote the organization to outsiders
and insiders, and initiate constructive change in the workplace—are
much more likely to have direct reports who exhibit the same behav-
iors than those leaders who don’t set that kind of example. This effect
is strongest when the leader is most visible to direct reports and is

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E considered by them to be a worthy role model.2 Being credible and
close to your constituents pays off.
Cornell University professor Tony Simons offers even more
telling evidence of this. In his research on behavioral integrity, he
found that organizations “where employees strongly believed [that]
their managers followed through on promises and demonstrated the
values they preached were substantially more profitable than those
whose managers scored average or lower [on follow-through].”3
In other words, if you want to get better results, make sure you
practice what you preach. What you do speaks more loudly than
what you say.
Some of the most significant signal-sending actions have to do
with how leaders spend their time and what they pay attention
to, the language (words and phrases) they use, how they address
critical incidents, and their openness to feedback.4 Each of these
actions gives you a chance to make visible and tangible your personal
commitment to a shared way of being. Each affords you the chance
to show where you stand on matters of principle. Simple though
they may appear, you should remember that sometimes the greatest
distance you have to travel is the distance from your mouth to
your feet.
Spend Your Time and Attention Wisely
How you spend your time is the single clearest indicator of what’s
important to you. Constituents use this metric to judge whether you
measure up to espoused standards. Visibly spending time on what’s
important shows that you’re putting your money where your mouth
is. Whatever your values are, they have to show up on your calendar
and on meeting agendas for people to believe that those values are
significant. Take a look at your daily planner. What’s the connection

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between how you schedule your time and what you say are your key
values? Take a look at your agendas. When you’re in meetings, what
do you spend most of the time discussing?
If you value service to others, for example, and say that store
operators are important, you should be meeting with them at their
locations. If you say that you’re focused on customers (or clients,
patients, students, voters, or parishioners), then you should be
spending your time where they spend theirs. If improving sales
performance is critical, then you need to meet with customers
and show up at sales meetings. If innovation is essential, you should
be visiting the labs or participating in online open source discus-
sions. If global diversity is a shared value, then you’ve got to be
out in the field and around the world. Being “there” says more
about what you value than any email message, tweet, or video can
ever do.
And you don’t have to be in a managerial position to set a lead-
ership example. Informal peer leaders do it too. For instance, Mark
Brunello, a sales representative for XO Communications for more
than twelve years, in an industry where high turnover is the norm,
has been described by his colleagues as “credibility personified.”5
One colleague speaks not only to Mark’s behavior but to its
consistency:
Having him as a model to observe on a daily basis is incredibly
inspirational. Whether Mark realizes it or not, his consistent
behavior is a strong leadership model. We look up to him and
respect him because he puts in the hours necessary to be
successful. He doesn’t take any liberties with the freedom that
some salespeople take when managing their own schedules. He
seeks out technical training that is above and beyond that
required for a typical sales representative. In this way, he can

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E answer client questions that a competitor’s sales rep may not
be able to, and he differentiates himself from the rest of the
marketplace. Because he pays attention to internal systems
and processes, he is not only well-equipped to navigate
through service delivery or account problems but when he
does call someone for help, his requests get sent to the top of
the list because people know they are real and he’s not just
being lazy.
The choices that leaders make about where they spend their time
and attention, as Mark demonstrates, have a tremendous influence
on those around them. The behaviors and actions of leaders send
clear messages to others about what’s important and what’s merely
lip service.
Vivien Moses, project manager at Adobe Systems, knows this
all too well. A new product launch was not going as smoothly as
hoped for, and the team, based in China and India, told him that
things could be improved if they could get faster responses to their
questions. Every morning, it was common to make calls from the
United States to the Asia team at 8:00 am Pacific Standard Time.
But that meant that the team members in Asia often had to dial into
the conference call from home because it was very late at night there.
Vivien decided to change this practice and started taking calls during
his nights and early mornings: “I thought that I should hold night-
time calls myself, to show to the team that I am willing to take calls
in the night just like they do. This cut down on the time to address
issues, but most importantly it set an example to the team that I am
willing to put in the extra effort to finish the task ahead.” Vivien
understood the importance of the Golden Rule of Leadership: ask
others to do only what you are willing to do yourself. By changing
how he used his time, he showed others that he was serious about
his dedication to the group and the task.

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Watch Your Language
Try talking about an organization for a day without using the words
employee, manager, boss, supervisor, subordinate, or hierarchy. You may
find this exercise nearly impossible unless you’ve been part of orga-
nizations that use other terms—such as associates, crew, cast members,
team members, partners, or even constituents. Certain words have
come to be accepted as the reality of organizational life. Those words
can easily trap people into a particular way of thinking about roles
and relationships.6 Exemplary leaders understand this and are atten-
tive to language. They know the power of words. Words don’t just
give voice to one’s own mindset and beliefs; they also evoke images
of what people hope to create with others and how they expect
people to behave. The words people choose to use are metaphors for
concepts that define attitudes, behaviors, structures, and systems.
Your words can have a powerful effect on how your constituents
see their world, and you should choose them intentionally and
carefully.
One company that clearly understands how to consciously use
a different vocabulary to reflect its unique set of values is DaVita,
the largest independent provider of dialysis services in the United
States for patients suffering from chronic kidney failure. The special
language begins with the choice of the company name, as selected
by DaVita teammates (employees). DaVita is definitely a name that
fits the nature of their work. Roughly translated from the Italian,
the phrase means “he or she gives life.” Every day in every clinic,
DaVitans—that’s what they call themselves—work hard to give life
to those suffering from renal disease.
At DaVita, memorable catchphrases infuse the daily conversa-
tion and reinforce the company’s values and management practices.
The Three Musketeers maxim “One for all, and all for one,” for
example, permeates the culture of the company and reinforces the

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E idea that everyone in DaVita is in it together, looking out for each
other. Corporate headquarters is called Casa DaVita (house of
DaVita). Employees are all “teammates”—be prepared to put a buck
in a glass on the meeting table if you should ever use the “E word.”
The company is called the Village, and DaVita’s CEO, Kent Thiry,
is its mayor, signaling that DaVita is really like the small town in
Wisconsin where Kent grew up. Teammates become “citizens” of the
Village when they are willing to “cross the bridge” and make a public
commitment to the community. Every member of the senior leader-
ship crossed the bridge as part of his or her symbolic rite of passage
into those roles. The company’s long-standing emphasis on execu-
tion and operational excellence is embodied in the slogan “GSD”
(get stuff done); the highest compliment to pay a teammate is to say
that he or she is “good at GSD.”7 “At a quick glance,” says Javier
Rodriguez, DaVita’s senior vice president,
our language can appear to be a play on words—semantics.
Quite the opposite. The words we use, while simple in nature,
are packed with meaning. They create imagery and communicate
history, traditions, and beliefs. Since the language is so pervasive
in the organization, we get the added benefit of it serving as
cultural alignment and an accountability “acid test” for behaviors—
as in human medicine, an organ will reject inconsistent words
and actions. In addition, our vernacular serves as a filter for
recruiting. That is to say, candidates feel affiliation and alignment
to our words or find them “odd” if not consistent with their
beliefs.
Paying attention to the way you use language isn’t one of those
ideas-of-the-month that’s the trendy thing to do. Researchers have
documented the power of language in shaping thoughts and actions.
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that people articulate. For example, at an East Coast university where
there was a publicized incident of hate mail’s being sent to an African
American student, researchers randomly stopped students walking
across campus and asked them what they thought of the occurrence.
Before the subject could respond, however, a confederate of the
researchers would come up and answer. One response was something
like, “Well, he must have done something to deserve it.” As you
might expect, the subject’s response was more often than not just
like the confederate’s. Then the researchers would stop another
student and ask the same question. This time the confederate gave
an alternative response that was something like, “There’s no place
for that kind of behavior on our campus.” The subject’s response
again replicated the confederate’s.8
This study dramatically illustrates how potent language is in
influencing people’s responses to what’s going on around them.
Language helps build the frame around people’s views of the world,
and it’s essential for leaders to be mindful of their choice of words.
If you want people to act like citizens of a village, you have to talk
about them that way, not as subordinates in a hierarchy. If you want
people to appreciate the rich diversity in their organizations, you
have to use language that’s inclusive. If you want people to be inno-
vative, you have to use words that spark exploration, discovery, and
invention. The expression “Watch your language” has come a long
way from the days when your teacher scolded you in school for the
use of an inappropriate word. It’s now about setting an example for
others, demonstrating how they need to think and act.
Ask Purposeful Questions
The questions you ask are also quite powerful in focusing attention.
When leaders ask questions, they send constituents on mental

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E journeys—“quests”—in search of answers. The questions that a
leader asks send messages about the focus of the organization, and
they’re indicators of what is of most concern to the leader. They’re
one more measure of how serious you are about your espoused
beliefs. Questions direct attention to the values that should be
attended to and how much energy should be devoted to them.
Questions develop people. They help people escape the trap of
their own paradigms by broadening their perspective and forcing
them to take responsibility for their own viewpoint. Asking good
questions also forces you to listen attentively to your constituents
and what they are saying. This action demonstrates your respect for
their ideas and opinions. If you are genuinely interested in what
other people have to say, then you need to ask their opinion, espe-
cially before giving your own. Asking what others think facilitates
participation in whatever decision will ultimately be determined and
consequently increases support for that decision. Asking good ques-
tions reduces the risk that a decision might be undermined by either
inadequate consideration or unexpected opposition.
When Joshua Fradenburg was brought on to turn around a
foundering sporting goods store in Northern California, he realized
that all the employees needed to contribute their ideas about how
to improve sales. Josh openly sought advice and asked a lot of ques-
tions: What did they think the store was doing well, and what did
they need to work on? He never criticized an idea, instead choosing
to ask follow-up questions that might allow for a more productive
idea. Josh encouraged his staff to offer suggestions about merchan-
dising, sales promotions, and inventory. For example, although most
of his staff ranged from fifteen to eighteen years of age, he asked
them each to go to the product wall and select which skis or snow-
board they wanted. Then he had them pick out their bindings and
boots. After giving them a couple minutes to make their decisions,

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Josh asked them what they were thinking about when they were
deciding. He asked them to close their eyes and envision what it
would look like to use the new gear: “Feel the cold. Hear the wind
whistle by. Smell the fresh mountain air.” His questions got them
thinking about how most people made an emotional (rather than a
technical) purchase decision. Josh used questions to reframe their
thinking and their approach to sales.
Think about the questions you typically ask in meetings, one-
on-ones, telephone calls, and interviews. How do these questions
help clarify and gain commitment to shared values? What would
you like each of your constituents to pay attention to each day?
Be intentional and purposeful about the questions you ask. When
you are not around, what questions should others be thinking you
are going to ask them when you return? What evidence do you
want to ask about which will show that people are living by shared
values and making decisions that are consistent with these values?
What questions should you ask if you want people to focus on
integrity or on trust or on customer satisfaction or on quality, inno-
vation, growth, safety, or personal responsibility? In Table 3.1, we’ve
TABLE 3.1 Ask Purposeful Questions Daily
Teamwork:  What did you do today to lend a hand to a
colleague?
Respect:  What did you do today to acknowledge the work of one of
your colleagues?
Learning:  What’s one mistake you made in the last week, and what did
you learn from it?
Continuous improvement:  What have you done in the past week to
improve so that you’re better this week than last?
Customer focus:  What is one change you made in the last week that
came from a customer suggestion?

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E provided a few sample questions that you could purposefully ask
every day to demonstrate the importance of shared values.
Whatever your shared values are, come up with a set of routine
questions that will get people to reflect on the core values and what
they have done each day to act on those values.
Seek Feedback
How can you know that you’re doing what you say (which is the
behavioral definition of credibility) if you never ask others for
feedback on how you’re doing? How can you really expect to match
your words and your actions if you don’t get information about
how aligned they are? There’s solid evidence that the best leaders
are highly attuned to what’s going on inside themselves as they are
leading, and to what’s going on with others.9 They’re very self-
aware, and they’re very socially aware. They can tell in short order
whether they’ve done something that has enabled someone to
perform at a higher level or whether they’ve sent motivation
heading south.
Soliciting feedback from those with whom he works has been
important to Seang Wee Lee, product quality engineer at NetApp,
throughout his career. He uses feedback to “further improve my
leadership skills, identify shortfalls, and open up communications
with the team. This promotes trust in my leadership and creates a
climate of trust within the team and with me. I almost always learn
about some things I can do to help develop each individual as well
as the team, and also me.” Leaders realize that although they may
not always like the feedback, it is the only way they can really know
how they are doing as someone’s leader. Seeking feedback makes a
powerful statement about the value of self-improvement and how
everyone can be even better than he or she is today.

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Self-reflection, the willingness to seek feedback, and the ability
to then engage in new behaviors based on this information have
been shown to be predictive of future success in managerial jobs.10
However, our own studies using the Leadership Practices Inventory
(LPI)—our 360-degree feedback instrument for assessing the fre-
quency with which people engage in The Five Practices of Exemplary
Leadership—consistently show that the statement which receives the
lowest rating, both from leaders as well as their constituents, is “Asks
for feedback on how his/her actions affect other people’s perfor-
mance.”11 In other words, the behavior that leaders and their con-
stituents consider to be the weakest is the behavior that most enables
leaders to know how they’re doing! You can’t learn very much if
you’re unwilling to find out more about the impact of your behavior
on the performance of those around you. It’s your responsibility as
a leader to keep asking others, “How am I doing?” If you don’t ask,
they’re not likely to tell you.
It’s not always easy to get feedback. It’s not generally asked for,
and most people aren’t used to providing it. Skills are required to
do both. You can increase the likelihood that people will accept
honest feedback from you if you make it easier for people to
give honest feedback to you. To be most effective, good feedback
needs to be specific, not general; focused on behavior, not on the
individual (personality); solicited rather than imposed; timely rather
than delayed; and descriptive rather than evaluative. You have to be
sincere in your desire to improve yourself, and you have to demon-
strate that you are open to knowing how others see you. Table 3.2
provides some tips you might find useful for receiving good
feedback.
Of course, just because someone gives you feedback doesn’t
necessarily mean that he or she is right or necessarily 100 percent
accurate. Consider checking with other people to determine the

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reliability of any feedback you receive. After all, few people see you
in your totality. Sometimes the feedback may be more about the
sender than it is about the receiver. But remember this: if you
don’t do anything with the feedback you receive, people will stop
giving it to you. They’re likely to believe that you are arrogant
enough to think that you are smarter than everyone else or that you
just don’t care about what anyone else has to say. Either of these
outcomes seriously undermines your credibility and effectiveness as
a leader.
Everything that’s been said here applies equally to your provid-
ing feedback to your constituents, which we discuss further in
• Don’t be defensive.  People will be reluctant to share feedback
if they are afraid of hurting your feelings or having to justify their
perceptions.
• Listen carefully.  Relax and actively listen to understand what
the other person is trying to tell you; be sensitive to how your
nonverbal communication is affecting the other person’s willingness
to share with you.
• Suspend judgment.  Listen, don’t judge. Don’t worry about what
you’re going to say, but rather work to understand what the other
person is trying to tell you. Be welcoming and assume that the
information is intended to help you be better rather than anything
otherwise.
• Ask questions and ask for examples.  Make sure you understand
what is being said and learn about the context as well as the
content.
• Say thank you.  Let the other person know that you appreciate
his or her feedback and that you can’t get any better
without knowing more about yourself and how your actions
affect others.
TABLE 3.2 Tips for Receiving Feedback

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Chapter Ten. The more frequently people ask for and accept feed-
back, the easier it will be to deliver and to hear, especially when both
parties share similar values and aspirations. The more accustomed
people become to giving and receiving feedback, the more comfort-
able they get with the process. The more you show you are open to
feedback, the more others will view the process as constructive. But
it’s critical that you set the right climate for feedback. Reviewing past
behavior can’t be a search for culprits or an opportunity to fix the
blame. Regularly soliciting feedback should be a routine examina-
tion of “what happened” with the intent to make sure that learning
takes place and that any problems that may have occurred are not
repeated.12
Often leaders fear the exposure and vulnerability that accom-
pany direct and honest feedback. Those giving the feedback can
often feel a bit exposed themselves and may even fear hurting
someone or possible retribution. It’s a risk, but the upsides of learn-
ing and growth are far greater than the downside of being nervous
or embarrassed. Learning to be a better leader requires great self-
awareness, and it requires making yourself vulnerable. By asking for
feedback, you signal to others your openness to doing what is right,
and make it easier for others to be receptive to learning about how
well they are modeling the way.
TEACH OTHERS TO MODEL
THE VALUES
You’re not the only role model in the organization. Everyone should
set the example. Words and deeds have to be aligned at all levels and
in all situations. Your role is to make sure that your constituents are

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E keeping the promises they have made. People are watching how you
hold others accountable for living the shared values and how
you reconcile deviations from the chosen path. They’re paying atten-
tion to what others say and do, and so should you. It’s not just what
you do that demonstrates consistency between word and deed. Every
team member, partner, and colleague is a sender of signals about
what’s valued. Therefore, you need to look for opportunities to teach
not just by your example but also by taking on the role of teacher
and coach.13
Exemplary leaders know that people learn valuable lessons from
how unplanned as well as planned events are handled. They know
that people learn from the stories that circulate in the hallways, in
the break room, in the cafeteria, on the retail floor, and on Facebook
and Twitter. Exemplary leaders know that what gets measured and
reinforced gets done. People attend to metrics as well as stories.
And exemplary leaders know that if they’re going to create a high-
performance culture, they have to pay attention to bringing on board
people who share the values that are held dear.
In order to show others what’s expected and ensure that they
hold themselves accountable, you need to confront critical incidents,
tell stories, and make sure that organizational systems reinforce the
behaviors you want repeated.
Confront Critical Incidents
You can’t plan everything about your day. Even the most disciplined
leaders can’t stop the intrusion of the unexpected. Stuff happens.
Critical incidents—chance occurrences, particularly at a time of
stress and challenge—are a part of the life of every leader. They also
offer significant moments of learning for leaders and constituents.

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Critical incidents present opportunities for leaders to teach impor-
tant lessons about appropriate norms of behavior.
Abhijit Chitnis experienced just such a situation when he was
working at Accenture as a team lead on an engagement for a U.S.-
based storage client, with a five-person team working out of India,
along with a global team of eight from the United States and Ireland.
It was during the critical year-end financial reporting period for their
client, and they were assigned to work on one of the business intel-
ligence systems that the client used to report the annual and quarter-
end financial numbers to Wall Street. The schedule was tight and
demanding, but the team was on time and doing fine. Then they hit
a patch of bad luck. They were just two days away from the critical
deadline of December 31 when they ran into a slippage and some
defects. They risked failure to deliver on time. That result could also
have meant that they would lose part of the client’s business. Team
members were disappointed, of course, not only about the slippage
but also about the possibility of missing their New Year’s plans with
friends and family. It meant they were going to have to put in extra
work over the holiday in order to complete the task.
It was in this context that Abhijit witnessed something that
demonstrated to him the extraordinary results that can be achieved
when a team is led by someone who, he said, “truly personified the
values that he stood for.” The senior client engagement delivery
manager, Bob, had been on a planned vacation when he heard about
the problem. Says Abhijit,
Bob cancelled all his planned commitments, and reported back
to work, even though he was not a part of the delivery team.
The personal commitment everyone saw from him boosted the
entire team’s morale. He stayed with the team day and night for

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E two days, providing motivational support, interfacing with the
client, and setting the expectations for everyone in the team. As
a result of this and all the hard work put in by the team, we
were successful in delivering the required reports, on time and
of high quality, to the client.
Bob sent a powerful message that holiday season by showing up
to work when it wasn’t really expected of him. It demonstrated how
committed he was to his team, the project, and the client. Bob’s
example for his team, Abhijit told us, “in turn made me personally
committed to the goal. We took each of the words from our leader
very seriously, because we believed in him and trusted him more,
and because he showed us that he truly means every word that
he says. Every person in the team forgot about any of their grudges
and got together to work efficiently as a team.” All this happened
because a leader put his values into practice. It is, says Abhijit,
“incredibly strong evidence of the importance of the idea of model-
ing the way.”
There are critical moments when leaders have to put values
squarely on the table in order to make sure everyone understands
the principles that guide how they work together. Sometimes leaders
need to clearly and unambiguously point out that a particular deci-
sion or action is being taken because a core value is at stake. In doing
so, leaders demonstrate the connection between actions taken
and values espoused. They set an example for what it means to live
the values under even the most trying of circumstances. By standing
up for values, leaders demonstrate that having shared values requires
a mutual commitment from everyone to align words and deeds.
Critical incidents are those events in the lives of leaders (and
organizations) that offer the chance to improvise while still staying
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it’s useful to keep in mind, as Abhijit and Bob did, that the way
you handle these events—how you link actions and decisions to
shared values—speaks volumes about what really matters to you.
Critical incidents create important teachable moments. They offer
leaders the occasion in real time to demonstrate what’s valued and
what’s not.
Tell Stories
Stories are another powerful tool for teaching people about what’s
important and what’s not, what works and what doesn’t, what is and
what could be.14 Through stories, leaders pass on lessons about
shared values and get others to work together.
When he was program director of knowledge management for
the World Bank, Steve Denning learned firsthand how stories can
change the course of an organization. After trying all the more tra-
ditional ways of getting people to change their behavior, Steve found
that simple stories were the most effective means of communicating
the essential messages within the organization. “Nothing else
worked,” Steve said. “Charts left listeners bemused. Prose remained
unread. Dialogue was just too laborious and slow. Time after time,
when faced with the task of persuading a group of managers or
frontline staff in a large organization to get enthusiastic about a
major change, I found that storytelling was the only thing that
worked.”15
In a business climate obsessed with PowerPoint presentations,
complex graphs and charts, and lengthy reports, storytelling may
seem to some like a soft way of getting hard stuff done. It’s anything
but that. Steve’s experience with storytelling is, in fact, supported
by the data. Research shows that when leaders want to commu-
nicate standards, stories are a much more effective means of

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E communication than are corporate policy statements, data about
performance, and even a story plus the data.16 Information is more
quickly and accurately remembered when it is first presented in the
form of an example or story.17
That’s certainly been Phillip Kane’s experience. Storytelling has
been a part of his life since he was a kid. His dad was a great story-
teller, and he used stories especially effectively to teach lessons.
Phillip has carried the family tradition into his business life at
Goodyear.
When Phillip was named to head up a large team with previ-
ously poor engagement scores for communication, he needed to find
a way to be more proactive about connecting with employees. So he
began writing to the team every Friday. He carried the practice with
him when he was appointed president of Wingfoot Commercial Tire
Systems, a twenty-five-hundred-person wholly owned subsidiary of
Goodyear. As Phillip explained,
The letter, simply and unoriginally titled “The Week,” began as
a recap of highlights from the prior week’s work but soon
morphed into a communication that was less about what we do
than how we do it—which to me is as, or more, important.
“The Week” is based on the notion that life lessons exist in
unlikely places. These lessons, if we are open to them, help
make us better tire sellers, parents, spouses, friends, and
members of our community. When we grow and become better
as individuals, the teams we belong to get better as well and will
win more. That’s the point of “The Week.”
When we spoke to Phillip about “The Week,” he’d written more
than 150 issues, each one with a story and a lesson. Storytelling,
Phillips says, accomplishes two things. It offers a framework for
relating to the message—something that people encounter in their

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own lives that can bridge to the main point. It also offers him the
chance to lead through an example rather than to come across simply
as preaching.
Telling stories, as Phillip knows, has another lasting benefit. It
forces you to pay close attention to what your constituents are doing.
Peers generally make better role models for what to do at work than
famous people or ones several levels up in the hierarchy. When others
hear or read a story about someone with whom they can identify,
they are much more likely to see themselves doing the same thing.
People seldom tire of hearing stories about themselves and the people
they know. These stories get repeated, and the lessons of the stories
get spread far and wide. In fact, Phillip told us that folks who worked
for him in his prior job asked if they could remain on his distribu-
tion list so that they’d continue to get “The Week,” even though the
stories and lessons didn’t necessarily relate to them directly. Now that
shows the power of stories!
Reinforce Through Systems and Processes
While attending a leadership course on Mount Fuji in Japan, Bert
Wong, president and managing director of Fuji Xerox Singapore, was
asked to reflect on the behaviors a great leader would demonstrate.
He realized he didn’t have the answers. That prompted Bert to seri-
ously reflect on his own leadership and the business he led. What he
realized from his self-exploration was that his team and business were
heavily reliant on him. “I was leading an orchestra of people who
would merely follow my lead,” Bert told us. “When I was physically
present, the business would see growth, but when I was absent, busi-
ness would correspondingly suffer. Initiatives would be followed
through with excellent execution, but the starting point and the
driving force would always stem from me.” This experience prompted

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E Bert to begin a multiyear process of creating a sustainable organiza-
tion in which everyone shared in and was driven by a common set
of values. Although many initially challenged Bert’s approach, his
persistence led to the creation of the Fuji Xerox Singapore core
values: Fighting Spirit, Innovation and Learning, Collaborate to
Compete, and Care and Concern.
But Bert knew that understanding and agreeing on the values
were only the first steps. The next challenge was to make them a way
of life. He was determined that the Fuji Xerox core values would
play a key role in guiding the everyday decisions and actions of
organization members. He knew that they had to be reinforced
through daily actions and through all the others processes and
systems that are a part of life at work. He began talking about them
at every meeting, in every success story, and whenever a contract was
won. He made sure that success was attributed to living the core
values. And he did more than just communicate the values. Bert also
ensured that the core values were reinforced through company-wide
social events. Team-building activities, such as car rallies, would
emphasize Fighting Spirit, Innovation and Learning, Collaborate to
Compete, and Care and Concern. The Inspirational Player of the
Year Award, voted by peers, was implemented to give recognition to
exemplary members who demonstrated the Fuji Xerox core values.
Organizational practices were also aligned to the Fuji Xerox core
values. To reinforce the value of Collaborate to Compete, different
departments began to share similar key performance indicators
(KPIs). Prior to this initiative, the finance and sales departments
would often come into conflict as they pursued their respective
departmental KPIs. Recognizing this misalignment, Bert worked
with the two departments to find more compatible KPIs, and gave
finance a stake in helping win a customer contract. They were no
longer two separate departments. They were one team with members
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Fuji Xerox Singapore gradually began to see changes within the
organization. As the core values were reinforced in their daily work
activities, people began to internalize the values in everything they
did. What began as Bert’s personal leadership journey led to the
institutionalization of a set of principles that eventually guided
everyone’s decisions and actions.
All exemplary leaders understand, as Bert does, that you have to
reinforce the key values that are important to building and sustaining
the kind of culture you want.18 Key performance measures and
reward systems are among the many methods available to you.19
Recruitment, selection, on-boarding, training, information, reten-
tion, and promotion systems are also important means by which you
can teach people how to enact values and align behavior. They all
send signals about what is valued and what is not, and they must be
aligned with the shared values and standards that you’re trying to
instill.
Set the Example
One of the toughest aspects of being a leader is that you’re
always onstage. People are always watching you, always talking
about you, always testing your credibility. That’s why setting the
right example is so important, and why it’s essential to make use
of all the tools you have available to set the example.
Leaders send signals in a variety of ways and in all kinds of
settings, and constituents pay attention to those signals so that
they can figure out what’s okay and what’s not okay to do. How
T A K E A C T I O N

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you spend your time is the single best indicator of what’s im-
portant to you. Time is a precious asset, because once passed,
it can never be recovered. But if invested wisely, it can earn
returns for years. The language you use and the questions you
ask are other powerful ways that shape perceptions of what you
value. You also need feedback in order to know if you’re doing
what you say.
But it’s not just what you do that matters. You are also
measured by how consistent your constituents’ actions are
with the shared values, so you must teach others how to
set an example. Critical incidents—those chance occurrences
in the lives of all organizations—offer significant teachable mo-
ments. They offer you the opportunity to pass along lessons in
real time, not just in theory or in the classroom. Critical incidents
often become the sources of stories, and stories are among the
most influential teaching tools you have. And remember that
what gets reinforced gets done. You have to bring the right
people on board, orient them, develop them, and make sure
that all systems strengthen the appropriate behavior that you
expect to be repeated.
To Model the Way, you need to set the example by aligning 
actions with shared values. This means you have to
• Make sure your calendar, your meetings, your interviews,
your emails, and all the other ways you spend your time
reflect what you say is important.
• Keep your commitments; follow through on your promises.
• Repeat, repeat, and repeat phrases that evoke the feelings
that you want to create in your workplace.

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• Ask purposeful questions that keep people constantly
focused on the values and priorities that are the most
important.
• Publicly ask for feedback from others about how your
actions affect them.
• Make changes and adjustments based on the feedback you
receive; otherwise people will stop bothering to provide it.
• When a situation—especially an unplanned one—arises
that dramatically illustrates a shared value, make sure to
call attention to it.
• Broadcast examples of exemplary behavior through vivid
and memorable stories that illustrate how people are and
should be behaving.
• In every way you can, reinforce the behavior you want
repeated.
Use The  Leadership  Challenge  Mobile  Tool app to
immediately integrate these activities into your life and make
this practice an ongoing part of your behavioral repertoire.

INSPIRE A
SHARED
VISION

The future holds little certainty. There are no guarantees or easy paths to any destination, and circumstances can
change in a moment. Pioneering leaders rely on their own
internal compass and a dream.
Leaders look forward to the future. They hold in their
minds ideas and visions of what can be. They have a sense of
what is uniquely possible if everyone works together for a
common purpose. Leaders are positive about the future, and
they passionately believe that people can make a difference.
But visions seen only by the leaders are insufficient for
generating organized movement. Leaders must get others to
see the exciting future possibilities. They breathe life into
visions. They communicate hopes and dreams so that others
clearly understand and share them as their own. They show
others how their values and interests will be served by the
long-term vision of the future.
Leaders are expressive, and they attract followers through
their energy, optimism, and hope. With strong appeals and
quiet persuasion, they develop enthusiastic supporters.
In the next two chapters, we will explore how you must
• Envision the Future by imagining exciting and
ennobling possibilities.
• Enlist Others by appealing to shared
aspirations.
P R A C T I C E 2
INSPIRE A SHARED VIS ION

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JADE LUI ALWAYS HAD A PASSION for books, and fol-
lowed that passion to pursue a career in publishing. At her first job
with a large international publisher in Hong Kong, Jade was given
responsibilities for business development throughout the East Asia
region. She was particularly excited by the prospect of promoting
English books into the China market.
On her first field visit, Jade surveyed the handful of bookstores
with foreign books sections in Beijing and Shanghai. The shelves
were bare except for a few classics and dog-eared paperbacks. Jade
said she “was stupefied,” but immediately realized what it meant—
that there was vast untapped market potential: “Considering the
increasing number of expatriates, tourists, and young Chinese stu-
dents learning the English language in China, I could only imagine
the exponential growth in the demand for English books. More
pertinent to me, though, was my vision of introducing quality
educational English books to children in China to improve their
learning experience and broaden their horizons.”
Envision
the Future
C H A P T E R 4

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E One year after her initial field visit, Jade received the first
coprinting order from a publishing house in China for a range of
educational children’s books. It came, however, with a very tight
target delivery date, stringent cobranding design requirements, and
a large credit limit request. In accordance with her company’s usual
processing practice, Jade submitted the order via email to headquar-
ters in the United Kingdom with the conditions attached. The replies
were unanimously negative. “There is no way we can meet the dead-
line!” said one colleague. “This is not the way we do things here,”
said another.
Frustrated by the lack of enthusiasm, Jade decided to organize
a conference call with her support team, including the order admin-
istrator, graphic designer, and credit controller. During the call, she
asked probing questions to learn more about the root cause of their
negativity. She listened carefully to what they had to say, and dis-
covered that “unlike my client-facing position, as administrative staff
they held a very different mentality. Working in a vacuum, they
worked ‘by the book’ and were concerned merely with fulfilling their
job requirements. They saw little direct impact of their work on
overall business performance.”
Jade realized that she needed to appeal to common ideals. To
combat the negativity from her team, she wanted to ensure that
they felt that their work mattered and that they could make a
difference.
I first drew a parallel between their administrative function and
my frontline client service role. I explained how they were also
important customer service agents because they were providing
service to internal clients, such as me. In doing so, I aligned our
objectives in delivering first-class customer service—be it to

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external or internal clients. I also emphasized how we were a
team with the ultimate goal of fulfilling this landmark order,
underscoring the active parts they played in this revenue-
generating opportunity. More importantly though, I asked my
team to envision the many Chinese children reading and
learning from our books—the availability of which would be
made possible only through their hard work.
Three months following that initial conference call, the order
was completed on time and at the highest standards of professional-
ism. Jade and her colleagues had launched their dream. And from
this experience, Jade says she learned a vital leadership lesson: “I
learned to appreciate the varying perspectives held by those in dif-
ferent work functions, to identify the source of a problem through
open dialogue, and how to motivate a team by promoting a sense
of comradeship in pursuit of commons goals and a shared vision.”
Jade’s story illustrates how organized efforts—whether those of
a company, a project, or a movement—begin with one person’s
imagination. Call it what you will—vision, purpose, mission, legacy,
dream, aspiration, calling, or personal agenda—the result is the
same. If you are going to be an exemplary leader, you have to be
able to imagine a positive future. When you envision the future you
want for yourself and others, and when you feel passionate about
the legacy you want to leave, you are much more likely to take that
first step forward. But if you don’t have the slightest clue about your
hopes, dreams, and aspirations, then the chance that you’ll take the
lead is nil. In fact, you may not even see the opportunity that’s right
in front of you.
Exemplary leaders are forward-looking. They are able to envi-
sion the future, to gaze across the horizon and realize the greater

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E opportunities to come. They imagine that extraordinary feats are
possible and that the ordinary could be transformed into something
noble. They are able to develop an ideal and unique image of the
future for the common good.
But the vision can’t belong only to the leader. It’s a shared vision.
Everyone has dreams, aspirations, and a desire that tomorrow be
better than today. When visions are shared, they attract more people,
sustain higher levels of motivation, and withstand more challenges
than those that are singular. You have to make sure that what you
can see is also something that others can see, and vice versa.
The second of The Five Practices of Exemplary Leadership is
Inspire a Shared Vision. To do that, leaders make a commitment to
Envision the Future for themselves and others by mastering these
two essentials:
• IMAGINE THE POSSIBILITIES
• FIND A COMMON PURPOSE
Leaders begin with the end in mind by imagining what might be
possible. Finding a common purpose inspires people to want to
make that vision a reality.
IMAGINE THE POSSIBILITIES
“The human being is the only animal that thinks about the future”
(italics in the original), writes Daniel Gilbert, professor of psychol-
ogy at Harvard University. “The greatest achievement of the human
brain is its ability to imagine objects and episodes that do not exist
in the realm of the real, and it is this ability that allows us to think
about the future.”1 Our data support the importance of this ability

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in leaders. Being forward-looking is the second-most admired char-
acteristic that people look for in those people they would willingly
follow. In fact, it’s this quality of focusing on the future that most
differentiates people who are seen as leaders from those who are
not. Nearly three out of four respondents expect this from their
leaders, whereas less than 30 percent expect this quality in their col-
leagues. However, researchers who study executives’ work activities
have estimated that, unfortunately, only about 3 percent of the
typical businessperson’s time is spent thinking about the future.2
It’s something to which every leader needs to give more time and
attention.
Leaders are dreamers. Leaders are idealists. Leaders are possibil-
ity thinkers. All enterprises, big or small, begin with the belief that
what’s merely an image today can one day be made real. It’s this
belief that sustains leaders through the difficult times. Turning pos-
sibility thinking into an inspiring vision—and one that is shared—is
another one of your challenges as a leader.
When we ask people to tell us where their visions come
from, they often have great difficulty describing the process. And
when they do provide an answer, typically it’s more about a feeling,
a sense, even a gut reaction. Clarifying your vision, like clarifying
your values, is an intuitive and emotional process of self-exploration
and self-creation. There’s often no logic to it. You just feel strongly
about something, and that sense, that intuition has to be fully
explored.3 Visions are reflections of one’s fundamental beliefs and
assumptions about human nature, technology, economics, science,
politics, art, and ethics.
A vision of the future is much like a literary or musical theme.
It’s the prominent and pervasive message that you want to convey,
the frequently recurring melody that you want people to remember;
and whenever it’s repeated, it reminds the audience of the entire

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E work. Every leader needs a theme, something on which he or
she can structure the rest of the performance. Think about these
questions:
What’s your prominent message?
What’s your recurring theme?
What idea, feeling, aspiration, or concern grabs hold of you and
won’t let you go?
What do you most want people to envision every time they think
about the future?
For many leaders, the answers don’t come easily—at first. For-
tunately there are ways you can improve your capacity to imagine
exciting possibilities and to discover the central theme for your life
and the lives of others. Improvement comes when you engage in
conscious introspection. This requires you to reflect on your past,
attend to the present, prospect the future, and feel your passion.
Reflect on Your Past
As contradictory as it might seem, in aiming for the future you need
to look back into your past. Looking backward can actually enable
you to see farther than if you only stare straight ahead. Understand-
ing the past can help you identify themes, patterns, and beliefs that
both underscore why you care about certain matters now and explain
why making them better into the future is such a high priority.4
Consider what Joanne Chan, a pharmacist with Mannings, one
of the largest health and beauty retailers in Hong Kong, learned from
her leader about the past that gave her and the team perspective for
moving into the future. The pharmacy department was not doing as
well as expected, and Joanne and her colleagues felt frustrated and

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discouraged at work. However, Andy, the senior pharmacist of the
team, uplifted and motivated them by constantly reminding them
about how the services they provided made a difference:
Andy often told us stories about his experiences with patients in
the past. One of them involved an old lady who had difficulty
walking. When she came to the store to seek advice for her
health-related problems, Andy offered her a chair to sit near the
store entrance, so that she did not have to walk all the way to
the back of the store where the pharmacy department was
located. The lady appreciated Andy’s customer service, and
became one of Mannings’ most loyal customers. Using examples
like these, Andy shared with us the vision that the pharmacy
team could become the best group of health care professionals
providing excellent services to the general public.
Joanne explained that she and her colleagues learned from
Andy’s inspiration that “a leader needs to effectively communicate a
shared vision to his or her followers, and show how they fit in the
big picture.” Andy reflected on his past experiences, using them to
bring up and reinforce the point that even a small gesture could
make a difference. Sharing his past experiences pointed the team to
where they wanted to be in the future with all of their customers.
His storytelling brought the vision to life, because Andy’s past experi-
ence not only was meaningful but also could very much happen—it
represented an opportunity—for any of his colleagues at work.
Looking into your past can reveal much about the future. Studies
involving senior executives reveal that those who were asked to think
first about things that had happened to them in the past—before
they thought about future possibilities—were subsequently able to
extrapolate significantly further into the future than those executives
who were asked to think first about things that might happen to

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E them in the future.5 This phenomenon is called “the Janus Effect,”
named for the Roman god with two faces, one that looks backward
and the other forward. Your ability to look both to your past and
your future for guidance opens up lots more exciting possibilities
than doing one or the other alone.6
The past serves as a prologue for the future. When you gaze first
into your past, you essentially elongate your future. You realize how
full your life has been, and you become more aware of all the
possibilities that could lie ahead. You enrich your imagination about
the future and give it detail as you recall the richness of your past
experiences. Looking back to all those highs, and even lows, enables
you to better understand that the central, recurring theme in your
life didn’t just materialize this morning. It’s been there for a long
time. Another benefit to looking back before looking ahead is that
you gain a greater appreciation for how long it can take to fulfill
aspirations. You also realize that there are many, many avenues to
pursue.
None of this is to say that the past is your future. That would
be like trying to drive using only the rearview mirror. When you
look deeply into your entire life history, you understand things about
yourself and about your world that you cannot fully comprehend by
looking at the future as a blank slate. It’s difficult, if not impossible,
to imagine going to a place you’ve never experienced, either actually
or vicariously. Taking a journey into your past before exploring your
future makes the trip much more meaningful.
Attend to the Present
To envision the future, you have to look around and notice what’s
going on. Right now as you listen to your constituents, what are the
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want? What are they saying that gets in the way of them doing the
very best they can? What are they saying should be changed? Is there
anything they have stopped talking about that seems puzzling? What
does all this tell you about where things are going? What’s it telling
you about what lies just around the corner?
Gautam Aggarwal knew that he would need to attend to the
present when he was promoted to product manager in the medical
diagnostics division of Labo America. Gautam realized that he
needed to “develop a clear vision of what kind of group we needed
to be and how we would go about achieving our goals.” He explained,
“I understood that a leader’s vision for the future has to be supported
with facts about both the past and present.”
One of the first things he did was to hold an open forum with
all reports, direct and indirect, about how they perceived the product
line’s presence in the market at the time, and where they saw it three
to five years in the future. “We would all have to be on the same
page about where we were today before we could go to any place in
the future,” he reasoned. “I gave everyone the opportunity of provid-
ing feedback on what we had been doing right, and what needed
both immediate as well as long-term improvement.” These discus-
sions provided Gautam and his colleagues with a realistic assessment
of current conditions, strengths, and challenges, while also helping
them identify and make choices about which of the many promising
paths forward they should pursue. To be able to envision the future,
you have to realize what’s already going on. You have to spot the
trends and patterns, and appreciate both the whole and the parts.
You have to be able to see the forest and the trees.7
Imagine the future as a jigsaw puzzle. You see the pieces, and
you begin to figure out how they fit together, one by one, into a
whole. Similarly, with your vision, you need to rummage through
the bits and bytes of data that accumulate daily, and notice how they

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E fit together into a picture of what’s ahead. Envisioning the future is
not about gazing into a fortune-teller’s crystal ball; it’s about paying
attention to the little things that are going on all around you and
being able to recognize patterns that point to the future.
Prospect the Future
Even as you stop, look, and listen to messages in the present, you
also need to raise your head and gaze out toward the horizon. Being
forward-looking is not the same as meeting the deadline for your
current project. Leaders have to prospect the future. They have to
be on the lookout for emerging developments in technology, demo-
graphics, economics, politics, arts, and all aspects of life inside and
outside the organization. They have to anticipate what might be
coming just over the hill and around the corner.
One of the leaders we interviewed told us, “I’m my organiza-
tion’s futures department.” All leaders should view themselves this
way. Leaders need to spend considerable time reading, thinking, and
talking about the long-term view, not only for their specific organiza-
tions but also for the environments in which they operate. This
imperative intensifies with the leader’s scope and level of responsibil-
ity. For example, when a leader’s role is strategic (as it is for a CEO,
president, or research director, for example), the time orientation is
longer term and more future oriented than it is for a leader whose
role is more tactical (for example, a production supervisor or opera-
tions manager).
There is no hard-and-fast rule as to how far into the future a
leader should look, although it oftentimes varies with hierarchical
level.8 Consider our findings about the perceived importance of
“forward-looking” as a key leader characteristic varies by organiza-

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tional level. Eighty-eight percent of senior executives select forward-
looking, as do 68 percent of middle managers, but only about 44
percent of college students consider it a preeminent leadership
requirement. This is an indication that as individuals move into
more senior levels in organizations, which bring with them respon-
sibilities for longer-term projects and results, they see the value of
looking farther out into the future.
Darrell Klotzbach worked at a small start-up company that was
taking on the challenge of developing software titles for young chil-
dren. Everyone was quite keyed up about the project because, as
Darrell explained, “there were endless possibilities. We all wanted to
develop a high-quality game that children would find exciting to
play, that they would play again and again, and that would be an
experience that they would learn from.” Darrell said that he “kept
people focused on the future, reminding people how much kids
enjoyed what we were doing, and how much they would enjoy it
when we were done. Without keeping an eye on the future, they
might have become bogged down with some of the day-to-day
mundane activities and become frustrated by some very difficult
challenges.”
Darrell appreciates how the leader’s job is to keep people focused
on the future so that they will be eager to meet the daily challenges,
work through the inevitable conflicts, and persevere to the end.
Visions are future oriented and are made real over different spans of
time. It may take three years from the time you decide to climb a
mountain until you actually reach the summit. It may take a decade
to build a company that is one of the best places to work. It may
take a lifetime to make neighborhoods safe again for children to walk
alone. It may take a century to restore a forest destroyed by a wildfire.
It may take generations to set a people free.

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E Imagination, asserted Nobel Prize–winning physicist Albert Ein-
stein, is more important than intelligence,9 and this is particularly
true for leaders dealing with rapidly changing times. You need to
give greater consideration to what you’re going to do after the current
problem, task, assignment, project, or program has been completed.
“What’s next?” should be a question you frequently ask yourself. If
you’re not thinking about what’s happening after the completion of
your longest-term project, then you’re thinking only as long term as
everyone else. In other words, you’re redundant! The leader’s job is
to think about the next project, and the one after that, and the one
after that.
Great football coaches, for example, aren’t thinking about the
current play on the field—that’s the execution left up to the players,
and they’ll be either successful or not. What the coach is thinking
about is the play after that, considering all the possibilities before
even knowing the outcome of what’s currently being executed.10
Similarly, Grand Master bridge players (or chess or even poker
players) aren’t simply thinking about their next move. They are
considering possible permutations that could emerge as the game
unfolds. And that’s what you should be doing—thinking about
what you and your team will be undertaking after what you’re cur-
rently working on has been completed. As a leader, you need to be
thinking a few “moves” ahead of your team and picturing the future
possibilities.
In a series of studies, researchers have shown how leaders who
are focused on the future attract followers more readily, induce more
effort and intrinsic motivation from group members, promote group
identification, mobilize collective action, and ultimately achieve
better performance on measures of both individual and organiza-
tional outcomes.11 Leaders must spend time thinking about the
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Whether it’s through reading about trends, talking with futurists,
listening to podcasts, or watching documentaries, developing a deep
understanding of where things are going is a significant part of your
job. Your constituents expect it of you. You have to spend more of
today thinking more about tomorrow if your future is going to be
an improvement over the present. And throughout the process of
reflecting on your past, attending to the present, and prospecting for
the future, you need to keep in touch with what moves you, what
you care about, where your passion is.
Feel Your Passion
Passion goes hand in hand with attention. People don’t see possibili-
ties when they don’t feel any passion. Envisioning the future requires
you to stay in touch with your deepest feelings. You have to find
something that’s so important that you’re willing to put in the time,
suffer the inevitable setbacks, and make the necessary sacrifices.
Everyone has concerns, desires, questions, propositions, arguments,
hopes, and dreams—core issues that can help organize aspirations
and actions. And every individual has a few things that are much
more important than other things. Whatever yours are, you need to
be able to name them so that you can talk about them with others.
You have to step back and ask yourself, “What is my burning
passion? What gets me up in the morning? What’s grabbed hold of
me and won’t let go?”
Leaders want to do something significant, accomplish some-
thing that no one else has yet achieved. What that something is—
your sense of meaning and purpose—has to come from within. No
one can impose a self-motivating vision on you. That’s why, just as
we said about values, you must first clarify your own vision of the
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E Researchers in human motivation have long talked about two
kinds of motivation—extrinsic and intrinsic.12 People do things
either because of external controls—the possibility of a tangible
reward if they succeed or punishment if they don’t—or because of
an internal desire. People do something because they feel forced or
because they want to. People do something to please others or to
please themselves. No surprises when it comes to predicting which
condition is more likely to produce extraordinary results.
The research is very clear: external motivation is more likely to
create conditions of compliance or defiance; self-motivation pro-
duces far superior results. There’s even an added bonus. People who
are self-motivated will keep working toward a result even if there’s
no reward.13 In contrast, people who are externally controlled are
likely to stop trying once the rewards or punishments are removed—
or, as so aptly put by psychologist and motivational expert Edward
Deci, “Stop the pay, and stop the play.”14
Exemplary leaders have a passion for something other than their
own fame and fortune. They care about making a difference. If you
don’t care deeply for and about something, how can you expect
others to feel any sense of conviction? How can you expect others
to feel passion if you’re not energized and excited? How can you
expect others to suffer through the long hours, hard work, absences
from home, and personal sacrifices if you’re not similarly committed?
This is exactly what Andrew Rzepa discovered as part of his own
personal-best leadership experience.
About a month after Andrew became chairman of a committee
of trainee solicitors (lawyers) from across Manchester, England, the
national Trainee Solicitors Group arranged a conference for all the
trainees in the United Kingdom to take place in his city. Although
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national organization, Andrew decided that he would do all he could
to make the event a success. He got his colleagues together and
publicly declared that he was going to do everything in his power
to ensure that there would be at least three hundred delegates at the
event. (With three weeks to go, the enrollment was only at seventy-
five.) “I spoke passionately about how good it would feel to be
there at a packed event and to look around thinking that we
had achieved that.”
After sharing his own feelings, Andrew invited the committee
members to indicate whether “they were willing to personally commit
themselves to the realization of this goal.” Andrew acknowledged
that because this event was neither part of the committee’s goals nor
the reason members had volunteered for the committee, he wouldn’t
have been surprised had the majority said no. “To my pure joy,”
Andrew exclaimed, “sixteen out of the twenty said yes, they were
willing to do all they could to make the event a success.” And the
fact that there were some “doubters” actually energized everyone
involved. “The committee members were more passionate than I had
ever seen them before,” Andrew said. In the end, after a solid com-
bined effort from all quarters, they succeeded in getting 316 attend-
ees to the event. Andrew’s passion not only fueled his own drive but
also was contagious in getting others to work as hard as they could
to realize a future possibility.
When you feel your passion, as Andrew did, you know you are
on to something very important. Your enthusiasm and drive spread
to others. Finding something you truly believe in is the key to
articulating a vision in the first place. Once you’re in touch with
this inner feeling, you can look and think beyond the constraints
of your current position and view the possibilities available in the
future.

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E FIND A COMMON PURPOSE
All too often, leaders have come to assume that it is solely their
responsibility to be the visionaries. After all, if focusing on the future
sets leaders apart, it’s understandable that they would get the feeling
that it’s their job to embark alone on a vision quest to discover the
future of their organization.
This is not what constituents expect. Yes, leaders are expected to
be forward-looking, but they aren’t expected to impose their vision
of the future on others. People don’t really want to picture only the
leader’s vision. They want to see how their own visions and aspira-
tions will come true, how their hopes and dreams will be fulfilled.
They want to view themselves in the picture of the future that the
leader is painting. The key task for leaders is inspiring a shared vision,
not selling their own idiosyncratic view of the world. What this
requires is finding common ground among those people who have
to implement the vision. Your constituents want to feel part of the
process.15
Buddy Blanton, a programs manager for strategy and develop-
ment at Northrop Grumman Corporation, certainly found this to
be true. Buddy wanted to learn how he could be more effective at
creating a shared vision, so he asked his team for feedback. What
they told him helped him understand that it’s the process, not just
the vision, that’s critical in getting everybody on the same page:
One of the team members that I most respect spoke first, and
gave me this advice: “You would benefit by helping us, as a
team, to understand how you got to your vision. We want to
walk with you while you create the goals and vision so we all
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sharing this road map would help him to feel more ready to
take the initiative to resolve issues independently. A couple of
other team members stated that this communication would
help them to understand how the goals are realistic. One of the
team members said that they would like to be a part of the
vision-building process so they could learn how to better
build visions for their team.
What Buddy found out is what every leader must understand:
nobody really likes being told what to do or where to go, no matter
how right it might be. People want to be a part of the vision devel-
opment process. The vast majority of people are just like Buddy’s
team members. They want to walk with their leaders. They want to
dream with them, invent with them, and be involved in creating
their own futures.
This means that you can’t adopt the view that visions come from
the top down. You have to start engaging others in a collective dia-
logue about the future, not delivering a monologue. You can’t mobi-
lize people to willingly travel to places they don’t want to go. No
matter how grand the dream of an individual visionary, if others
don’t see in it the possibility of realizing their own hopes and desires,
they won’t follow voluntarily or wholeheartedly. You must show
others how they, too, will be served by the long-term vision of the
future, how their specific needs can be satisfied.
Listen Deeply to Others
By knowing their constituents, listening to them, and taking their
advice, leaders are able to give voice to their constituents’ feelings.
They’re able to stand before others and say with assurance, “Here’s
what I heard you say that you want for yourselves. Here’s how your

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E own needs and interests will be served by enlisting in a common
cause.” In a sense, leaders hold up a mirror and reflect back to their
constituents what they say they most desire.
You need to strengthen your ability to hear what is important
to others. The outlines of any vision do not appear from crystal ball
gazing in the isolation of the upper levels of the organization’s strato-
sphere. They originate from conversations with customers in the
retail stores. They come from interactions with employees on the
manufacturing floor, in the lab, or in the cafeteria. They’re heard in
the hallways, in meetings, and in people’s homes.
The best leaders are great listeners. They listen carefully to what
other people have to say and how they feel. They have to ask good
(and often tough) questions, be open to ideas other than their own,
and even lose arguments in favor of the common good. Through
intense listening, leaders get a sense of what people want, what they
value, and what they dream about. This sensitivity to others is no
trivial skill. It is a truly precious human ability.16
Jacqueline Wong can testify to the power of listening deeply.
Although she had received many individual achievement awards,
when she was promoted to head up one of the teams at CFS, a
private investment advisory firm, she realized that “team achieve-
ments became what mattered.” Her personal-best leadership experi-
ence of winning the company-wide Team of the Quarter award for
outstanding sales performance, she said, “began with listening to the
team and finding out what they most valued and wanted in their
lives.”
I asked them to draw their dreams of their future. From those
images, I was able to understand how I could align their goals
with the team vision. One common vision was happiness and
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this link led us from the team’s mission to their dreams in the
long run. I inspired my team by explaining how the team goal
would take them one step closer to their destination. By
outperforming all the other teams, they would build the
confidence they needed to continue in this commission-based
investment-service business. Consequently, they would be able to
provide a good standard of living for the people they loved. For
my group, their self-motivation to reach the shared vision drove
them to spectacular success in that quarter. We outperformed
the first runner-up by 118 percent.
Jacqueline often sat with each team member not only to talk
about progress but also to discover each person’s strengths and moti-
vations. “Knowing what my team members valued,” she said, “helped
me communicate with them in a common language.” For example,
she learned from one team member about his parents’ pending
retirement. She took that opportunity to tell her colleague how he
would be able to significantly help his parents with their retirement
fund by working hard on the project. In another instance, a team
member was significantly underperforming. Jacqueline had a talk
with her and found out that she was unsure of her ability to meet
the objectives and therefore hadn’t really bought into the “same
aspiration as the rest of the team.” Jacqueline started taking her along
to some of her own business deals and showing her what was pos-
sible. Other members of the team started doing this as well. After a
while, Jacqueline said, this team member “bought into our team
goal, and her performance improved dramatically; and by the end
of the target period, in fact, she had the second-best performance
on the team.” Through paying attention to what people told her,
Jacqueline was able to identify opportunities for them and develop
a winning mindset within the team.

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E Make It a Cause for Commitment
When you listen deeply, as Jacqueline did, you can find out what gives
work its meaning to others. People stay with an organization, research
finds, because they like the work they are doing and find it challeng-
ing, meaningful, and purposeful.17 When you listen with sensitivity
to the aspirations of others, you discover that there are some common
values that link everyone together.18 People want a chance to
Be tested, to make it on their own
Take part in a social experiment
Do something well
Do something good
Change the way things are
Aren’t these the essence of what most leadership challenges are all
about? Indeed, what people want has not changed very dramatically
through the years.19
These findings suggest that there’s more to work than making
money.20 People have a deep desire to make a difference. They want
to know that they have done something on this earth, that there’s a
purpose to their existence. Work has become a place where people
pursue meaning and identity.21 The best organizational leaders
address this human longing by communicating the significance of
the organization’s work so that people understand their own impor-
tant role in creating and performing that work. When leaders clearly
communicate a shared vision of an organization, they ennoble those
who work on its behalf. They elevate the human spirit.
Although this idea may be easy enough to comprehend, Sonja
Shevelyov, human resources manager at Ooyala, a leader in online
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It can be difficult to implement. There is immense value in
creating meaning to the work that is being asked of people. I’ve
learned how important it is to take time to listen closely and
connect with what is meaningful to others. In an environment
with rapidly changing priorities, I find I am constantly in a
reactive state. Creating time and driving any projects to
completion in a proactive way is a struggle.
It can be difficult to anticipate the future, because it
requires you to be proactive and be disciplined around
establishing what those shared values are and not just
assuming them. The payoff is huge because I can connect
to the feeling that what I’m doing is bigger than myself, even
noble.
People commit to causes, not to plans. How else do you explain
why people volunteer to rebuild communities ravaged by a tsunami,
ride a bike from San Francisco to Los Angeles to raise money to fight
AIDS, or rescue people from the rubble of a collapsed building
after an earthquake? How else do you explain why people toil 24/7
to create the next big thing when the probability of failure is very
high? People are not committing to the plan in any of these cases.
There may not even be a plan to commit to. They are committing
to something much bigger, something much more compelling than
goals and milestones on a piece of paper. That’s not to say that
plans aren’t important to executing on grand dreams. They abso-
lutely are. It’s just to say that the plan isn’t the thing that people are
committing to.
The most successful strategies are visions.22 McGill University
professor Henry Mintzberg has observed, “Calculated strategies have
no value in and of themselves. . . . Strategies take on value only as
committed people infuse them with energy.”23 When people are part

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E of something that elevates them to higher levels of motivation and
morality, they develop a sense that they belong to something very
special. This sense of belonging is particularly important in tumultu-
ous times.
Look Forward in Times of Rapid Change
In this digital age when the business world is changing at warp speed,
people often ask, “How can I have a vision of what’s going to happen
five or ten years from now, when I don’t even know what’s going to
happen next week?” Venture capitalist Geoff Yang has taken risks on
many new technology companies that are expected to move at a
rapid pace. What types of innovators is he willing to back? “Men
and women with great vision,” he says. “They are able to recognize
patterns when others see chaos in the marketplace. That’s how they
spot unexploited niche opportunities. And they are passionate about
their ideas, which are revolutionary ways to change the way people
live their lives or the way businesses operate. When they come to
me they have conviction.”24
Look at it this way. Imagine you’re driving along the Pacific
Coast Highway heading south from San Francisco on a bright,
sunny day. The hills are on your left, the ocean on your right. On
some curves, the cliffs plunge several hundred feet to the water. You
can see for miles and miles. You’re cruising along at the speed limit,
tunes blaring, top down, wind in your hair, and not a care in the
world. You come around a bend in the road, and suddenly, without
warning, there’s a blanket of fog as thick as you’ve ever seen it. What
do you do?
We’ve asked this question many, many times, and here are some
of the things people tell us:

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“I slow way down.”
“I turn my lights on.”
“I grip the steering wheel with both hands.”
“I tense up.”
“I sit up straight or lean forward.”
“I turn the music off.”
Then you go around the next curve in the road; the fog lifts, and it’s
clear again. What do you do? Relax, speed up, turn the lights off,
put the music back on, and enjoy the scenery.
This analogy illustrates the importance of clarity of vision. Are
you able to go faster when it’s foggy or when it’s clear? How fast can
you drive in the fog without risking your own or other people’s lives?
How comfortable are you riding in a car with someone else who
drives fast in the fog? The answers are obvious, aren’t they? You’re
better able to go fast when your vision is clear. You’re better able to
anticipate the switchbacks and bumps in the road when you can see
ahead. There are times in your life, no doubt, when you find yourself
driving in the fog, metaphorically speaking. When this happens, you
get nervous and unsure of what’s ahead. You slow down. But as you
continue forward along the path, the way becomes clearer, and
eventually you’re able to speed up again. This is exactly the experi-
ence that Kyle Harvey described.
As a marketing specialist with a Silicon Valley semiconductor
company, Kyle was given a huge project with another marketing
team member to create a video and articles about the wide range of
products they offered. He set up a meeting with his coworker to
determine the direction that they were going to take. “At the begin-
ning it was really confusing,” Kyle said.

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E She seemed uninterested in the project, and you could have said
we were in the densest part of the fog. There was no vision for
the project, and we really had no direction. After about two
weeks, we still had not accomplished anything, so I set up
another meeting. This time, before going into the meeting, I
developed a vision about how to approach the project. I knew
that she was extremely artistic and enjoyed being creative. I
found ways to incorporate her talents and what she liked doing
into the project. This jump-started her and then we really got
engaged. After about ten or fifteen minutes of explaining how
she would be able to use her creativity, she began explaining
how she wanted the video to look. The fog kept lifting and the
view ahead was becoming clearer. . . . After a month of work on
the project, it finally seems like we have begun driving faster
and left the fog behind. Each of us has been contributing
significantly, and she became extremely focused and driven to
reach our goal.
The fog analogy is especially strong for me in this case. I
found that when our vision was unclear, we pulled off to the
side of the road and did not continue to drive. However, after
finding ways to motivate and inspire her, we have been back on
the road and moving through the fog. It was nice to be able to
start from nothing and then build it up to what we have now.
It was important for me to realize that the “shared vision” does
not always come instantly or in the first meeting. The vision
gets clearer the more people communicate and find ways to
inspire each other.
Simply put, to become a leader, you must be able to envision
the future. The speed of change doesn’t alter this fundamental truth.
People want to follow only those who can see beyond today’s prob-
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Envision the Future
The most important role of vision in organizational life is to give
focus to human energy. To enable everyone concerned with an
enterprise to see more clearly what’s ahead of him or her, you
must have and convey an exciting, ennobling vision of the fu-
ture. The path to clarity of vision begins with reflecting on the
past, moves to attending to the present, and then goes pros-
pecting into the future. And the guardrails along this path are
your passions—what it is that you care about most deeply.
Although you have to be clear about your own vision before
you can expect others to follow, you need to keep in mind that
you can’t effectively, authentically lead others to places they
personally don’t want to go. If the vision is to be attractive to
more than an insignificant few, it must appeal to all who have
a stake in it. Only shared visions have the magnetic power to
sustain commitment over time. Listen to the voices of all your
constituents; listen for their hopes, dreams, and aspirations.
And because a common vision spans years and keeps everyone
focused on the future, it has to be about more than a task or
job. It has to be a cause, something meaningful, and something
that makes a difference in people’s lives. Whether you’re leading
a small department of ten, a large organization of ten thousand,
or a community of a hundred thousand, a shared vision sets the
agenda and gives direction and purpose to the enterprise.
To Inspire a Shared Vision, you must envision the future by
imagining exciting and ennobling possibilities. This means you
have to
T A K E A C T I O N

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• Determine what you care about, what drives you, where
your passions lie.
• Make a list of all the things you want to accomplish, and
ask yourself “Why?”
• Use your past experiences as clues for understanding key
themes in your life and understanding what you find
worthwhile.
• Be curious about what is going on around you—
especially things that aren’t working well.
• Ask “What’s next?” about every project long before it is
completed.
• Spend time thinking and finding out about the future.
• Listen to your constituents about what is important to their
future.
• Involve others in crafting what could be possible; don’t
make it a top-down process.
• Weave together your own hopes and dreams with those of
your constituents.
• Get people on the same page, the same path, about
where you all are going.
• Elevate what you and others are doing from a job to a
“calling.”
Use The Leadership Challenge Mobile Tool app to
immediately integrate these activities into your life and make
this practice an ongoing part of your behavioral repertoire.

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SALVATORE SARNO CAME TO South Africa from Italy at
the age of nineteen and eventually became chairman of MSC South
Africa, a privately owned container shipping line and one of the
leading carriers in the world. His leadership story, however, is not a
corporate one; rather he made an entire nation excited about his
dream that South Africa would be the first African team to race
in the most important sailing competition in the world, the
America’s Cup.1 He wanted to give people who grew up in difficult
conditions the chance to represent the pride of their nation in front
of the world, to show that with passion you could overcome other
problems like lack of budget or experience.
His dream sounded a bit crazy to the people with whom he first
shared it, but Salvatore merged his passions for sailing and for South
Africa into a common purpose for the nation and for the African
people. Those who’d yearned to realize a dream from the time they
first sailed into Cape Town Bay and those who were raised in places
like Durban were suddenly given a chance to be part of something
Enlist Others
C H A P T E R 5

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E grand—something that gave them a new reason to train, to improve,
and to commit to a meaningful cause. They would have the oppor-
tunity to make history.
Salvatore did what all exemplary leaders do. He looked forward
and talked about what could be. He painted a picture of the future
so that others could see what was possible. He shared his passion
and enthusiasm with the people around him. It was infectious, and
one young man remembered how Salvatore used to tell him nearly
a decade before the race: “Imagine the underdog South African boat
with his mixed white and black crew sailing head to head with the
strongest team of the world. This is the World Cup of sailing, and
we are going to play this game sooner or later!”
The team’s name, Shosholoza, means “go forward, make your
road, forge ahead”—an acknowledgment of the dedication to pursue
excellence, especially when doing so is a challenge. The spirit of
the Shosholoza project was all about doing something unique. In
his speeches to his team, Salvatore would stress that it was “an
opportunity to show that all South Africa’s citizens can work together,
do well and have success together. In essence it is an opportunity
to be part of the African renaissance.”2 His appeals enlisted the
team in a noble endeavor to make history for their country, got them
to believe in the possibility, motivated them to work even harder
than they could imagine, and built their pride in being the best
they could be. And for Salvatore, like all leaders who enlist others
in a common vision, it all came down to something fairly simple
and straightforward: having a passion for making a difference in
people’s lives.
In 2007, Shosholoza took part in the America’s Cup Race, a
remarkable achievement in itself, considering that only twelve coun-
tries were represented. Despite a significantly lower budget and less
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some amazing victories in the heads-up challenges against giants like
Luna Rossa and Mascalzone Latino before eventually placing sixth
at the final round in Valencia.
In the personal-best leadership cases we collected, people talked
about the need to get everyone on board with a vision and to Enlist
Others in a dream, just as Salvatore did. They had to communicate
and build support for the direction in which the organization was
headed. These leaders knew that in order to make extraordinary
things happen, everyone had to fervently believe in and commit to
a common purpose.
Part of enlisting others is building common ground on which
everyone can agree. But equally important is the emotion that
leaders express for the vision. Our research shows that in addi-
tion to expecting leaders to be forward-looking, constituents expect
their leaders to be inspiring. People need vast reserves of energy and
excitement to sustain commitment to a distant dream. Leaders are
expected to be a major source of that energy. People aren’t going
to follow someone who’s only mildly enthusiastic about something.
Leaders have to be wildly enthusiastic for constituents to give it
their all.
Whether you’re trying to mobilize a crowd in the grandstand or
one person in the office, to Enlist Others you must act on these two
essentials:
• APPEAL TO COMMON IDEALS
• ANIMATE THE VISION
Enlisting others is all about igniting passion for a purpose and
moving people to persist against great odds. To get extraordinary
things done in organizations, you have to go beyond reason, engag-
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E understanding their strongest yearnings for something meaningful
and significant.
APPEAL TO COMMON IDEALS
In every personal-best case, leaders talked about ideals. They expressed
a desire to make dramatic changes in the business-as-usual environ-
ment. They reached for something grand, something magnificent,
something that had never been done before.
Visions are about ideals. They’re about hopes, dreams, and aspi-
rations. They’re about the strong desire to achieve something great.
They’re ambitious. They’re expressions of optimism. Can you imagine
a leader enlisting others in a cause by saying, “I’d like you to join
me in doing the ordinary”? Not likely. Visions stretch people to
imagine exciting possibilities, breakthrough technologies, and revo-
lutionary social change.
Ideals reveal higher-order value preferences. They represent the
ultimate economic, technological, political, social, and aesthetic pri-
orities. The ideals of world peace, freedom, justice, an exciting life,
happiness, and self-respect, for example, are among the ultimate
strivings of human existence. They’re outcomes of the larger purpose
that practical actions will enable people to attain over the long term.
By focusing on ideals, people gain a sense of meaning and purpose
from what they undertake.
When you communicate your vision of the future to your con-
stituents, you need to talk about how they’re going to make a dif-
ference in the world, how they’re going to have a positive impact on
people and events. You need to show them how their long-term
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to speak to the higher meaning and purpose of work. You need to
describe a compelling image of what the future could be like when
people join together in a common cause.
Connect to What’s Meaningful to Others
Exemplary leaders don’t impose their visions of the future on people;
they liberate the vision that’s already stirring in their constituents.
They awaken dreams, breathe life into them, and arouse the belief
that people can achieve something grand. When they communicate
a shared vision, they bring these ideals into the conversation. What
truly pulls people forward, especially in more difficult and volatile
times, is the exciting possibility that what they are doing can make
a profound difference in the lives of their families, friends, col-
leagues, customers, and communities. They want to know that what
they do matters.3 Nancy Sullivan, vice president for disability ben-
efits at the Trustmark Companies, told us, “When you know what
road you should be on and are doing exactly what you should be
doing, you fulfill your life purpose, personal passions, and heart’s
desire. When your life and career are on course and you understand
your purpose, you feel full, satisfied, and ever so powerful. Nothing
will stop you.”
Nancy’s passion for the work her division does is quite
evident in these words, and she needed to draw on that energy
when her group was notified that they were unlikely to meet
their division objectives after consistently exceeding them for nine
straight years. Nancy knew that her team could pull through, but
for them to do so, she needed to connect her constituents to
more than just the division plan. She needed to paint a bigger
picture of what they could accomplish together and show them

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E how their long-term interests could be realized by enlisting in a
common vision.
Nancy developed a four-page vision message and posted it in
the office kitchen where everyone congregated. In team meetings,
division meetings, one-on-ones, and chats in the hallway, she spoke
with genuine conviction about the meaning and purpose of their
work and pointed out specific parts of her vision message that would
help them see themselves as she saw them—as the best of the best.
It was not only a message about what they could achieve in business
but also a connection to the significant role they played in the lives
of all their constituents. Here is part of that message:
I dream of a place here in our office, where the sales team
maintains respect and confidence in our decisions not just today
but tomorrow and always; the constant challenges to our
decisions just don’t exist. Where our insureds trust our decisions
and feel our genuine commitment to serving them well in their
greatest time of need. Where our customers have confidence
that your decision was contractual yes, but more importantly
ethically correct and sound. Where the only title that you can
think of for introducing your co-worker is respected colleague
and friend.
I dream of a place where growth and opportunities are
massive because of the time and energy you invested with
your commitments and therefore our opportunities and
potential are endless. A place that no longer manages claims,
but manages decisions on disability. A place that is no longer
thought of as disability-claim experts, but disability experts.
A place where our colleagues and government officials look
to for disability solutions. A place where Trustmark is the
number one company to serve as the assistance to all disability
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And day in, day out, Nancy stressed the exciting possibilities the
future held: “Imagine your own career ten years out, and dream of
a position that serves you well. Create ideas that get you there.
Look within for strengths that you didn’t even know you had. Look
beyond any possibilities. Stretch yourself with ideas that seem
unachievable. If the thoughts are laughable, then that is exactly
what we are looking for. Create your own position. Create our
future.”
In time, all of Nancy’s staff connected with those ideals and
aspirations and united around their division objectives. Each
member of the team could easily see how he or she would answer
a friend’s question, “So, why do you work there?” Nancy’s message
had lifted them up from the mechanics of disability claims and
reminded them of the nobility of what they accomplish. Nancy’s
focus on the purpose and meaning of the division’s work engaged
their spirits and enabled them to surpass their targets for the tenth
year in a row.
The outcomes Nancy’s staff experienced are quite consistent with
the extensive research on employee engagement. Michael Burchell
and Jennifer Robin of the Great Places to Work Institute, for
example, report that “when we ask employees in great workplaces to
describe what it is like to work there, they begin to smile and talk
about how they are excited to get to work, and then, at the end of
the day, are surprised to discover that the day has already disap-
peared. . . . They share their belief that what they do matters in the
organization—that their team or the organization would be less suc-
cessful if it weren’t for their efforts.”4 This is what Nancy accom-
plished at Trustmark. You have to make sure that the people on your
team know that their work does, in fact, matter.
Leaders help people see that what they are doing is bigger than
they are and bigger, even, than the business. Their work can be

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E something noble. When people go to bed at night, they can sleep a
little easier knowing that others are able to live a better life because
of what they did that day.
Take Pride in Being Unique
Exemplary leaders also communicate what makes their constituents,
work group, organization, product, or service singular and unequaled.
Compelling visions differentiate and set “us” apart from “them,” and
they must do so in order to attract and retain employees, volunteers,
customers, clients, donors, and investors.5 There’s no advantage in
working for, buying from, or investing in an organization that does
exactly the same thing as the one across the street or down the hall.
Saying, “Welcome to our company. We’re just like everyone else,”
doesn’t exactly make the spine tingle with excitement. When people
understand how they’re truly distinctive and how they stand out in
the crowd, they’re a lot more eager to voluntarily sign up and invest
their energies.
Feeling special fosters a sense of pride.6 It boosts the self-respect
and self-esteem of everyone associated with the organization. When
people are proud to work for their organization and serve its purpose,
and when they feel that what they are doing is meaningful, they
become enthusiastic ambassadors to the outside world. When cus-
tomers and clients are proud to own your products or use your
services, they are more loyal and more likely to recruit their friends
to do business with you. When members of the community are
proud to have you as a neighbor, they’re going to do everything they
can to make you feel welcome.
“She made me feel proud, she made me feel that what I was
doing was special and made a unique contribution,” said Lina Chen
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research lab of renowned scientists and talented doctoral students
at UCLA, but she herself was neither a scholar nor a researcher.
She was responsible for computer support and making sure that all
the equipment was up and running without any issues. However,
she says that her leader “did not explain my job responsibility to me
that way.”
She began by explaining to me the importance of the research
that was being done and how it could impact the lives of many
people. Furthermore, the more accurate our results from the
research, the more beneficial it will be to those that are
involved because we can help improve their quality of life. My
job to keep the computer equipment up and running was
crucial because it makes the researchers’ jobs easier. I was also
helping them in improving the environment and making the
world a better place. It made my job very meaningful and
inspiring to be part of a team that is making a difference in the
world.
Leaders like Lina’s at UCLA get people excited about signing
on for their vision by making certain that everyone involved
feels that what she does is unique and that everyone believes
that she plays a crucial role regardless of job title or specific task
responsibilities.
Feeling unique also makes it possible for smaller units within
large organizations, or neighborhoods within large cities, to have
their own visions and still serve a larger, collective vision. Although
every unit within a corporation, public agency, religious institu-
tion, school, or volunteer association must be aligned with the
overall organizational vision, each can express its distinctive purpose
within the larger whole. Every function and every department can

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E differentiate itself by finding its most distinctive qualities. Each can
be proud of its own ideal image of its future as it works toward
the common future of the larger organization.
These days, though, with the latest and greatest available in a
nanosecond at the touch of a key, it’s become increasingly difficult
to differentiate yourself from others. Log on to any Internet search
engine, type in a keyword, and up come thousands, sometimes tens
or hundreds of thousands, of sites and offerings.7 The options are
overwhelming. And it’s not just the speed and volume of informa-
tion that create problems. Everything begins to look and sound alike.
It’s a sea of sameness out there. People become bored with things
more quickly than ever before. Organizations, new and old, must
work harder to differentiate themselves (and their products) from
others around them. Business consolidations, the Internet, the infor-
mation overload, the 24/7/365 always-on, everyone’s-connected
world demand that leaders be even more attentive to ways in which
they can be the beacon that cuts through the dense mist and steers
people in the right direction.
Align Your Dream with the People’s Dream
In learning how to appeal to people’s ideals, move their souls, and
uplift their spirits—and your own—there is no better place to look
than to the late Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. His “I Have
a Dream” speech tops the list of the best American public addresses
of the twentieth century. On the national holiday in the United
States marking his birthday, this speech is replayed, and young and
old alike are reminded of the power of a clear and uplifting vision
of the future. If you have never listened closely to Dr. King’s words,
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Imagine that you are there on that hot and humid day—August
28, 1963—when on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial in Washing-
ton, DC, before a throng of 250,000, Martin Luther King Jr. pro-
claimed his dream to the world. Imagine that you’re listening to King
as thousands around you clap and applaud and cry out. Now try to
better understand why this speech is so powerful and how he is
capable of moving so many people.
We’ve asked thousands of people over the years to listen to King’s
famous “I Have a Dream” speech and then tell us what they heard,
how they felt, and why they thought this speech remains so moving
even today.9 Following is a sampling of their observations.
“He appealed to common interests.”
“He talked about traditional values of family, church, and country.”
“It was vivid. He used a lot of images and word pictures. You could
see the examples.”
“People could relate to the examples. They were familiar.”
“His references were credible. It’s hard to argue against the Constitu-
tion or the Bible.”
“He mentioned children—something we can all relate to.”
“It was personal. He mentioned his own children, but it wasn’t just
his kids because he also talked about everyone’s children.”
“He knew his audience.”
“He made geographical references to places the people in the audi-
ence could relate to.”
“He included everybody: different parts of the country, all ages, both
sexes, major religions several times.”
“He used a lot of repetition: for example, saying ‘I have a dream,’
and ‘Let freedom ring’ several times.”
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E “He began with a statement of the difficulties and then stated his
hope for the future.”
“He was positive and hopeful.”
“Although positive, he didn’t promise it would be easy.”
“There was a cadence and a rhythm to his voice.”
“He shifted from ‘I’ to ‘we’ halfway through.”
“He spoke with emotion and passion. It was something he
genuinely felt.”
These reflections reveal the key to success in enlisting others. To
get others excited about your dream, you need to speak about
meaning and purpose. You have to show them how their dreams will
be realized. You have to connect your message to their values, their
aspirations, their experiences, and their own lives. You have to
show them that it’s not about you, or even the organization, but
about them and their needs. King’s “I Have a Dream” speech vividly
illustrates how the ability to exert an enlivening influence is rooted
in fundamental values, cultural traditions, personal conviction, and
a capacity to use words to create positive images of the future. To
enlist others, you need to bring the vision to life. You have to make
manifest the purpose so that others can see it, hear it, taste it, touch
it, feel it. You have to make the connection between an inspiring
vision of the future and the personal aspirations and passions of the
people you are addressing. You have to describe a compelling image
of how people can realize their dreams.
Ed Fernandez took these ideas to heart when he began his new
role as general manager of WXYZ, a legacy television station owned
by Scripps in Detroit.10 Having come from outside the organization,
Ed anticipated resistance to change and skepticism from some of the
employees, but what he found was quite the opposite. “Here was a
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they simply wanted something to believe in at a personally meaning-
ful level. They were eager to embrace a vision (mission and purpose)
that would make their community a better place.”
Ed took the time to listen to their concerns, both individually
and in small groups. By aligning his dreams with those of his
employees, he created a shared picture of “what we wanted to be as
a media organization.” Taking the time to consistently communicate
that vision made a remarkable difference in morale and productivity,
and this process produced the concept of “Detroit 2020”—a vision
to be the centerpiece of discourse that could help spark the renais-
sance of Detroit and the region. By utilizing the power and resources
of WXYZ, this decade-long, multiplatform community impact ini-
tiative provides a shared goal for everyone to follow. Ed says, “People
have a purpose for their work and know how they can contribute to
the overall success.” An internal survey validated the station’s prog-
ress; 94 percent of the respondents agreed that “WXYZ can make
things happen when committed to an idea,” and more than five in
six believed that “within three years WXYZ will be the market
leader.” By appealing to common interests as Ed did, you can get
people to commit to future possibilities.
ANIMATE THE VISION
Leaders have to engage others to join in a cause and to want to
move decisively forward. Part of motivating others is appealing to
their ideals. Another part, as demonstrated by King’s “I Have a
Dream” speech, is animating the vision, essentially breathing life
into it. To enlist others, you have to help them see and feel how
their own interests and aspirations are aligned with the vision. You
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E constituents to experience viscerally what it would be like to actu-
ally live and work in an exciting and uplifting future. That’s the
only way they’ll become sufficiently internally motivated to commit
their individual energies to the vision’s realization.
“But I’m not like Martin Luther King,” you say. “I can’t possibly
do what he did. Besides, he was a preacher, and I’m not. His con-
stituents were on a protest march, and mine are here to get a job
done.” Many people initially respond this way. Most don’t see them-
selves as personally uplifting, and certainly don’t get much encour-
agement for behaving this way in most organizations. Despite the
acknowledged potency of clearly communicated and compelling
visions, our research finds people more uncomfortable with inspiring
a shared vision than with any of the other leadership practices. Their
discomfort comes mostly from having to actually express their emo-
tions. That’s not easy for working adults to do, but people are too
quick to discount their capacity to communicate with passion and
enthusiasm.
People’s perception of themselves as uninspiring is in sharp
contrast to their performance when they talk about their personal-
best leadership experiences or when they talk about their ideal
futures. When relating hopes, dreams, and successes, people are
almost always emotionally expressive. Expressiveness comes naturally
when talking about deep desires for the something that could be
better in the future than it is today. And it doesn’t matter what
language they are speaking.
Most people attribute something mystical to the process of being
inspirational. They seem to see it as supernatural, as a grace or charm
bestowed on them—what’s often referred to as charisma. This
assumption inhibits people far more than any lack of natural talent
for being inspirational. It’s not necessary to be a charismatic person
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develop the skills to transmit your belief. It’s your passion that brings
the vision to life. If you’re going to lead, you have to recognize that
your enthusiasm and expressiveness are among your strongest allies
in your efforts to generate commitment in others. Don’t underesti-
mate your talents.
Use Symbolic Language
When registered nurse Janet (McTavish) MacIntyre assumed the role
of the new unit leader for the Intensive Care Unit/Cardiac Care Unit
(ICU/CCU) at the Henderson Hospital in Hamilton, Ontario, she
had a chance to share with others her intense passion for nursing,
along with her extensive knowledge and accomplished skills.11 The
Hamilton Health Sciences at Henderson site was opening a new
state-of-the-art hospital renamed the Juravinski Hospital and Cancer
Centre, and Janet wanted to fully engage her colleagues in that
exciting opportunity. She found some compelling ways to do
that by turning to Canadian culture. “I began by creating a logo
with a slogan and choosing a mascot, one that identified with our
Canadian roots and symbolized the journey we were on. An
Inukshuk, built by the Inuit Natives across the Canadian Arctic, is
a stone landmark that denotes a spiritual resting place along a migra-
tion route to food or shelter. Most importantly, it communicates
that ‘you are on the path.’ That was us. We were on a path. We were
on a journey.”
The Inukshuk mascot was built with six stones: four represent-
ing the organization’s corporate values of respect, caring, innovation,
and accountability; and two reflecting the ICU/CCU’s values. A
“passport” served as a creative education tool for getting everyone
engaged—115 staff members in all, from nurses and respiratory
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E diverse learning needs for the various disciplines, the passport pro-
vided a customized checklist, a site map, and information that iden-
tified a path to working safely in the new environment. A mock
patient setup room, called the “sandbox,” gave the staff plenty of
time to “play” (and practice, hands-on) with the new technology and
equipment, and lessen the anxiety on moving day.
The Inukshuk mascot, the passport, the map, and the sandbox
were all ways that Janet brought the vision to life through evocative
metaphors and symbols. Leaders like Janet embrace the power of
symbolic language like this to communicate a shared identity and
give life to visions. They use metaphors and analogies; they give
examples, tell stories, and relate anecdotes; they draw word pictures;
and they offer quotations and recite slogans. They enable constitu-
ents to picture the possibilities—to hear them, to sense them, to
recognize them.
James Geary, a leading expert on the use of metaphorical
language, found in his studies that people use a metaphor every
ten to twenty-five words, or about six metaphors a minute.12 Meta-
phors are everywhere—there are art metaphors, game and sports
metaphors, war metaphors, science fiction metaphors, machine
metaphors, and religious or spiritual metaphors. They influence what
we think, what we invent, what we eat and drink, how we think,
whom we vote for, and what we buy. Your ability to enlist others in
a common vision of the future will be greatly enhanced by learning
to use these figures of speech.
Consider, for example, the intriguing impact of language on
participants in experiments in which they were told that they were
either playing the Community Game or the Wall Street Game.13
People played exactly the same game by exactly the same rules; the
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names. Of those playing the Community Game, 70 percent started
out playing cooperatively and continued to do so throughout. Of
those told they were playing the Wall Street Game, just the opposite
occurred: 70 percent did not cooperate, and the 30 percent who did,
stopped when they saw that others weren’t cooperating. Again,
remember: the name, not the game was the only thing that was
different!
You can influence people’s behavior simply by giving the task or
the team a name that evokes the kind of behavior implied by
the name. If you want people to act like a community, use language
that evokes a feeling of community. If you want them to act like
traders in the financial markets, use language that cues those
images. The same goes for any other vision you might have for your
organization. This experiment powerfully demonstrates why you
must pay close attention to the language you choose and the lan-
guage you use.
Create Images of the Future
Visions are images in the mind—impressions and representations.
They become real as leaders express those images in concrete terms
to their constituents. Just as architects make drawings and engineers
build models, leaders find ways of giving expression to collective
hopes for the future.
When talking about the future, people typically speak in
terms of foresight, focus, forecasts, future scenarios, points of view,
and perspectives. What these words have in common is that they
are visual references. The word vision itself has at its root the verb
“to see.” Statements of vision, then, should not be statements at
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E than words. For a vision to be shared, it needs to be seen in the
mind’s eye.
In our workshops and classes, we often illustrate the power of
images with this simple exercise. We ask people to shout out the first
thing that comes to mind when they hear the words Paris, France.
The replies that pop out—the Eiffel Tower, the Louvre, the Arc de
Triomphe, the Seine, Notre Dame, good food, wine, romance—are
all images of real places and real sensations. No one calls out the
square kilometers, population, or gross domestic product of Paris.
Why? Because most of what we recall about important places or
events are those things associated with our senses—sights, sounds,
tastes, smells, tactile sensations, and feelings.14
So what does this mean for leaders? It means that to enlist others
and inspire a shared vision, you must be able to draw on that very
natural mental process of creating images. When you speak about
the future, you need to create pictures with words so that others
form a mental image of what things will be like when you are at the
end of your journey. When talking about going places you’ve never
been, you have to be able to imagine what they’ll look like. You have
to picture the possibilities.15
Getting people to see a common future does not require some
special power. Every one possesses this ability. You do it every time
you return from a vacation and show the photos to your friends. If
you doubt your own ability, try this exercise. Sit down with a few
close friends and tell them about one of your favorite vacations.
Describe the people you saw and met, the sights and sounds of the
places you went, the smells and tastes of the food you ate. Show
them the photos or videos if you have them. Observe their reac-
tions—and your own. What’s that experience like? We’ve done this
activity many times, and people always report feeling energized and
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something like, “After listening to you, I’d like to go there someday
myself.”
Practice Positive Communication
To foster team spirit, breed optimism, promote resilience, and renew
faith and confidence, leaders look on the bright side. They keep hope
alive. They strengthen their constituents’ belief that life’s struggles
will produce a more promising future. Such faith results from an
intimate and supportive relationship, a relationship based on mutual
participation in the process of renewal.
Constituents look for leaders who demonstrate an enthusiastic,
genuine belief in the capacity of others, who strengthen people’s
will, who supply the means to achieve, and who express optimism
for the future. Constituents want leaders who remain passionate
despite obstacles and setbacks. In today’s uncertain times, leaders
with a positive, confident, can-do approach to life and business are
desperately needed. Naysayers only stop forward progress; they do
not start it.
Indeed, consider how Ari Ashkenazi describes his contrasting
experience with two supervisors. The first, he said, always tried to
keep spirits up and to look on the bright side, regardless of the
situation. Even when a certain project came out with less than
desired results, Ari said, she would tell them that future projects
would turn out better as long as they kept working hard as well as
working smart. “This gave me a lot of faith in her,” said Ari, “and
helped me to keep from getting frustrated during my work when
things didn’t always go right. This also had the effect of making it
easier for me to try new things as well as report negative news to her
since I knew she wouldn’t ‘shoot the messenger’ when it came to
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E Ari described another supervisor who would often get easily
exasperated, and when she was annoyed or angry, she’d let you know
it quite plainly. All she cared about was solid numbers and results,
and it felt as though she was looking down on you if things didn’t
go as she planned from the start. The outcome of her negative com-
munications, Ari explained, “was to make me try to avoid her as
much as possible and to hold back on giving her negative informa-
tion that she needed to know, just because I feared the backlash she
would give me.”
Researchers working with neural networks have documented
Ari’s feelings in finding that when people feel rebuffed or left out,
the brain activates a site for registering physical pain.16 People actu-
ally remember downbeat comments far more often, in greater detail,
and with more intensity than they do encouraging words. When
negative remarks become a preoccupation, an employee’s brain loses
mental efficiency. This is all the more reason for leaders to be
positive.
In contrast, a positive approach to life broadens people’s ideas
about future possibilities, and these exciting options build on each
other, according to Barbara Fredrickson, professor of psychology
at the University of North Carolina. Her findings indicate that
being positive opens you up: “The first core truth about positive
emotions is that they open our hearts and our minds, making us
more receptive and more creative.”17 Her research finds that as
positivity flows through people, they see more options and become
more innovative. And that’s not all. People who enjoy more positiv-
ity are better able to cope with adversity and are more resilient
during times of high stress.18 That’s a vital capacity when dealing
with challenges that people face as leaders in these uncertain and
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Express Your Emotions
In explaining why particular leaders have a magnetic effect, people
often describe them as charismatic. But charisma has become such
an overused and misused term that it’s almost useless as a descriptor
of leaders. Being charismatic is neither a magical nor a metaphysical
quality. It has to do with how people behave.
Social scientists have indeed investigated this elusive quality in
terms of observable behavior.19 What they’ve found is that people
who are perceived to be charismatic are simply more animated than
others. They smile more, speak faster, pronounce words more clearly,
and move their heads and bodies more often. Charisma, then, can
be better understood as energy and expressiveness. The old saying
that enthusiasm is infectious is certainly true for leaders.
Leaders are responsible for the level of genuine excitement in
their organizations. According to leadership developers Belle Linda
Halpren and Kathy Lubar, “emotion drives expressiveness.” They
explain that leaders must communicate their emotions using all
means of expression—verbal and nonverbal—if they are to generate
the intense enthusiasm that’s required to mobilize people to struggle
for shared aspirations.20
Another benefit of emotions for leaders is that they make things
more memorable. Because as a leader you want your messages to be
remembered, you have to pay attention to adding emotion to your
words and your behavior. James McGaugh, professor of neurobiol-
ogy at the University of California, Irvine, and a leading expert on
creation of memory, has reported that “emotionally significant events
create stronger, longer-lasting memories.”21 No doubt you’ve experi-
enced this yourself when something emotionally significant has hap-
pened to you—a serious trauma, such as an accident, or a joyful

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E surprise, such as winning a contest. But the events don’t have to be
real to be memorable. They can simply be stories. For example, in
one experiment, researchers showed subjects in two groups a series
of twelve slides. The slide presentation was accompanied by a story,
one line for each slide. For one group in the study, the narrative was
quite boring; for the other, the narrative was emotionally moving.
They didn’t know when they watched the slides that they would be
tested, but two weeks later they returned and took a test of how well
they remembered the details of each slide. Although the subjects in
the two groups didn’t differ in their memory of the first few and last
few slides, they did differ significantly in the recollection of the slides
in the middle. “The subjects who had listened to the emotionally
arousing narrative remembered details in those particular slides
better” than the group that listened to the neutral story. “Stronger
emotional arousal,” James says, “is associated with better memory;
emotional arousal appears to create strong memories.”22
You don’t need a complete narrative, and you don’t need slides.
Just the words themselves can be equally effective, as demonstrated
in another laboratory experiment. Researchers asked subjects to
learn to associate pairs of words. Some of the words in the pairs
were used because they elicited strong emotional responses (as
indicated by changes in galvanic skin response). One week later,
people remembered the emotionally arousing words better than they
remembered the less arousing words.23 Whether you’re hearing a
story or a word, you’re more likely to remember the key messages
when they’re attached to something that triggers an emotional
response. The reasons for this have to do with human physiology.
People are wired to pay more attention to stuff that excites them or
scares them.
Keep all this in mind the next time you deliver a PowerPoint
presentation. It’s not just the content that will make the message

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stick; it’s also how well you tap into people’s emotions. People
have to feel something if they are to become willing to change.
Thinking isn’t nearly enough to get things moving. Your job is to
get them to feel motivated to change, and expressing emotions
helps do that.24
Showing people a concrete example is better than telling them
about an abstract principle, but that still leaves them on the outside
looking in. If you can get them to experience what you are trying
to explain, they will understand in a deeper way. When helping
volunteers in hospice care understand what it is like to be the person
or family they’ll be helping, trainers frequently use the following
exercise.25 The trainer hands out packets of index cards and asks
volunteers to write on each of their cards something they love and
would be devastated to lose—the names of family members (spouse,
parents, children, siblings, pets), activities (walking, playing music,
traveling), or experiences (reading, listening to music, enjoying
gourmet dinners, watching sunsets).
Then the trainer walks around the room and randomly takes
cards from the volunteers. One person loses two of them, another
loses all of them; the person who lost two loses two more. The effect
is dramatic. Volunteers clutch their cards and struggle not to let them
go. When they release the cards, they are visibly upset; some even
break down and cry.
This poignant exercise speaks volumes about how much more
effective it is when leaders can tap into people’s emotions rather than
simply tell them what to do or how to feel. If the trainers had merely
shared facts, the volunteers might have been able to conceptually
understand the losses that the hospice residents were suffering, but
not in a way that would have led to true empathy. Through this
exercise, they could briefly experience the same type of losses in a
deep way that they would probably never forget.

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E The dramatic increase in the use of electronic technology also
has an impact on the way people deliver messages. More and more
people are turning to their digital devices and social media—from
podcasts to webcasts, Facebook to YouTube—for information and
connection. Because people remember things that have strong emo-
tional content, social media has the potential for engaging people
more than do emails, memos, and PowerPoint presentations. Leader-
ship is a performing art, and this has become even truer as new
technologies hit the market. It’s no longer enough to write a good
script—you’ve also got to put on a good show. And you’ve got to
make it a show that people will remember.
Speak Genuinely
None of these suggestions about being more expressive will be of
any value whatsoever if you don’t believe in what you’re saying. If
the vision is someone else’s and you don’t own it, you’ll find it very
difficult to enlist others in it. If you have trouble imagining yourself
actually living the future described in the vision, you’ll certainly not
be able to convince others that they ought to enlist in making it a
reality. If you’re not excited about the possibilities, you can’t expect
others to be. The prerequisite to enlisting others in a shared vision is
genuineness.
When Emily LoSavio walked away from a successful job in the
insurance industry, she knew just where she was headed: to fulfill a
lifelong desire to make a difference in the lives of young people.26
That commitment to spend her life doing work in service to others
came from her childhood. “It started early on,” she recalls. “For me,
my father was a powerful role model. He grew up with a single mom
who raised him on welfare, and then went on to great educational
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power of education and also the power of support. He always made
it clear that it wasn’t about him being so special or different but that
every child had the potential if the community came together to
invest in that child.”
Incorporating the inspirational lessons learned from her father
as a foundation and following her passion and bold vision for the
part she could play in helping children face life’s most difficult chal-
lenges, Emily founded Opportunity Impact in San Francisco.
Opportunity Impact prepares young people—specifically those
living in public housing—for a future of their own design. “Our
goal,” says Emily, “is to open doors for children to design, believe
in, and create their own future. And that begins with being able to
envision something outside their experience.”
Although getting others in the community to see the vision of
Opportunity Impact can be a daily challenge, Emily pursues it with
passion. “I sometimes joke that people say, ‘You’re crazy!’ And some-
times, when you have this passion about a vision, you do come off
a little crazy,” Emily said. “But if you believe it, it also becomes
contagious. People will stand behind you when they know you truly
believe that there is a different future ahead and they can follow you
there.” You can see that contagion in those who work with Emily.
“That Emily walked away from success in the business world to start
Opportunity Impact, I still find absolutely amazing,” observed
David Boyer, founder of Waystohelp.org.
There’s no one more believable than a person with a deep passion
for something. There’s no one more fun to be around than someone
who is openly excited about the magic that can happen. There’s no
one more determined than someone who believes fervently in an
ideal. People want leaders who are upbeat, optimistic, and positive
about the future. It’s really the only way you can get people to will-
ingly follow you to someplace they have never been before.

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Enlist Others
Leaders appeal to common ideals. They connect others to what
is most meaningful in the shared vision. They lift people to high-
er levels of motivation and morality, and continuously reinforce
that they can make a difference in the world. Exemplary leaders
speak to what is unique and singular about the organization,
making others feel proud to be a part of something extraordi-
nary. And the best leaders understand that it’s not their per-
sonal idiosyncratic view of the future that’s important; it’s the
aspirations of all their constituents that matter most.
To be sustained over time, visions must be compelling and
memorable. Leaders must breathe life into visions; they must
animate them so that others can experience what it would be
like to live and work in that ideal and unique future. They use
a variety of modes of expression to make their abstract visions
concrete. Through skillful use of metaphors, symbols, word pic-
tures, positive language, and personal energy, leaders generate
enthusiasm and excitement for the common vision. But above
all, leaders must be convinced of the value of the shared vision
and communicate that genuine belief to others. They must be-
lieve in what they are saying. Authenticity is the true test of con-
viction, and constituents will follow willingly only if they sense
that the vision is genuine.
Here are some actions you can take in order to enlist others
in a common vision by appealing to shared aspirations:
T A K E A C T I O N

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• Talk to your constituents and find out about their hopes,
dreams, and aspirations for the future.
• Show that you listen to what they say by incorporating
their inputs.
• Make sure that your constituents know what makes their
product or service unique and special.
• Promote people’s pride in what they contribute.
• Show your constituents how their long-term interests are
served by enlisting in a common vision.
• Share metaphors, symbols, examples, stories, pictures, and
words that represent the image of what you all aspire to
become.
• Be positive, upbeat, and energetic when talking about the
future of your organization.
• Express how you are feeling.
• Acknowledge the emotions of others and validate them as
important.
• Have a reason for getting up in the morning, bouncing out
of bed, and being jazzed about going to work.
Use The Leadership Challenge Mobile Tool app to
immediately integrate these activities into your life and make
this practice an ongoing part of your behavioral repertoire.

CHALLENGE
THE
PROCESS

Challenge is the opportunity for greatness. People do their best when there’s the chance to change the way things
are. Maintaining the status quo simply breeds mediocrity.
Leaders seek and accept challenging opportunities to test their
abilities. They motivate others as well to exceed their self-
perceived limits. They seize initiative and make something
meaningful happen. Leaders treat every assignment as an
adventure.
Most innovations do not come from leaders—they come
from the people closest to the work. They also come from
outsight. Exemplary leaders look for good ideas everywhere.
They promote external communication. They listen, take
advice, and learn.
Progress is not made in giant leaps; it’s made incre-
mentally. Exemplary leaders move forward in small steps with
little victories. They turn adversity into advantage, setbacks
into successes. They persevere with grit and determination.
Leaders venture out. They test and they take risks with
bold ideas. And because risk-taking involves mistakes and
failure, leaders accept the inevitable disappointments and
treat them as opportunities for learning and growth.
In the next two chapters, we will see how you must
• Search for Opportunities by seizing the
initiative and looking outward for innovative
ways to improve.
• Experiment and Take Risks by constantly
generating small wins and learning from
experience.
P R A C T I C E 3
CHALLENGE THE PROCESS

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JOE BARSI HAS A SAYING taped to his computer that reads,
“If you have not endured the most difficult, you cannot become the
most successful.” Leaders like Joe understand that you don’t get any
place different if you just keep doing the same things over and over
again. Getting out of routines and ruts requires treating every job
and assignment as an adventure. This involves putting your head up
and looking all around, and being willing to invest your time and
energy in finding out about other possibilities.
Joe’s personal-best leadership experience involved reviving a
branch office of one of the world’s leading global third-party logistics
providers, and this required changing their business-as-usual envi-
ronment. Joe got everyone on the team to adjust their focus, to start
focusing outward rather than inward, and to spend time not just
understanding customer requirements but actually getting out of the
office and meeting face-to-face with them. Joe himself started looking
around for areas where they could further expand their customer
focus, which resulted in many little actions, such as extending the
C H A P T E R 6
Search for
Opportunities

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E opening and closing hours of the office so that services were available
over a longer time period, conducting business reviews with their
top ten customers, and analyzing their competitors for best practices
in their industry.
They spent considerable time and energy gathering data to learn
about how they could do their jobs better and provide enhanced
services. Joe also realized that many people had a lot more product
and transportation experience than he had, and he challenged them
to share that experience not just with one another but with him as
well. “How are we going to work together to improve this business?
What will we have to do differently?” Joe asked them. At the end of
two years, net revenue increased by over 140 percent, and they went
from one of the lowest-ranking offices in the company to a top-thirty
branch.
Sometimes challenges find leaders, and sometimes leaders find
the challenges; most often, it’s a little of each, as in Joe’s situation.
What Joe did is what all exemplary leaders do. He looked outward,
keeping up with changing market trends and remaining sensitive to
external realities. He convinced others to take seriously the chal-
lenges and opportunities that were ahead of them in the future. He
served as a catalyst for change, challenging the way things were being
done and convincing others that new practices needed to be incor-
porated to achieve greater levels of success.
Like Joe’s story, personal-best leadership cases are all about sig-
nificant departures from the past, about doing things that have never
been done before, and about going to places not yet discovered.
Change is the work of leaders. It’s no longer business as usual,
and exemplary leaders know that they have to transform the way
things are done. Delivering results beyond expectations can’t be
achieved with good intentions. People, processes, systems, and strat-

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egies all have to change. And all change requires that leaders actively
seek ways to make things better—to grow, innovate, and improve.
Exemplary leaders make the commitment to Search for Opportunities
to get extraordinary things done. They make sure they engage in
these two essentials:
• SEIZE THE INITIATIVE
• EXERCISE OUTSIGHT
Sometimes leaders have to shake things up. Other times they
just have to harness the uncertainty that surrounds them. Regardless,
leaders make things happen. And to make new things happen, they
rely on outsight to actively seek innovative ideas from outside the
boundaries of familiar experience.
SEIZE THE INITIATIVE
When people recall their personal-best leadership experiences, they
always think about some kind of challenge. Why? Because personal
and business hardships have a way of making people come face-to-
face with who they really are and what they’re capable of becoming.
They test people, and they require inventive ways of dealing with
new situations. They tend to bring out the best in people. When
times are stable and secure, however, people are not severely tested.
They may perform well, get promoted, and even achieve fame and
fortune. But certainty and routine breed complacency.
Meeting new challenges always requires things to be different
than they currently are. You can’t respond with the same old
solutions. You have to change the status quo. And that’s exactly what

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E people did in their personal-best leadership experiences. They met
challenge with change.
The interesting thing about this is that we didn’t ask people to
tell us about change. They could discuss any leadership experience
they chose—past or present, unofficial or official; in any functional
area; in any community, voluntary, religious, health care, educa-
tional, public sector, or private sector organization. But what people
chose to discuss were the changes they made in response to the chal-
lenges they faced. Their electing to talk about times of change
underscores the fact that leadership demands altering the business-
as-usual environment. There is a clear connection between challenge
and change.
Rosabeth Moss Kanter, a Harvard Business School professor,
investigated the human resource practices and organization designs
of innovation-producing organizations, seeking to learn what fos-
tered and what hindered innovation in corporations. Our study and
Rosabeth’s were done independently of each other, in different
regions and periods in time, and with different purposes. We were
studying leadership; Rosabeth was studying innovation. Yet we
arrived at similar conclusions: leadership is inextricably connected
with the process of innovation, of bringing new ideas, methods, or
solutions into use. To Rosabeth, innovation means change, and
“change requires leadership . . . a ‘prime mover’ to push for imple-
mentation of strategic decisions.”1 Her cases and ours are evidence
of that.
The study of leadership is the study of how men and women
guide others through adversity, uncertainty, hardship, disruption,
transformation, transition, recovery, new beginnings, and other sig-
nificant challenges. It’s the study of people who triumph against
overwhelming odds, who take initiative when there is inertia, who
confront the established order, who mobilize people and institutions

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in the face of strong resistance. It’s also the study of how men and
women, in times of constancy and complacency, actively seek to
disturb the status quo and awaken others to new possibilities. Leader-
ship, challenge, and seizing the initiative are inextricably linked.
Humdrum situations simply aren’t associated with award-winning
performances.
That’s exactly the attitude that Arvind Mohan displayed when
he was hired as a new manufacturing engineer at a high-technology
firm just before a major industry downturn and two rounds of
layoffs. Instead of being overwhelmed by this situation, he was
determined “to take initiative instead of feeling helpless.” He under-
stood that the company was trying to streamline its cost structure
to mitigate the industry’s cyclical nature, and he had some ideas
about how they could reduce the required lead time from customer
order to delivery.
When he approached his manager, he found that her attention
was more focused on dealing with current, and dire, problems.
Refusing to be discouraged by this crisis, Arvind told her, “ ‘There is
not much activity on the floor right now. Besides, you’ve always
encouraged me to think out of the box. You’ve seen the preliminary
numbers I’ve put together. How about I work with the production
team and see what I can come up with?’ Intrigued with my initial
analysis, she gave me the go-ahead.”
When Arvind explained that he had some ideas about how
profits could be improved by increasing production throughput, the
assembly line manager shot back, “Manufacturing is not the issue!
We have long lead times because sales cannot get customers to order
more frequently. You need to talk to sales.” Wanting to turn the
manager’s cynical view into a positive outlook, Arvind said, “I agree.
Why don’t we start, however, by looking at our production effi-
ciency?” Intrigued by his proposal and by the opportunity to learn

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E from what Arvind proposed, the manager gave the green light to
proceed. Arvind picked one of the smaller production lines to experi-
ment with, simulated different production scenarios, and found that
they could increase throughput by nearly 50 percent.
Buoyed by this success, Arvind convinced his manager to bring
sales into the mix. When he broached the possibility of reducing the
window time between customer order and delivery, their sales rep
thundered: “The last time I pushed my accounts to order more
frequently, they ended up going to another vendor. I can’t let that
happen again.” Again, Arvind was not dissuaded. He suggested
that they visit one of Toyota’s factories and learn about how they
trend down on lead-time by sharing the resultant cost savings with
their customers. Sales got excited about this possibility, and in the
course of six months, they were able to convince all of their accounts
to increase their order frequency.
This experience taught Arvind that “if you can think of ways to
improve the process, you should take it.” This means you have to
stop simply “going through the motions” when it comes to doing
your job. It’s a lesson all leaders need to learn. Even if you’re on the
right track, you’re likely to get run over if you just sit there. To do
your best as a leader, you have to seize the initiative to change the
way things are.
Make Something Happen
Some standard practices, policies, and procedures are critical to
productivity and quality assurance. However, many are simply
matters of tradition, which is what Pat Oldenburg observed when
he joined McAfee, the maker of computer security software for busi-
ness and home. Pat decided that some changes were needed; and
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himself to do something about the way his team measured their
effectiveness. He got everyone together and proposed a new idea that
would free up valuable time and deliver information that everyone
wanted:
I started the meeting by reflecting on my experience at my old
company, and how we moved from a model of reporting on
numbers of activities to a model of reporting on other value-
added things like prospects served and revenue assisted. I told
the team that the current method was not scalable at the
company, and a change had to be made. I said that scalability
and resources are the big issue, but that one thing was to
implement one-to-many sales calls. These calls would move
from a reactive activity to a proactive one, as our team would
host two to three calls per quarter with forty to fifty prospects
attending each call.
Pat could sense that the team was hesitant to take on this ini-
tiative—hosting informational calls with clients—because no one
had been thinking there was any reason to do things differently.
Sensing their hesitation, he proposed that they could host one call
the first quarter and continue taking the sales calls as normal. The
team agreed, and they hosted their first roundtable reference call
several weeks later, with more than ninety separate prospects in
attendance. The call was subsequently featured in the chief market-
ing officer’s internal newsletter, saying that the team had successfully
fused marketing and sales activities in a productive way. With the
positive press and the rave reviews from various sales reps, the team
immediately began planning the next quarter’s calls, drafting new
guidelines that emphasized using roundtable reference calls over
one-to-one sales calls unless absolutely necessary. Pat says that as “we

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E continue to develop the roundtable program, we are surveying par-
ticipants and employees about ways to continue to change the format
and content of the calls, and will continue to challenge the status
quo to deliver the largest benefit to our customers that we can.”
As Pat experienced, new jobs and new assignments are ideal
opportunities for asking probing questions and challenging the way
things are done. They are the times when you’re expected to ask,
“Why do we do this?” But don’t just ask this when you’re new to
the job. Make it a routine part of your leadership. Treat today as if
it were your first day. Ask yourself, “If I were just starting this job,
what would I do differently?” Then do those things immediately.
This is how you’ll continuously uncover needed improvements.
And don’t stop at what you can find on your own. Ask your
colleagues and direct reports about what really bugs them about the
organization. Ask what gets in the way of doing the best job possible.
Promise to look into everything they bring up and get back to them
with answers in ten days. Wander around the plant, the store, the
branch, the halls, or the office. Look for things that don’t seem right.
Ask questions. Probe.
Leaders like Joe, Arvind, and Pat are fundamentally restless.
They don’t like the status quo. They want to make something happen.
They want to change the business-as-usual environment. Research
clearly shows that managers who rate high in proactivity are assessed
by their immediate managers as more effective leaders.2 MBA stu-
dents who rate high on proactivity also are considered by their peers
to be better leaders; in addition, they are more engaged in extracur-
ricular and civic activities targeted toward bringing about positive
change.3 Similar results about the connection between proactivity
and performance have been found among entrepreneurs, administra-
tive staff, and even college students searching for jobs. Proactivity
consistently produces better results than reactivity or inactivity.4 In

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our research, we’ve found that proactive managers score higher than
average on the leadership practice of Challenge the Process; this
inclination is independent of both gender and national culture.5
Everyone performs better when he or she takes charge of change.
Leaders at all levels work outside their job descriptions and see
opportunities where others don’t. They don’t wait for permission or
instructions before jumping in. You make something happen when
you notice what isn’t working, create a solution for the problem, gain
buy-in from constituents, and implement the desired outcome.
Consider these two examples from Starbucks. One store manager
purchased her own blender to create a drink she invented because
the company (at that time) didn’t want to invest in blenders. She
took the initiative, created the product in her own store, and tested
it with her customers. As more and more people requested the
product, the company ultimately ended up being convinced to
invest in the drink. Since then, the Frappuccino has brought hun-
dreds of millions of dollars to Starbucks. Another store manager had
a passion for music and began playing a variety of different types of
music he liked at his store. Customers kept asking to buy the music,
but it wasn’t for sale. So this manager approached Starbucks execu-
tives and asked, “Why not compile our own CD or tape? Customers
would snap it up.” Now CDs are sold in almost every one of the
coffee shop locations.6 These store managers were not corporate
executives, but they took the initiative to make something different
happen. And that’s what leaders do. They take the initiative.
When thinking back on his early career experiences as a financial
analyst, Varun Mundra realized that “when I did question the status
quo, when I did come up with innovative ideas, when I followed
through with the changes I suggested, got feedback, understood my
mistakes, learned from them, and was open to improvements, I won
the respect of the people around me.” As they say in basketball, none

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E of the shots you don’t take ever go in the basket. You’ve got to make
something happen in order to score some points. That’s the key
insight Varun had when he took the initiative. “It did not matter as
much whether the changes were as effective as hoped for,” he told
us, “but the fact that someone was ready to stand up and challenge
what everyone else used as the norm was generally enough to get
something started.” As Varun’s experience attests, you need to give
everyone on your team the chance to search for better ways of doing
things and to step forward and take initiative.
Encourage Initiative in Others
Change requires leadership, and every person, down to the most
junior member of a team, can drive innovation and improvements
in a team’s processes. This was precisely what John Wang, senior
software engineer at Visa, remembers about the environment at his
job after graduating from college. His manager fostered an atmo-
sphere that supported experimentation and innovation, which
allowed him and others to find little areas where they could improve
existing processes and complete their assignments faster and more
efficiently. One such area was the weekly backup process for the
group’s main file server. John recounts,
As junior engineers, we were placed in charge of this job, under
the supervision of a senior engineer. My group had a tape
backup unit that would finish recording the first tape in the
middle of the night. Unfortunately, the backup process required
two tapes to complete the backup. We were forced to initiate
the recording of the second tape after one of us got to the office
the next morning, which delayed the backup process. My
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various alternatives. We found a better backup tape drive;
however, this unit was quite expensive!
We were a little nervous about requesting this hardware
upgrade, but since we had been previously encouraged to take
the initiative to improve any processes during our induction
into the department, we decided to offer our suggestion to our
supervisor. To our surprise, he was very pleased that we had
found a way to improve the backup process and immediately
placed an order for the tape drive. He also mentioned our
discovery to the manager. Our manager praised our initiative in
finding a better way of running backups. This encouragement
gave us clear positive feedback and the courage to find other
suggestions over the next few years to improve our departmental
processes. Indeed, this episode gave everyone the clear signal
that suggestions were truly welcomed.
The lesson that John took to heart is one that leaders deeply
appreciate: “giving everyone—even junior members of a team—the
opportunity to take initiative can result in unexpected positive
changes.” Another benefit John pointed out was that by allowing the
junior engineers to work on this issue, their senior manager was able
to focus his attention on other pressing issues, which benefited him
individually and the group as a whole. “This principle is one that I
have tried to implement in my own life,” John says, “giving people
I work with a chance to do things differently than I would. This
means I also get a chance to focus on other things that need my
attention.”
As John’s experience illustrates, leaders seize the initiative them-
selves and encourage initiative in others. They want people to speak
up, offer suggestions for improvement, and be straightforward about
their constructive criticism. Yet when it comes to situations that

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E involve high uncertainty, high risk, and high challenge, many people
feel reluctant to act, afraid they might make matters worse.
We asked constituents about the extent to which their leaders
“seek out challenging opportunities that test his/her own skills and
abilities.” We also asked them about the extent to which their leaders
“challenge people to try out new and innovative ways to do their
work.” Comparing those leaders who reported that they “almost
always” challenge themselves and others to those who “almost never”
or “sometimes” engaged in these behaviors yielded quite dramatic
(and statistically significant) differences in how people felt about
their workplaces. Those people who felt that they were challenged,
and who observed that their leaders were also challenging them-
selves, experienced between 25 to 35 percent stronger feelings of
pride, motivation, and team spirit. The biggest difference between
the two groups was in how they viewed their leaders’ effectiveness.
The least challenging leaders earned evaluations from their constitu-
ents that were nearly 40 percent lower than those received by
leaders viewed as seeking out challenges for themselves and their
teams.
There are a number of ways you can create conditions so that
your constituents will be ready and willing to seize the initiative in
tumultuous as well as tranquil times. First, create a can-do attitude
by providing opportunities for people to gain mastery on a task one
step at a time. Training is crucial to building people’s ability and
their confidence that they can effectively respond to and improve
the difficult situations they face. During periods of rapid change, it
may seem as though there’s no time to stop for training, but this
short-term thinking is sure to doom the organization. The best
leaders know that the investment in training will pay off in the long
term. People can’t deliver on what they don’t know how to do, so
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Another form of preparation is mental simulation.7 Playing a
scenario through in your mind until you can picture it frame by
frame is a terrific way to encourage and support initiative. Asking
people to imagine the steps they will take before they enact them is
a powerful heuristic strategy for giving people the confidence that
they can act when the real situation requires it. It’s much the same
as practicing fire drills, except that you run them in your head.
In addition, find ways for people to stretch themselves. Set the
bar incrementally higher, but at a level at which people feel they can
succeed. Raise it too high, and people will fail; if they fail too often,
they’ll quit trying. Raise the bar a bit at a time, and eventually more
and more people master the situation and build the self-confidence
to continue moving the bar upward. You can also foster initiative by
providing visibility and access to role models, especially among
peers, who are successful at meeting the new challenges. Seeing one
of their own succeed in doing something new and different is an
effective way to encourage others to do it too.
Challenge with Purpose
Leaders don’t challenge for challenge’s sake. It’s not about shaking
things up just to keep people on their toes. Individuals who criticize
new thoughts and ideas or point out problems with the ideas of
others without offering any kind of alternate options are not chal-
lenging the process. They are simply complaining. Leaders challenge
for meaning’s sake. They challenge, often with great passion, because
they want people to live life on purpose and with purpose. What
gets people through the tough times, the scary times—the times
when they don’t think they can even get up in the morning or take
another step—is a sense of meaning and purpose. The motivation
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E from the inside, not from something that others hold out in front
of you as some kind of carrot.8 The challenges that leaders raise are
always accompanied by a drive to do something themselves to resolve
and improve the situation, not simply complain.
The evidence from our research, and from studies by many
others, is that if people are going to do their best, they must be
internally motivated.9 Their tasks or projects must be intrinsically
engaging. When it comes to excellence, it’s definitely not “What gets
rewarded gets done”; it’s “What is rewarding gets done.” You can
never pay people enough to care—to care about their products,
services, communities, families, or even the bottom line. After all,
why do people push their own limits to get extraordinary things
done? And for that matter, why do people do so many things for
nothing? Why do they volunteer to put out fires, raise money for
worthy causes, or help children in need? Why do they risk their
careers to start a new business or risk their security to change the
social condition? Why do they risk their lives to save others or defend
liberty? How do people find satisfaction in efforts that don’t pay a
lot of money, options, perks, or prestige? Extrinsic rewards certainly
can’t explain these actions. Leaders tap into people’s hearts and
minds, not merely their hands and wallets.
Arlene Blum knows firsthand the importance of challenging
with purpose. Arlene, who earned a doctorate in biophysical chem-
istry, has spent most of her adult life climbing mountains. She’s
completed more than three hundred successful ascents. Her most
significant challenge—and the one for which she is best known—
was not the highest mountain she’d ever climbed. It was the chal-
lenge of leading the first all-woman team up Annapurna I, the
tenth-highest mountain in the world. “The question everyone asks
mountain climbers is ‘Why?’ ” Arlene explains,

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and when they learn about the lengthy and difficult preparation
involved, they ask it even more insistently. For us, the answer
was much more than “because it is there.” We all had experi-
enced the exhilaration, the joy, and the warm camaraderie of
the heights, and now we were on our way to an ultimate
objective for a climber—the world’s tenth-highest peak. But as
women, we faced a challenge even greater than the mountain.
We had to believe in ourselves enough to make the attempt in
spite of social convention and two hundred years of climbing
history in which women were usually relegated to the
sidelines.10
In talking about what separates those who make a successful ascent
from those who don’t, Arlene says, “The real dividing line is passion.
As long as you believe what you’re doing is meaningful, you can cut
through fear and exhaustion and take the next step.”11
Why concern yourself with purpose and meaning? After all,
people in the workplace aren’t volunteers; they’re getting paid.
However, it’s precisely because people are getting paid—precisely
because they are eligible for bonuses and other awards—that you
ought to be concerned. If work is seen solely as a source of money
and never as a source of fulfillment, organizations will totally ignore
other human needs at work—needs involving such intangibles as
learning, self-worth, pride, competence, and serving others. Employ-
ers will come to see people’s enjoyment of their tasks as totally
irrelevant, and they will structure work in a strictly utilitarian fash-
ion. The results will be—and already have been—disastrous. Just
take a look at the costs of recruitment and retention these days. Have
big stock option plans or huge signing bonuses really done much to
make organizations successful? There’s very convincing evidence that
reliance on extrinsic motivators can actually lower performance and

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E create a culture of divisiveness and selfishness, precisely because it
diminishes an inner sense of purpose.12
EXERCISE OUTSIGHT
You need only to scan the headlines to know how dramatic the
changes are that influence people’s lives at home and at work. The
old norms are being replaced by still uncertain ground rules. Recent
research on the sources of innovation clearly indicates that the most
disruptive and destructive innovations can wreak havoc on even the
very best companies.13 The only effective response from leaders is to
anticipate the disruptions and get ahead of the curve. For sure, they
can never afford to be behind it. So where do new ideas for products,
processes, and services come from?
Look Outside Your Experience
Surprisingly, researchers find that innovations come from just about
anywhere.14 According to a global study of CEOs, two of the three
most significant sources of innovative ideas are actually outside the
organization.15 Sometimes ideas come from customers, sometimes
from lead users, sometimes from suppliers, sometimes from business
partners, and sometimes from the R&D labs. What this means is
that leaders must always be actively looking for the fuzziest signs and
intently listening to the weakest signals to anticipate the emergence
of something new over the horizon. This means honing your
“outsight”—the capacity to perceive external things—and helping
your constituents develop that ability as well.
Studies into how the brain processes information suggest that
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bombard your brain with things it has never encountered. This kind
of novelty is vital, explains neuroscientist Gregory Berns of Emory
University, because the brain, evolved for efficiency, routinely takes
perceptual shortcuts to save energy. Only by forcing yourself to break
free of preexisting views can you get your brain to recategorize infor-
mation. Moving beyond habitual thinking patterns is the starting
point to imagining truly novel alternatives.16
Because the human mind is surprisingly adroit at supporting its
deep-seated ways of viewing the world while sifting out evidence to
the contrary, Marie Capozzi, Renee Dye, and Amy Howe, with
McKinsey & Company, suggest that the antidote is direct personal
experience: “Seeing and experiencing something firsthand can shake
people up in ways that abstract discussions around conference room
tables can’t. It’s therefore extremely valuable to start creativity-build-
ing exercises or idea generation efforts outside the office, by engi-
neering personal experiences that directly confront the participants’
implicit or explicit assumptions.”17 Consider what one North Ameri-
can specialty retailer did in seeking to reinvent its store format while
improving the experience of its customers:
To jump-start creativity in its people, the company sent out
several groups of three to four employees to experience retail
concepts very different from its own. Some went to Sephora, a
beauty product retailer that features more than 200 brands and
a sales model that encourages associates to offer honest product
advice, without a particular allegiance to any of them. Others
went to the Blues Jean Bar, an intimate boutique retailer that
aspires to turn the impersonal experience of digging through
piles of jeans into a cozy occasion reminiscent of a night at a
neighborhood pub. Still others visited a gourmet chocolate
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E These experiences were transformative for the employees,
who watched, shopped, chatted with sales associates, took
pictures, and later shared observations with teammates in a
more formal idea generation session. By visiting the other
retailers and seeing firsthand how they operated, the retailer’s
employees were able to relax their strongly held views about
their own company’s operations. This transformation, in turn,
led them to identify new retail concepts they hadn’t thought of
before, including organizing a key product by color (instead of
by manufacturer) and changing the design of stores to center
the shopping experience around advice from expert stylists.18
Of course, the process doesn’t have to be quite so elaborate, and
it can take place right where you are today. Consider what Heidi
Castagna, director of sales initiatives at Seagate Technology, did to
scan the horizon.19 Heidi leveraged the resources within various
subscription services supplied by her company to understand
how other firms were reacting to the economic downturn. She
attended workshops and meetings dedicated to sharing best-in-class
sales enablement models and practices. She spoke with consultants
who specialized in helping make sales organizations more efficient.
From these activities, Heidi was able to actively learn what had
become important to buyers and what was working well for other
companies. She successfully looked beyond the “four walls” of
Seagate to learn about ideas and perspectives that would have
otherwise been unknown to her. By combining her experience with
this outsight, she was able to determine the important core messages
and meanings from these various sources in order to best understand
how she and her group could be innovative and stay ahead of the
competition.
Leaders like Heidi understand that innovation requires more
listening and greater communication than routine work does. Suc-

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cessful innovations don’t spring from the fifty-second floor of the
headquarters building or the back offices of City Hall. You have to
establish relationships, network, be connected, and be out and
about. Changing the business-as-usual environment requires staying
in touch with the world around you.
Promote External and Internal
Communication
You can expect demand for change to come from both inside and
outside the organization. Too often, however, managers cut them-
selves off from critical information sources over time because they’re
so busy trying to build an organization that will be operationally
efficient and self-sustaining. And when the pressures for profit
and efficiency are greatest, these managers may even mistakenly act
to eliminate or severely limit the very things that provide the new
ideas they need to weather the storms of uncertainty—by cutting
the budgets for travel and training, for example. Unless external
communication is actively encouraged, people interact with outsid-
ers less and less frequently, and new ideas are cut off.
This was precisely the conclusion of classic studies by MIT Sloan
School of Management professors Ralph Katz and Tom Allen.20 They
examined the relationship between how long people had been
working together in a particular project area—what they called
“group longevity”—and three areas of interpersonal oral communi-
cation (intraproject, organizational, and professional communica-
tion) for the project groups at various stages of their existence. Each
team’s technical performance was also measured by department man-
agers and laboratory directors.
The higher-performing groups had significantly more com-
munication with people outside their labs, whether with organiza-
tional units, such as marketing and manufacturing, or with outside

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E professional associations. Intriguingly, however, groups that had
been together the longest reported lower levels of communication
in all three areas and “were significantly more isolated from exter-
nal sources of new ideas and technological advances and from
information within other organizational divisions, especially mar-
keting and manufacturing.”21 The long-lived teams cut themselves
off from the kind of information they needed the most to come
up with new ideas, and thus reduced their performance. They’d
been together so long, it appears, that they felt they didn’t need
to talk to outsiders; they were content just to talk to each other.
It’s easy to understand how some workgroups and organizations
become myopic and unimaginative. The people themselves aren’t
dull or slow witted; they’ve just become too familiar with their
routines and too isolated from outside influences.
Sudeep Padiyar, software development manager at Cisco, ap-
preciates the importance of having a free flow of ideas with his
team, and makes sure that no one works in a silo. He believes that
“problems and their solutions are both collective team efforts, and
that reduces the pressure and burden from individuals.” He has
removed organizational boundaries and encourages everyone on the
team to take initiative. Sudeep has organized technical seminars
and brainstorming sessions in which guest speakers as well as tech-
nical leaders are invited to share experiences and ideas. These in-
ternal and external communication mechanisms, he says, have
substantially increased the sharing of ideas and have resulted in
innovative solutions to technical challenges that the team had been
dealing with previously. In addition, they use wikis for team mem-
bers to pose their questions, thoughts, and solutions on an intranet
site to which the engineering community has access. The stimulat-
ing and thought-provoking discussions on these online message
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According to Sudeep, “The free flow of ideas and access to the best
brains in the industry have created a channel that enables inno-
vation to thrive and problems to have elegant solutions in quick
time.”
Just as Sudeep did, you’ve got to tap into the rich field of ideas
that exist outside your own borders. It is imperative that you listen
to the world outside. For example, P&G has moved from an internal
to an external focus when it comes to looking for innovations. These
days more than one-third to one-half of their new products have
elements that originated from outside the company or have key ele-
ments that were discovered externally. This is quite a shift for a
company that had previously developed almost all of its new prod-
ucts internally or had acquired other companies in order to buy the
new offerings. You never know just where a great idea will come
from, which means that you have to both remain connected and
increase your connections.22
Look Out for Good Ideas
On a visit to Northern California, we stumbled across some extremely
important advice for leaders. Exploring the Mendocino coast, we
picked up a pamphlet describing a particular stretch of shoreline.
Printed boldly across the top of the first page was this warning:
“Never turn your back on the ocean.” And why shouldn’t you turn
your back on the ocean to look inland to catch a view of the town?
Because a rogue wave may come along when your back is turned
and sweep you out to sea, as it has many an unsuspecting beach-
comber. This warning holds lifesaving advice for travelers and leaders
alike. When you take your eyes off the external realities, turning
inward to admire the colorful scenery in your own organization, you
may be swept away by the swirling waters of change.

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E You must continuously scan the external realities. To be sure,
innovation requires insight—the ability to apprehend the inner
nature of things—but it also requires even keener outsight. When
you keep the doors to the outside world open, ideas and information
can flow freely into the organization. That’s the only way you can
become knowledgeable about what goes on around you. Outsight is
the sibling of insight, and without it innovation cannot happen.
Insight without outsight is like seeing clearly with blinders on; you
just can’t get a complete picture.
In testing and observing three thousand executives over a six-
year period, professors Clayton Christensen, Jeffrey Dyer, and Hal
Gregersen noted that the important “discovery” skill relevant to
innovators was associating. This involves making connections across
“seemingly unrelated questions, problems, or ideas.”23 One powerful
method for making associations is through the use of analogies,
according to McKinsey & Company consultants. They suggest that
by forcing comparisons between one company and a second, seem-
ingly unrelated one, you can make considerable creative break-
throughs. Consider how you might stir the imagination by starting
a discussion with your colleagues about such questions as:24
How would Google manage our data?
How might Disney engage with our consumers?
How could Southwest Airlines cut our costs?
How would Zappos redesign our supply chain?
How would Toyota change our production processes?
How would Starwood design our customer loyalty program?
Put yourself into new situations. Confront existing paradigms.
Adopt an inquisitive attitude toward others’ opinions and insights.
These are methods that will keep your eyes and ears open to new
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Remove the protective covering in which organizations often seal
themselves. Be willing to hear, consider, and accept ideas from
sources outside the company. If you never turn your back on what
is happening outside the boundaries of your organization, you will
not be caught by surprise when the waves of change roll in.
Treat Every Job as an Adventure
Leaders personally seize the initiative, encourage others to do the
same, and actively look everywhere for great ideas, but that doesn’t
mean that they can’t make extraordinary things happen if they’re
leading a project that’s been assigned to them. They don’t have to
wait to start their own business to change the business-as-usual
environment. When we asked people to tell us who initiated the
projects that they selected as their personal bests, we assumed that
the majority of people would name themselves. Surprisingly, that’s
not what we found. Someone other than the leader—usually the
person’s immediate manager—initiated more than half the cases. If
leaders seize the initiative, then how can we call people leaders when
they’re assigned the jobs and tasks they undertake? Doesn’t this
finding fly in the face of all that we’ve said about how leaders behave?
No, it doesn’t.
The fact that over half the cases were not self-initiated should
come as a relief to anyone who thought he or she had to initiate all
the change, and it should encourage everyone in the organization to
accept responsibility for innovation and improvement. If the only
times people reported doing their best were when they got to choose
the projects themselves or when they were the CEO, the majority
of leadership opportunities would evaporate—as would most social
and organizational changes. The reality is that much of what people
do is assigned; few get to start everything from scratch. That’s just a
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E Stuff happens in organizations and in people’s lives. It’s not so
important whether you find the challenges or they find you. What
is important are the choices you make. What’s important is the
purpose you find for challenging the way things are. The question
is this: When opportunity knocks, are you prepared to answer the
door? Similarly, are you ready to open the door, go outside, and find
an opportunity?
Even if you’ve been in your job for years, treat today as if it were
your first day. Ask yourself, “If I were just starting this job, what
would I do?” Begin doing those things now. Constantly stay alert to
ways to improve your organization. Identify those projects that
you’ve always wanted to undertake but never have. Ask your team
members to do the same.
Be an adventurer, an explorer. Where in your organization have
you not been? Where in the communities that you serve have you
not been? Make a plan to explore those places. Take a field trip to a
factory, a warehouse, a distribution center, or a retail store. If you’re
in an educational system, go sit in on the class that was once your
favorite subject. How’s it different today? If you’re in city govern-
ment, go to a department that really intrigues you. If you’re in a
professional services organization, go on a site visit with someone in
a different practice.
Consider what happened when the chief executives of many
large corporations got out of their offices and looked around their
organizations from the ground floor, as profiled on the TV show
Undercover Boss.25 On the show, executives (in disguise) work the
frontline jobs of their organization to see firsthand how their corpo-
rate mandates play out in the real world. Waste Management’s Larry
O’Donnell revealed, “In my role as COO [chief operating officer],
there are many policies I create that you all have to live with. Now
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at this company, I’m going to be a better manager. I have a whole
new appreciation of the impact my decisions have.”26
You don’t have to be at the top of the organization to learn about
what’s going on around you. Be on the lookout for new ideas, wher-
ever you are. If you’re serious about promoting innovation and
getting others to listen to people outside the unit, make gathering
new ideas a personal priority. Encourage others to open their eyes
and ears to the world outside the boundaries of the organization.
Collect ideas through focus groups, advisory boards, suggestion
boxes, breakfast meetings, brainstorming sessions, customer evalua-
tion forms, mystery shoppers, mystery guests, visits to competitors,
and the like. Online chat rooms are great venues for swapping ideas
with those outside your field.
Make idea gathering part of your daily, weekly, and monthly
schedule. Call three customers or clients who haven’t used your
services in a while or who have made recent purchases, and ask
them why. Sure, there’s email, but the human voice is better for
this sort of thing. Work the counter and ask people what they like
and don’t like about your organization. Shop at a competitor’s store
or, better yet, anonymously shop for your own product and see
what the salespeople in the store say about it. Call your organization
and see how the phones are answered and how questions are
handled. Make sure that you devote at least 25 percent of every
weekly staff meeting to listening to outside ideas for improving
processes and technologies and developing new products and ser-
vices. Don’t let staff meetings consist merely of status reports on
routine, daily, inside stuff. Invite customers, suppliers, people from
other departments, and other outsiders to your meetings to offer
their suggestions on how your unit can improve. Keep your anten-
nae up, no matter where you are. You can never tell where or when
you might find new ideas.

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Search for Opportunities
Leaders who are dedicated to making extraordinary things hap-
pen are open to receiving ideas from anyone and anywhere.
They are adept at using their outsight to constantly survey the
landscape of technology, politics, economics, demograph-
ics, art, religion, and society in search of new ideas. They are
prepared to search for opportunities to address the constant
shifts in their organization’s environment. And because they are
proactive, they don’t just ride the waves of change: they make
the waves that others ride. They are prepared to search for op-
portunities to address the constant shifts in the organization’s
environment.
You don’t have to change history, but you do have to
change “business as usual.” You have to be proactive, constant-
ly inviting and creating new initiatives. Leaders, by definition,
are out in front of change, not behind it trying to catch up. Be
on the lookout for anything that lulls you or your colleagues into
a false sense of security. Innovation and leadership are nearly
synonymous. This means that your focus is less on the routine
operations and much more on the untested and untried. And
when searching for opportunities to grow and improve, keep
in mind that the most innovative ideas are most often not your
own and not in your own organization. They’re elsewhere, and
the best leaders look all around them for the places in which
breakthrough ideas are hiding. Exemplary leadership requires
outsight, not just insight. That’s where the future is.
The quest for change is an adventure. It tests your will
and your skill. It’s tough, but it’s also stimulating. Adversity
T A K E A C T I O N

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introduces you to yourself. To get the best from yourself and
others, you must understand what gives meaning and purpose
to your work.
To Challenge the Process, you must search for opportuni-
ties by seizing the initiative and look outward for innovative ways
to improve. This means you have to
• Always be asking, “What’s new? What’s next? What’s
better?”
• Do something each day so that you are better than you
were the day before.
• Be restless; don’t let routines become ruts.
• Put yourself in new situations; take on a new project at
least once a quarter.
• Find out if “the way things are done around here” still
makes sense. If it doesn’t, do something different.
• Ask your customers (clients, suppliers, and so on) for their
ideas about what you (and your organization) can do
better.
• Go on the Web each day and search for something related
to what you do. Also visit sites that are totally unrelated to
your business.
• Design work so that it’s intrinsically interesting.
• Seek firsthand experiences outside your comfort zone and
skill set.
• Talk with folks outside your organization’s four walls;
encourage others to do the same.
Use The Leadership Challenge Mobile Tool app to
immediately integrate these activities into your life and make
this practice an ongoing part of your behavioral repertoire.

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WARD CLAPHAM BECAME the commander of the Rich-
mond, British Columbia, detachment of the Royal Canadian
Mounted Police (RCMP) at a time when the city was exploring the
possibility of terminating their policing contract with the RCMP
and creating their own city police force. Tens of thousands of crimes
were reported each year, and youth crime was at an all-time high.
Ward was charged with moving the detachment in a new direction
and breaking old mindsets.
“We were definitely operating in a reactive, post-incident, cor-
rective model of repair,” said Ward. “We were putting Band-Aids on
problems and not really getting at the roots of the problems. We
were caught up in the status quo . . . and needed to move to a model
of prepare, not repair.” Ward also encountered low employee morale
within a culture of rigid obedience and antiquated policies. Nobody
was talking about the need to do things differently.
After interviewing all of his staff, meeting with many members
of the community, and seeing things for himself, Ward took action.
Experiment
and Take Risks
C H A P T E R 7

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E The first thing was to reinvent and promote their primary vision—to
prevent crime, with the lofty goal of ending crime. He started with
the principle that a partnership with the community to prevent
crime was required to achieve the end goal.
One critical issue on which Ward took immediate action was
false alarms. At the beginning of his tenure, his officers were re-
sponding to over nine thousand false alarms a year. Burglar alarms
have become very popular with the public, and police forces have
promoted them. The problem is that 97 percent of alarms are false,
diverting resources from other, more serious public safety issues.
Ward challenged his team to solve this complex problem, and
they came back with a comprehensive solution called “verified
response to alarms” that reduced false alarms by 80 percent. “It
was a huge morale boost,” Ward said, “and now my officers could
begin being proactive. We were able to reinvest over $310,000 in
manpower every year back into our primary mission—preventing
crime.”
Another immediate change Ward made was to the daily morning
briefings. In the past, the commander would sit at the front, and the
officers would report in with their problems and wait for the com-
mander’s decisions. Ward turned this command-and-control, low-
trust environment completely around. “I would challenge my leaders
to think out of the box,” Ward told us. “I would push the problems
back to them. You know the old saying . . . no involvement, no
ownership. Instead of me, the commander, making the decision, I
would have them own the problem together as a team and ask them
what they would do differently.”
To combat youth crime, Ward doubled his community policing
unit and the number of police officers dedicated to working with
youth. In partnership with the school district, every grade 5 student
received ten hour-long sessions taught by an RCMP officer. Ward

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also had his police officers reach out to the youth of Richmond in
a trust-building program. In an initiative called the Onside Program,
more than five hundred youth every year were taken to a professional
hockey game, football game, or special event by the Richmond
RCMP officers.
To change the paradigm of the police always catching kids
breaking the law, Ward introduced a program called Positive Tickets.
Police officers proactively went out on patrol to catch kids doing
things right and reward them with a voucher or coupon to some
fun, free activity. More than forty thousand Positive Tickets were
given out per year, a three-to-one ratio of Positive Tickets to the
traditional negative police ticket.
To institutionalize the cultural change process as well as the
notion of continuous learning, Ward introduced morning training
to the Richmond Detachment. “Every morning I would train all
my staff for forty-five minutes—both sworn officers and civilian
support staff. I would take half the officers off the street at a time.
When they complained about missing their coffee break, I brought
coffee and treats into the training sessions to make it up to them.”
Whenever possible, Ward would have his staff facilitate the training.
It was not uncommon to have the constables teaching in an area of
their expertise to senior police leaders.
These initiatives, and the many others Ward tried, paid off.
During Ward’s tenure, the Richmond Detachment enjoyed the
highest morale rate in the RCMP, and his team was promoted to
higher ranks or prestigious positions faster than any others in the
RCMP. Overall crime was reduced by 30 percent, and youth crime
was reduced by almost 50 percent—saving millions of taxpayer
dollars. And in testimony to the innovativeness of Ward’s efforts,
fifty-three countries have studied the Richmond RCMP leadership
approach.

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E To achieve the extraordinary, as Ward and his team demon-
strated, you have to be willing to do things that have never been
done before. Every single personal-best story we have heard and read
speaks to the need to take risks with bold ideas. Nothing new and
nothing great is achieved by doing things the way you’ve always done
them. You have to test unproven strategies. You have to break out
of the norms that box you in. You have to do the things you think
you cannot. You have to venture beyond the limitations you nor-
mally place on yourself. Making extraordinary things happen in
organizations demands a willingness to try new things and take
chances with new ideas.
Leaders have to take this one step further. Not only do they have
to be willing to test bold ideas and take calculated risks, but they
also have to get others to join them on these adventures in uncer-
tainty. It’s one thing to set off alone into the unknown; it’s entirely
another to get others to follow you. The difference between an
exemplary leader and an individual risk-taker is that leaders are able
to create the conditions where people want to join with them in the
struggle.
Leaders make risk safe, as paradoxical as that might sound. They
turn experiments into learning opportunities. They don’t define
boldness solely in terms of go-for-broke, giant-leap projects. More
often than not, they see change as starting small, using pilot projects,
and gaining momentum. The vision may be grand and distant, but
the way to reach it is by putting one foot in front of the other. These
small, visible steps are more likely to win early victories and gain
early supporters. Of course, when you experiment, not everything
works out as intended. There are mistakes and false starts. They are
part of the process of innovation. What’s critical, therefore, is that
leaders promote learning from these experiences.

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Exemplary leaders make the commitment to Experiment and
Take Risks. They know that it’s essential for leaders to
• GENERATE SMALL WINS
• LEARN FROM EXPERIENCE
These essentials can help leaders transform challenge into an
exploration, uncertainty into a sense of adventure, fear into resolve,
and risk into reward. They are the keys to making progress that
becomes unstoppable.
GENERATE SMALL WINS
While we were just beginning our work on this edition, we got a
call from Don Bennett, one of the pioneering people we interviewed
for the first edition of The Leadership Challenge. With great excite-
ment in his voice, he told us that he’d just returned from Argentina,
where he had presented the Don Bennett Golden Foot Award at the
tenth World Cup of the World Amputee Football Federation, an
organization he cofounded nearly thirty years ago.
Before starting his first amputee soccer team, Don was the first
amputee to reach the summit of Mount Rainier. That’s 14,410 feet
on one leg and two crutches. In fact, he actually had to make that
climb twice. On his first attempt, a howling windstorm nearly blew
his climbing team off the mountain. They had to turn back 410 feet
from the summit. But Don was not discouraged. For another full
year, he worked out vigorously. On his second attempt, after five
days of rigorous climbing, Don planted the flag.

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E “How did you do it?” we asked Don. “How did you make it to
the top of Mount Rainier on one leg?” “One hop at a time,” he
said. Then he added, “I imagined myself on top of that mountain
one thousand times a day. But when I started to climb it, I just
said to myself, ‘Anybody can hop from here to there.’ And I would.
And when the going got roughest, and I was really exhausted, that’s
when I would look down at the path ahead and say to myself, ‘You
just have to take one more step, and anybody can do that.’ And I
would.”
Leaders face difficult challenges similar to Don’s all the time.
How do you achieve something no one has ever done before? How
do you get something new started? How do you overcome a physical
or competitive handicap? How do you turn around a losing business?
Or start a new one? How do you solve the health care problem, or
the world hunger problem, or the global climate change problem,
or the global competitiveness problem? These are such daunting
challenges that you get stuck before you get started. Framing
the challenge as something too gigantic can actually have the effect
of dampening motivation.
So how do you do it? How do you get people to want to move
in a new direction, break old mindsets, or change existing behavior
patterns in order to tackle big problems and attempt extraordinary
performance? You climb that mountain one hop at a time. You make
progress incrementally. You break the long journey down into mile-
stones. You move people forward step-by-step, creating a sense of
forward momentum by generating what University of Michigan
professor Karl Weick calls “small wins.”
Karl describes a small win as “a concrete, complete, imple-
mented outcome of moderate importance.”1 Small wins form the
basis for a consistent pattern of winning that attracts people who
want to be allied with a successful venture. Planting one tree won’t

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stop global warming, but planting one million trees can make a
difference, and it’s that first tree that gets things started. Small
wins identify the place to begin. They make the project seem
doable within the parameters of existing skills and resources. They
minimize the cost of trying and reduce the risks of failing. What’s
exciting about this process is that once a small win has been accom-
plished, it sets in motion natural forces that favor progress over
setbacks.
Consider how Alex Jukl, project manager at Seagate Technology,
describes a two-year process that transformed the way the company
does business with its customers.
Because we’ve been focusing on small wins, it doesn’t necessarily
feel as though we’ve been overtly “challenging the process”;
instead, we have been offering programs, tools, and processes
that help people to do their jobs better. I believe that had we
gone from 0 to 60 and commenced all these projects
simultaneously, we would not have made much impact on
the sales organization. They would have been overwhelmed
and lost, unsure of what was important or what was expected
of them, or worse yet, offended that we were coming in and
asking them to completely rewrite their programmed
behavior.
Furthermore, initiating one big project to prove out
these new concepts and methodologies would have carried
tremendous fiscal risk for us in an uncertain economy. As a
result of taking the path of small wins, our team was able to
ensure that everyone was on the same page as us, and course-
correct as necessary—not only did it help us to better lead
and influence the sales teams in this change effort, it gave them
a venue to tell us how we could be better leaders in our efforts
as well.

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E As Alex’s experience demonstrates, even though leaders have grand
visions about the future, they get there one step at a time, building
momentum as well as the strength and resolve to continue forward
along the journey.
Build Psychological Hardiness
Before you can take that first hop, however, you have to take a step
forward in your attitude. For example, Don Bennett didn’t just leap
from a hospital bed to the cliffs of Mount Rainier. His initial battle
was with himself. He told us how he had to stop feeling sorry for
himself and realize how lucky he really was. He realized that he had
the capacity of his other leg, even though it too was badly injured.
He was determined to return to an active life. He took charge and
began doing things that would lead, gradually, to the summit.
The same is true for the other personal-best stories we collected.
Although the circumstances weren’t always as dramatic as Don’s, the
conditions people faced during their personal-best leadership experi-
ences were just as uncertain and stressful as his. Although 95 percent
of the cases were described as exciting, about 20 percent of leaders
also called the experiences frustrating, and approximately 15 percent
said that their experiences aroused fear or anxiety. Even though the
emotions associated with personal-best cases are overwhelmingly
positive, we can’t overlook that they were also filled with tension.
But instead of being debilitated by the stress of a difficult experi-
ence, exemplary leaders said they were challenged and energized by
it. That was certainly the case for Karen Slakey Hull when she
assumed responsibility for Repro Graphics at the University of Cali-
fornia, Davis.2 The organization was in desperate straits. For three
of the four previous years, they had had large operating deficits, and
their reserves were now depleted. The equipment was obsolete, pro-

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duction volumes were low, spoilage was excessive, print quality was
not up to modern standards, and customer satisfaction was suffering.
Employees worked hard, but feared for their jobs and were skeptical
of leadership’s ability to make the required changes.
None of this deterred Karen. “I was an experienced business-
woman, and not an expert in the print, copy, or graphic design
business,” she told us. “But I was confident,” she continued, “that
together with the employees of Repro Graphics, the situation could
be turned around.” Karen and the management staff evaluated
each product and service. They looked at revenue-expense rela-
tionships, customer demand, product quality, and the type and
quantity of work that was being outsourced. They conducted a cus-
tomer satisfaction survey and learned what was really important to
customers.
When Karen asked the production manager for a proposal to
modernize the equipment, he came back with a five-year plan.
Karen’s response to this was to ask, “What would happen if we made
this investment in one year?” His eyes opened wide in an expression
that said, “Wow, we really can change this place!” He returned with
a one-year plan that made clear strategic and financial sense.
Upgraded equipment required new, higher-level skills. To ease
the transition, production staff attended conferences on modern
production equipment and processes and also received extensive
training specific to the new equipment. Karen and her managers
coached staff in their new roles while also recognizing employees
who continued to work on traditional printing presses.
Because Repro Graphics was capable of designing and produc-
ing beautiful marketing materials, Karen put significant effort into
developing a brand to promote the new Repro Graphics. Delivery
drivers started wearing Repro Graphics polo shirts. Delivery trucks
proudly displayed the Repro Graphics logo and contact information.

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E It became very visible to both customers and staff that Repro Graph-
ics did great work.
Throughout this time, Karen held monthly all-staff meetings so
that teams could present their unit updates, which included major
achievements and near-term goals. “While this created stress for
many of the staff presenters,” Karen reported, “it was also clear that
they took great pride in telling about the accomplishments of their
unit, and regular information on production and financial perfor-
mance helped build confidence about the good things that were
happening in Repro Graphics.”
Given the difficult situation they faced, Karen, her managers,
and the staff of Repro Graphics could have given up. But they didn’t.
They stepped up to the challenge and overcame it. It turns out that
the ability to grow and thrive under stressful, risk-abundant situa-
tions, such as the one that the folks at Repro Graphics faced, is
highly dependent on how you view change.
Psychologists, intrigued by people who experience a high degree
of stress and yet are able to cope with it in a positive manner, have
discovered that these individuals have a distinctive attitude toward
stress, which they call “psychological hardiness.”3 Researchers over
the last forty years have discovered that in groups as diverse as cor-
porate managers, entrepreneurs, students, nurses, lawyers, and
combat soldiers, those high in psychological hardiness are much
more likely to withstand serious challenges and bounce back from
failure than those low in hardiness.4 And the good news is that hardi-
ness is a quality that people can learn and that leaders can support.
There are three key factors to psychological hardiness: commit-
ment, control, and challenge. To turn adversity into advantage, you
need first to commit yourself to what’s happening. You have to
become involved, engaged, and curious. You can’t sit back and wait
for something to happen. When you commit, you’ll find the people

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and the situations much more meaningful and worthwhile to you.
You also have to take control of your own life. You need to make an
effort to influence what is going on. Even though all your attempts
may not be successful, you can’t sink into powerlessness or passivity.
Finally, if you are going to be psychologically hardy, you need to
view challenge as an opportunity to learn from both negative and
positive experiences. You can’t play it safe. Personal improvement
and fulfillment come through the continual process of engaging in
the uncertainties of life. Easy comfort and security are not only
unrealistic but also stultifying.
Your view of events contributes to your ability to cope with
change and stress. For you to take that first step, to start that new
project, to initiate improvement, you have to believe that you can
influence the outcome of the situation. You have to be curious about
whatever is going down. And you have to look for learning every
step of the way. With a hardy attitude, you can transform stressful
events into positive opportunities for growth and renewal. What’s
more, you can help your team feel the same way.
Break It Down
Leaders know they have to break down big problems into small,
doable actions. They also know that when initiating something new,
they have to try a lot of little things before they get it right. Not
every innovation works, and the best way to ensure success is to
experiment with a lot of ideas, not just one or two big ones. Suc-
cessful leaders help others see how breaking the journey down into
measurable milestones can move them forward. This is exactly what
Tiffany Nguyen experienced while an account manager for Volt
Services contingency employment services at Advanced Micro
Devices (AMD).

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E Part of Tiffany’s job was to manage requisitions, coordinate
interviews, provide offer letters, and get new contractors on board.
She said that she “was afraid of making drastic changes because
I feared it would be too much for AMD to accept, so I made
one small change at a time.” First, she got permission to assist
in completing the requisition form before it went through the
approval process. This allowed her to be the starting point of the
requisition request, ensure that all the necessary information was
provided up front, and have direct access to hiring managers from
the start. Next, Tiffany discovered that an email approval was as good
as an actual signature on the form, and she immediately proposed
an electronic signature format whereby decision makers only had to
“reply all” with their approval before the form was forwarded to the
next person. This new process cut at least a full week-and-a-half of
processing time and showed Tiffany “how successful a larger goal
can be if you break down the big problem into smaller solvable
pieces.”
Indeed, “big things are done by doing lots of small things,” as
we heard over and over in the personal-best cases we collected. When
you break a big project down into pieces and try a lot of little things,
you also make progress more likely. Whatever you call your experi-
ments—model sites, pilot studies, demonstration projects, labora-
tory tests, field experiments, market trials—they are methods for
trying lots of little things in the service of something much bigger.
These are the tactics that continually generate lots of possibilities for
small wins.
A small-wins approach fits especially well with the fast and
fragmented pace of work in the information society. Today’s manager
typically spends an average of three minutes of uninterrupted time
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before switching to something else.5 That means a manager could
be switching from project to project forty or more times a day. It’s
enough to make any leader dizzy. This kind of work pattern requires
leaders to act on their dreams in brief bursts. The beauty of a small
win is that it’s compact, it’s simple, and it can catch the attention of
people who have only a few minutes to listen to an idea or read a
proposal.
These little bets are limited experiments in accomplishing
change. They’re laboratories for trying, failing, and learning. They’re
also great visual aids. By showcasing some “little thing” you’ve exper-
imented with, you give people a tangible sense of what success looks
like. You also boost morale and confidence. People see that it’s pos-
sible to do something about what might otherwise be perceived as
an intractable problem. All those possibilities can add up to big
results, as Justina Wang, responsible for the global sales control for
a multinational company, discovered when she noticed some prob-
lems in the overseas sales process. She knew that the system needed
to change, but she didn’t necessarily know how, especially because
this was a long and complex process, scattered across many different
divisions. After asking everyone in the global sales chain for input
and getting them talking, she decided to test an idea in one overseas
subsidiary. It turned out well and was quickly rolled out to thirty
subsidiaries on six continents. Reflecting back on her experience,
Justina said, “No change can be made in one jump. Many small wins
can generate big successes.”
Profit from Small Wins
Small wins produce big results for a very simple reason: it’s hard
to argue with success. In extensive investigations into what makes

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E knowledge workers effective, Harvard Business School professor
Teresa Amabile and independent researcher Steven Kramer found
that “people are more creative and productive when their inner work
lives are positive—when they feel happy, are intrinsically motivated
by the work itself, and have positive perceptions of their colleagues
and organizations.”6 And what triggers these feelings? “The key to
motivating performance is supporting progress in meaningful work.”7
Teresa and Steven go on to report that “when we think of progress,
we often imagine how good it feels to achieve a long-term goal or
experience a major breakthrough. These big wins are great—but they
are relatively rare. The good news is that even small wins can boost
inner work life tremendously.”8 Small, incremental, and consistent
steps forward have a big impact on people’s motivation.
The fact that small wins work isn’t news to scholars of techno-
logical innovation. An extensive study involving five DuPont plants
documented that minor technical changes (for example, introduc-
tion of forklift trucks)—rather than major changes (for example,
introduction of new chemical processing technologies)—accounted
for over two-thirds of the reductions in production costs over a
thirty-year period.9 The minor technical changes were small improve-
ments, made by people familiar with current operations. Less time,
skill, effort, and expense were required to produce them than to
implement the major changes. Much of the improvement was really
part of the process of learning by doing.
The scientific community has always understood that major
breakthroughs are likely to be the result of the work of hundreds of
researchers, as countless contributions finally begin to add up to a
solution. If one looks at their sum total, all the “little” improvements
in technology, regardless of the industry, likely have contributed to
a greater increase in organizational productivity than all the great
inventors and their inventions.10 Indeed, researchers have found that

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rapid prototyping, and plenty of it, results in bringing higher-quality
products to the marketplace more quickly.11
Small wins produce results because they attract people who want
to be allied with a successful venture. Small wins build people’s
confidence and reinforce their natural desire to feel successful.
Because additional resources tend to flow to winners, this means that
slightly larger wins can be attempted next. A series of small wins
therefore lays a foundation of stable building blocks. Each win
preserves gains and makes it harder to return to preexisting
conditions.
Small wins produce results because they make people feel like
winners and make it easier for leaders to get others to want to go
along with their requests. If people can see that a leader is asking
them to do something that they’re quite capable of doing, they
feel some assurance that they can be successful at the task. If
people aren’t overwhelmed by a task, their energy goes into getting
the job done, instead of wondering, “How will we ever solve that
problem?”
Small wins produce results because they build personal and
group commitment to a course of action. By working at finding all
the little ways that people can succeed at doing things differently,
effective leaders make people want to be involved and stay involved
because they can see that what they are doing is making a
difference.
LEARN FROM EXPERIENCE
Whenever you challenge the status quo, tackle demanding problems,
make meaningful changes, or confront adversity, you will sometimes
fail. Despite how clearly you see challenge as an opportunity, how

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E focused you can be, or how driven you are to succeed, there will be
setbacks.
People never get it right the first time—not in sports, not in
games, not in school, and most certainly not in work organizations.
Yes, it’s something that leaders are told that they must do, but this
advice is neither realistic nor useful. Sure, you should get it right
every time once you get to production or delivery, but not when
you’re trying to do things you’ve never done before. When you
engage in something new and different, you make a lot of mistakes.
Everyone does. That’s what experimentation is all about, and, as
research scientists know very well, there’s a lot of trial and error
involved in testing new concepts, new methods, and new
practices.
Over and over again, people in our studies tell us how important
mistakes and failure have been to their success. Without mistakes,
they’d be unable to know what they can and cannot do (at least at
this moment). Without those experiences, respondents said, they
would have been unable to achieve their aspirations. It may seem
paradoxical, but many echo the thought that the overall quality of
work improves when people have a chance to fail. Studies of the
innovation process make the point: “Success does not breed success.
It breeds failure. It is failure which breeds success.”12
James E. West, research professor at Johns Hopkins University,
has secured nearly fifty domestic and more than two hundred foreign
patents. “I think I’ve had more failures than successes, but I don’t
see the failures as mistakes because I always learned something from
those experiences,” he says. “I see them as having not achieved the
initial goal, nothing more than that.”13 Or consider how basketball
hall of famer Michael Jordan explains his success. “I’ve missed more
than nine thousand shots in my career. I’ve lost almost three hundred

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games. Twenty-six times, I’ve been trusted to take the game winning
shot and missed. I’ve failed over and over again in my life. And that
is why I succeed.”14
To be sure, failure can be costly. For the individual who leads a
failed project, it can mean a stalled career or even a lost job. For an
adventurous leader, it can mean the loss of personal assets. For
mountain climbers and other physical adventurers, it can mean
injury or death. Regardless of the field, there is no success without
the possibility of failure.15
Failure is never the objective of any endeavor. The objective is
to succeed, and success always requires some amount of learning.
And learning always involves mistakes, errors, miscalculations, and
the like along the way. Learning happens when people can openly
talk about what went wrong as well as what went right. Leaders don’t
look for someone to blame when the inevitable mistakes are made
in the name of innovation. They ask, “What can be learned from
the experience?”
Be an Active Learner
Curious about the relationship between leadership and learning, we
conducted a series of empirical studies to find out if leaders could
be differentiated by the range and depth of learning tactics they
employ when facing new or unfamiliar experiences. First, we looked
at how engaged these people were in four different approaches to
learning: “taking action” (preferring to learn by trial and error),
“thinking” (reading articles or books or going online to gain knowl-
edge and background), “feeling” (confronting themselves on what
they are worrying about), and “accessing others” (bouncing hopes
and fears off someone they trust). We then correlated these with their

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E leadership practices. We found that people who were more, rather
than less, engaged in each of these learning tactics were also more
engaged in The Five Practices of Exemplary Leadership.16
We’re not the only ones who find a strong correlation between
engagement in learning and leadership effectiveness. Researchers
Bob Eichinger, Mike Lombardo, and Dave Ulrich report that in
their studies, the single best predictor of future success in new and
different managerial jobs is learning agility.17 “Learning agility,” as
they define it, “is the ability to reflect on experience and then engage
in new behaviors based on those reflections.” They go on to say,
“Learning agility requires self-confidence to honestly examine
oneself, self-awareness to seek feedback and suggestions, and self-
discipline to engage in new behaviors.”18
Learning is the master skill. When you fully engage in learn-
ing—when you throw yourself wholeheartedly into experimenting,
reflecting, reading, or getting coaching—you are going to experience
the thrill of improvement and the taste of success. More is more
when it comes to learning. It’s clear that exemplary leaders approach
each new and unfamiliar experience with a willingness to learn, an
appreciation for the importance of learning, and recognition that
learning necessarily involves making some mistakes.
A. G. Lafley, retired P&G chairman and CEO, has certainly
accomplished a lot in his career. Yet despite his immense success, he
says, “I think I learned more from my failures than from my suc-
cesses in all my years as a CEO. I think of my failures as a gift. Unless
you view them that way, you won’t learn from failure, you won’t get
better—and the company won’t get better.”19 It’s this kind of open-
ness and humility that is typical of people who exemplify a learning
mindset.20
Building your capacity to be an agile learner begins with what
Stanford psychologist Carol Dweck refers to as a growth mindset.

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“The growth mindset,” she says, “is based on the belief that your
basic qualities are things you can cultivate through your efforts.” She
compares this to a fixed mindset—“believing that your qualities are
carved in stone.”21 Individuals with a growth mindset, for example,
believe that people can learn to be better leaders. Those with the
fixed mindset think that leaders are born, not made, and that no
amount of training is going to make you any better than you natu-
rally are.
In study after study, researchers have found that when working
on simulated business problems, those individuals with fixed mind-
sets gave up more quickly and performed more poorly than those
with growth mindsets. The same is true for kids in school, athletes
on the playing field, teachers in the classroom, and partners in rela-
tionships.22 Mindsets and not skill sets make the critical difference
in taking on challenging situations.
To develop a growth mindset and to nourish it in others, you
need to embrace the challenges you face. That’s where the learning
is. When you encounter setbacks—and there will be many—you
have to persist. You have to realize that your effort, and that of
others, is your means of gaining mastery. It’s neither raw talent nor
good fortune that leads to becoming the best; it’s hard work that
gets you there. Ask for feedback about how you’re doing. Learn from
the constructive criticism you receive from others. And view the
success of others around you as inspiration and not as a threat. When
you believe that you can continuously learn, you will.
Create a Climate for Learning
To promote learning and nurture a growth mindset, you need to
create a climate of inquiry and openness, of patience, and of encour-
agement. Studies of top performers strongly suggest that people

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E require a supportive environment in order to become the best they
can be. Researchers have found, in fact, that when there are high-
quality relationships at work, people engage in more of the behaviors
that lead to learning.23 These relationships are characterized by posi-
tive regard for others and a sense of mutuality and trust. In order to
create positive relationships like this, you need to offer encouraging
words when people try something new, be patient and understand-
ing when they get off track, and offer helpful suggestions as they try
to learn and bounce back from mistakes.
However, a positive learning environment can’t be created
instantly. As Kelli Garvanian, solution consultant in the payment
integrity department at Emdeon, realized, you will need to con-
sciously adjust your own leadership behaviors.24 Kelli has high expec-
tations and demands a lot from herself and from others. High
expectations can motivate people to stretch themselves and promote
learning. However, leaders with high expectations can also become
overly demanding and overly assertive. They can exhibit impatience,
frustration, and anger, causing people to become defensive, less
open, and less willing to take risks. That’s what happened initially
to Kelli.
Fortunately for Kelli and her team, she was willing to learn. She
had the courage to ask for feedback about her behavior. Her team
told her that sometimes she raised her voice or demanded that
something be done; they felt she wasn’t always respectful of them.
Instead of working collaboratively, they became self-protective and
focused on getting their own things done. The business results were
not good, and the team members were worried about their future.
Kelli knew she had to make a change.
After getting feedback and coaching, Kelli dedicated herself to
working specifically on two leadership behaviors, one of which was

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“asking ‘What can we learn?’ when things don’t go as expected.”25
She believed this would lead to more openness and collaboration
and to increased motivation and commitment to a shared vision
of the future. To remind herself how important it was to change
her behavior, Kelli kept her feedback visible on the top of her
desk. Then, in every meeting with her team, and whenever mis-
takes were made, Kelli would ask, “What can we learn?” At first,
no one said anything. They didn’t know what to expect or why
she was asking. Kelli persisted, and after a while, her team real-
ized that Kelli was sincere, and they began suggesting things
they could do differently. In fact, at some point the team began
asking “What can we learn?” in unison at the end of every meet-
ing! That’s when Kelli knew her leadership changes were beginning
to have an impact on others. Her courage to learn and change
created a new, very different climate for her team. And they
became more willing to take risks, share new ideas, and work more
collaboratively.
People know that they don’t always get it right the first time they
try something and that learning new things can be a bit scary. They
don’t want to embarrass themselves in front of peers or look stupid
in front of their managers. To create a climate for learning, you have
to make it safe for others to try, to fail, and to learn from their
experiences. Make it a habit to ask, “What can we learn?” as often
as you can.
The truth is that failures and disappointments are inevitable.
How you handle them is what will ultimately determine your effec-
tiveness and success. You have to be honest with yourself and with
others. You have to own up to your mistakes and reflect on your
experiences so that you gain the learning necessary to be better the
next time around.

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E Strengthen Resilience
It takes determination and strength to deal with the adversities of
life and leadership. You can’t let the setbacks get you down or the
roadblocks get in your way. You can’t become overly discouraged
when things don’t go according to plan. You can’t give up when the
resistance builds or when the competition gets stiff. Neither can you
let other tempting new projects divert your interest. You can’t lose
focus when there are lots of distractions all around. You have to stick
with it.
This kind of determination characterizes Pat Williams, senior
vice president of the Orlando Magic.26 In his nearly fifty years as a
sports executive—from managing a minor league baseball team to
cofounding an elite basketball franchise, with several stops in
between—Pat has had his fair share of wins and losses and career
ups and downs. But he learned early on that “you don’t waste those
tough times.”
“When the tough times hit and the setbacks and the disappoint-
ments come,” he said, “you’re a lot more teachable. I wouldn’t be
where I am today if I had not taken advantage of the disappointments
and the setbacks. . . . Through those setbacks I’ve learned more, and
made more advances, than through the good times.” Pat, who’s been
a student of leadership throughout his career, reminded us that the
greatest leaders in history all faced tremendous obstacles. He said they
all should have given up about thirty times. But they didn’t. They
had, Pat said, what Walt Disney called “stick-to-it-ivity.” “They’ve all
battled through horribly tough times, and the reason we admire these
leaders,” Pat said, “was because they didn’t quit. Leadership always,
always, always rests on the man or woman who can finish.”
Pat also told us about R. E. Littlejohn, coowner of the team and
one of his early mentors when he was the general manager of a minor

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league baseball team in Spartanburg, South Carolina. Managing in
the minor leagues is a very different experience from that in the
major leagues.
[The owners] can move the team when they want. You don’t
have a dome. You don’t have a tarp. Rainouts are a constant
problem. You’ve got clogged up toilets in the rest rooms. The
hotdog vendor doesn’t show up one night. The guy who’s meant
to be directing the parking lot gets sick. On any given day there
are endless, endless problems. And so here I am this young
baseball executive, and I would gather up my problems and go
out and see Mr. Littlejohn, hoping that he would take them
upon himself.
But, as I presented these problems, his response would be,
“Now Pat, that’s going to give you a wonderful opportunity to
sell yourself to the front office in Philadelphia.” Or, “This issue
here is going to allow you to have a whole new relationship
with your manager down there in the dugout.” Or, “The banker
downtown who you’ve been having trouble selling, this could be
a door opener. You’ve got a wonderful chance through this
problem.” He just kept stressing to me, “Don’t run from
your problems. Don’t run from your problems. . . . Take
advantage of those problems to go sell yourself to somebody else.”
The capacity Pat describes—that ability to recover quickly from
setbacks and continue to pursue a vision of the future—is often
referred to as resilience. Angela Duckworth, professor of psychology
at the University of Pennsylvania, calls it grit. Angela and her research
colleagues define grit very simply as “perseverance and passion for
long-term goals,” and report that it “entails working strenuously
toward challenges, maintaining effort and interest over years despite
failure, adversity, and plateaus in progress.”27 Showing grit involves

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E setting goals, being obsessed with an idea or project, maintaining
focus, sticking with things that take a long time to complete, over-
coming setbacks, and the like. In their empirical research, whether
with kids in school, cadets in the military, working professionals,
artists, academics, or others, they find convincing evidence that
people with the most grit are the most likely to achieve positive
outcomes. The more grit you demonstrate, the better you do.
The good news is that these qualities of resilience and grit can
be developed and strengthened, much like growth mindsets. Martin
Seligman, professor of psychology at the University of Pennsylvania
and a leading researcher in the field, has tackled this challenge with
some of the toughest populations at work—for example, active-duty
soldiers in the military.28 Seligman says that in his research, “We
discovered that people who don’t give up have a habit of interpreting
setbacks as temporary, local, and changeable.”29 Essentially, even in
times of great stress and adversity, people who are resilient remain
committed to moving forward by believing that what has happened
isn’t going to be permanent and that they can do something about
the outcome.
In light of these findings, you can do a number of things to
strengthen resilience. For example, when a failure or setback occurs,
don’t blame yourself or the people working on the project. Instead
find situational circumstances that contributed to the failure and
convey a belief that this particular situation is likely to be temporary,
not permanent. Emphasize that the failure or setback is a problem
only in this one instance and not in every case. When success occurs
and milestones are reached, to breed a growth mindset you should
attribute success to the hard work and effort of the individuals in
the group. Convey a belief that many more victories are at hand and
be optimistic that good fortune will be with your team for a long

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time. You can also strengthen resilience in other ways, such as by
assigning tasks that are challenging but within the person’s skill level,
focusing on rewards rather than punishments, and encouraging
people to see change as full of possibilities.30
The personal-best examples involved change and stressful events
in the lives of leaders; they involved significant personal and orga-
nizational change. And nearly all these cases were described in terms
consistent with the conditions for hardiness and resilience. Partici-
pants experienced commitment rather than alienation, control rather
than powerlessness, and challenge rather than threat. They had
passion. They persevered. They didn’t give up despite the failures and
setbacks. Even in the toughest of times, people can experience mean-
ingfulness and mastery. They can overcome great odds. They can
make progress. They can change the way things are. It’s your job as
a leader to create the conditions in which all this is possible for your
constituents.
Experiment and Take Risks
Change is the work of leaders. It’s what they do. They are al-
ways looking for ways to continuously improve, to grow, and to
innovate. They know that the way things are done today won’t
get people to the tomorrow they envision. So they experiment.
They tinker. They shake things up. They ask, “Where are we
experimenting and how are we changing?”
T A K E A C T I O N

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But change can overwhelm, frighten, and immobilize some
people. Exemplary leaders view change as a challenge that can
be successfully overcome. They believe, and get others to be-
lieve, that every individual can control his or her own life and
influence outcomes. They make sure that the meaning and pur-
pose of change is clearly understood, and they create a strong
sense of commitment to the mission.
Use small wins to get things moving in the right direction.
Break the tasks down and set short-term goals. Take on a chal-
lenge one step at a time. Set up experiments, beta tests, and pi-
lot projects. Taking a little-things approach gets people started,
gets them moving, makes progress imaginable, builds commit-
ment, and creates momentum.
Whenever you try new things, big or small, stuff happens
so that mistakes are made and failures occur. You never get it
right the first time—and may not the second or third time either.
That’s why exemplary leaders create a climate that’s conducive
to learning. People have to know that when they experiment
and take risks, they won’t be punished for failure. Instead failure
will be treated as a learning experience. The truth is that the
best leaders are the best learners. You need a growth mindset,
believing that everyone can improve when he or she puts in the
effort to learn. You also need to create a learning climate—one
in which everyone is encouraged to share successes and failures,
and one in which everyone views continuous improvement as a
routine way of doing things. This entails building psychological
hardiness and resilience. You have to persist despite the odds.
You have to have grit. Exemplary leaders make it a practice to
create a climate in which others feel strong and confident, capa-
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To Challenge the Process, you must experiment and take
risks by constantly generating small wins and learning from ex-
perience. This means you need to
• Keep people focused on what they can control in their
work and in their lives.
• Assign meaningful work to people so that they can see
how their efforts contribute significantly to outcomes.
• Emphasize how personal fulfillment results from constantly
challenging oneself to improve.
• Set incremental goals and milestones, breaking big
projects down into achievable steps.
• Continuously experiment with new ideas through model
sites, pilot projects, market trials, and the like.
• Remind people of the progress they are making every day
and that any setbacks are only temporary.
• When mistakes are made, always ask, “What can we learn
from this experience?”
• Debrief successes and failures, recording the lessons
learned and making sure that they are disseminated
broadly.
• Spend time learning something relevant and new every
day, and make sure you offer that opportunity to your
constituents.
• Accept this mantra: Never stop experimenting.
Use The Leadership Challenge Mobile Tool app to
immediately integrate these activities into your life and make
this practice an ongoing part of your behavioral repertoire.

ENABLE
OTHERS
TO ACT

Leaders know that they can’t do it alone. They need partners to make extraordinary things happen in
organizations.
Leaders invest in creating trustworthy relationships. They
build spirited and cohesive teams, teams that feel like family.
They actively involve others in planning and give them the
discretion to make their own decisions. Leaders make others
feel like owners, not hired hands.
Leaders develop collaborative goals and cooperative rela-
tionships with colleagues. They are considerate of the needs
and interests of others. They know that these relationships are
the keys that unlock support. Leaders bring people together,
creating an atmosphere where people understand that they
have a shared fate and that they should treat others as they
would like to be treated. Leaders make sure that everyone
wins.
Mutual respect is what sustains extraordinary group
efforts. Leaders nurture self-esteem in others. They make
others feel strong, capable, and confident to take both initia-
tive and responsibility. They build the skills and abilities of their
constituents to deliver on commitments. They create a climate
where people feel in control of their own lives.
In the next two chapters, we will explore how you must
• Foster Collaboration by building trust and
facilitating relationships.
• Strengthen Others by increasing self-
determination and developing competence.
P R A C T I C E 4
ENABLE OTHERS TO ACT

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“WE BELIEVE THAT CULTURE is key to preventing incidents
and injuries,” Cora Carmody, senior vice president of information
technology at Jacobs Engineering, told us. “When we proactively
look out for ourselves, our coworkers, our friends and families, then
we can get closer to the reality of zero incidents and injuries.”
When Cora joined the $10 billion global technical, professional,
and construction services company, she found an established culture
that was “amazingly positive and based on the importance of people,
caring about people, and building and maintaining relationships
with people.” Given founder Joe Jacobs’s vision of “growing globally
by taking care of the company’s core customers through enduring
relationships” and promoting concepts like “boundaryless behavior,”
it’s easy to see how the company’s BeyondZero program takes the
concept of safety beyond the norm to “a culture of caring.”
To take it even further, a couple of years after Cora joined
Jacobs, her team rolled out a program titled “Leadership and
BeyondZero” to the global IT organization. The hour-and-a-half
C H A P T E R 8
Foster
Collaboration

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E workshop was designed “to share leadership skills and demonstrate
how they contribute to BeyondZero as well as higher levels of
achievement in everything we do.” Rather than leading the discus-
sions herself or having someone in the training department do it,
Cora asked everyone in the first two layers of the IT organization to
lead at least one workshop, and to try to ensure that each workshop
comprised attendees from a variety of IT groups. In three months,
Cora’s team involved over eight hundred members of global IT in
more than twenty-five different sessions of the workshop. Everyone
who led it agreed that he or she got as much out of facilitating the
workshop as any of the participants and that the experience remained
fresh even when he or she had facilitated multiple times.
It was after facilitating a couple of those discussions that Cora
saw a way to address another of IT’s critical concerns: strengthening
relationships among a staff of eight hundred spread out in offices in
more than a hundred countries. At the next workshop, she asked IT
people in the room how they would feel about leading a fifteen-
minute discussion on a leadership topic, at lunch or around a coffee
table. She heard a variety of answers: “Scared,” “Apprehensive,”
“Pretty good.” Then she asked how they thought the discussion
would go with a very small group of people they work with, and
how people would feel to be asked for their input and listened to.
“Everyone agreed that the outcome of those discussions,” Cora
explained, “as short as they might be, would have a tremendous
positive effect on the quality of our relationships. And that they
would continue to build a foundation for a safer, more caring envi-
ronment.” In a follow-up email to her staff summarizing the con-
versation that day, Cora wrote, “Even more overwhelming would
be the sense of accomplishment for the leaders of these discussions.
Remember our leadership premise—every last member of the
IT team has the potential to be a leader—someone who can alter

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our attitudes of what is possible.” With that opening, Cora’s “Coffee
Talks” were born. These are discussion questions she emails every
couple of weeks to “incite some meaningful dialogue and rela-
tionship building” within small groups of IT people around the
world.
Here’s how it works. Anyone can initiate or host a Coffee Talk.
The idea is to find one or several coworkers and ask them a simple
question, such as “What do you like to do when you are not at
work?” or invite conversation around a particular topic, such as silos.
Coffee Talk issues have ranged from workplace safety and the future
of IT to work-life balance and building trust. For example, Coffee
Talk topic 4 was aimed at stimulating a two-part conversation that,
Cora told us, was “all about fostering collaboration and building
spirited teams—actively involving others, creating an environment
of mutual trust and respect”:
First, around lunch or a coffee (or mocha), brainstorm with a
few people: what can you do to enhance people’s sense of
contribution and self-worth? Not “What can management do to
enhance people’s sense of contribution and self-worth?”—that’s
not the question. What can you do—and what are you willing
to do?
Then consider a practice that supports collaboration—ask
for volunteers. When you give people a choice about being a
part of what’s happening, they’re more likely to be committed
to a project. Is there a piece of something you are working on
that you could open up to others? It could be a great training
opportunity or just a way to help people feel that they are
contributing.
As Cora demonstrates with her IT team, leadership is not a solo
pursuit. It’s a team effort. When talking about personal bests and

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E about leaders they admire, people speak passionately about team-
work and cooperation as the interpersonal route to success, especially
when conditions are extremely challenging and urgent. Leaders from
all professions, from all economic sectors, and from around the globe
continue to tell us, “You can’t do it alone.”
Exemplary leaders understand that to create a climate of col-
laboration, they must determine what the group needs in order to
do their work, and build the team around common purpose and
mutual respect. Leaders make trust and teamwork high priorities.
By setting up the workshops and encouraging small-group Coffee
Talks around leadership and safety issues, Cora was able to foster
cooperation and collaboration within a large, geographically dis-
persed team. By giving free rein while also providing guidance on
issues and topics for engaging coworkers in relationship-building
conversations, she helped her team feel that they were trusted and
responsible for creating the safer, more caring environment the
company valued. By creating opportunities to build their skills, she
strengthened their confidence and competence; by asking for regular
feedback, she showed that she cared for the team and had their best
interests at heart.
World-class performance isn’t possible unless there’s a strong
sense of shared creation and shared responsibility. Exemplary leaders
make the commitment to Foster Collaboration by engaging in these
essentials:
• CREATE A CLIMATE OF TRUST
• FACILITATE RELATIONSHIPS
Collaboration is a critical competency for achieving and sustain-
ing high performance. As organizations become increasingly diverse
and globally dispersed, collaborative skills are essential to navigating
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required to build collaboration and promote people working coop-
eratively together. And as employees and customers are more empow-
ered than ever with the new tools of social media, relationship
building is at the core of fostering collaboration.
CREATE A CLIMATE OF TRUST
The ever-increasing turbulence in the marketplace demands even
more collaboration, not less.1 The emphasis on networks, business-
to-business and peer-to-peer e-commerce, strategic acquisitions,
knowledge work, open source innovation, and social media, along
with the surging number of global alliances and local partnerships,
is testimony to the fact that in an ever more complex, wired world,
the winning strategies will be based on a “We not I” philosophy.
However, “we” can’t happen without trust. It’s the central issue
in human relationships. Without trust you cannot lead. Without
trust you can’t get people to believe in you or in each other. With-
out trust you cannot accomplish extraordinary things. Individuals
who are unable to trust others fail to become leaders, precisely
because they can’t bear to be dependent on the words and works of
others. They either end up doing all the work themselves or supervis-
ing work so closely that they become overcontrolling. Their obvious
lack of trust in others results in others’ lack of trust in them. To
build and sustain social connections, you have to be able to trust
others, and others have to trust you. Trust is not just what’s in your
mind; it’s also what’s in your heart.
Invest in Trust
Trust is a strong, significant predictor of employee satisfaction,
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E acceptance of change, acceptance of the leader’s influence, and team
and organizational performance.2 Trust is also linked to profitability.
High-trust organizations have been shown to outperform low-trust
organizations by 286 percent.3 And in a PricewaterhouseCoopers
study on corporate innovation in companies listed on the Financial
Times 100, trust was “the number one differentiator” between the
top 20 percent of companies surveyed and the bottom 20 percent.
The more trusted people feel, the better they innovate.4 Simply put,
the more people trust their leaders and their organizations, the more
positive the outcomes—for everyone.
Psychologists have also found that people who are trusting are
more likely to be happy and psychologically adjusted than are those
who view the world with suspicion and distrust.5 People who are
perceived as trusting are more sought out as friends, more frequently
listened to, and subsequently more influential. The most effective
leadership situations are those in which each member of the team
trusts the others.
In a classic research experiment, for example, several groups of
business executives in a role-playing exercise were given identical
factual information about a difficult manufacturing-marketing
policy decision and then asked as a group to solve a problem related
to that information. Half of the groups were briefed to expect trust-
worthy behavior (“You have learned from your past experiences that
you can trust the other members of top management and can openly
express feelings and differences with them”); the other half, to expect
untrustworthy behavior. After thirty minutes of discussion, all team
members completed a brief questionnaire about their experiences.6
Those who’d been told that their role-playing colleagues could
be trusted reported their discussion and decisions to be significantly
more positive than did the members of the low-trust group on every
factor measured. The members of the high-trust group were more

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open about feelings, experienced greater clarity about the group’s
basic problems and goals, and searched more for alternative courses
of action. They also reported greater levels of mutual influence on
outcomes, satisfaction with the meeting, motivation to implement
decisions, and closeness as a management team as a result of the
meeting. In the groups whose participants were told that their man-
agement colleagues weren’t to be trusted, genuine attempts to be
open and honest were ignored or distorted.
The managers who experienced rejection of their attempts to
be trusting and open responded in kind. “If I had my way I would
have fired the entire group,” said one. “What a bunch of turkeys.
I was trying to be honest with them but they wouldn’t cooperate.
Everything I suggested they shot down; and they wouldn’t give
me any ideas on how to solve the problem.” The responses of
the other members were no less hostile: “Frankly, I was looking
forward to your being fired. I was sick of working with you—and
we had only been together for ten minutes.” Not surprisingly,
more than two-thirds of the participants in the low-trust group
said that they would give serious consideration to looking for
another position.7
Keep in mind that this was a simulation. These real-life execu-
tives responded as they did simply because they’d been told that they
couldn’t trust their role-playing colleagues. It shows that trust, or
distrust, can come with a mere suggestion—and in mere minutes.
After this simulation, participants were asked to think about
what factors might have accounted for the differences between
the outcomes and feelings reported by the various groups. Not
one person perceived that trust had been the overriding variable. “I
never knew that a lack of trust was our problem [at work] until that
exercise,” reported one executive in the study. “I knew that things
weren’t going well, but I never really could quite understand why we

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E couldn’t work well together. After that experience, things fell into
place.”8
When you create a climate of trust, you create an environment
that allows people to freely contribute and innovate. You nurture an
open exchange of ideas and a truthful discussion of issues. You
motivate people to go beyond compliance and inspire them to reach
for the best in themselves. And you nurture the belief that people
can rely on you to do what’s in everyone’s best interests. To get these
kinds of results, you have to ante up first in the game of trust, you
have to listen and learn from others, and you have to share informa-
tion and resources with others. Trust comes first; following comes
second.
Be the First to Trust
Building trust is a process that begins when someone (either you or
the other party) is willing to risk being the first to open up, to show
vulnerability, and to let go of control. Leaders go first. If you want
the high levels of performance that come with trust and collabora-
tion, you will have to demonstrate your trust in others before asking
them to trust you.
Going first is a scary proposition. You’re taking a chance. You’re
betting that others won’t betray your confidence and that they’ll take
good care of the information you communicate, the resources you
allocate, and the feelings you share. You’re risking that others won’t
take advantage of you and that you can rely on them to do what’s
right. This requires considerable self-confidence. But the payoff is
huge. Trust is contagious. When you trust others, they are much
more likely to trust you. But should you choose not to trust, under-
stand that distrust is equally contagious. If you exhibit distrust,
others will hesitate to place their trust in you and in their colleagues.
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Self-disclosure is one way that you go first. Letting others know
what you stand for, what you value, what you want, what you hope
for, and what you’re willing (and not willing) to do discloses infor-
mation about yourself. You can’t be certain that other people will
appreciate your candor, agree with your aspirations, or interpret your
words and actions in the way you intend. But once you take the risk
of being open, others are more likely to take a similar risk and work
toward mutual understanding.
This is exactly what Masood Fakharzadeh, program manager at
KLA-Tencor, experienced when he was asked to assemble an offshore
product development team. In order to develop trust, he told us,
“Early on I asked everyone for their help. I told them that this is the
first time that I’m leading such a project, and I needed their help
and expertise to make the project successful. I wanted to show them
that I had full trust in them by asking them to help me.” Masood
reported that his demonstration of trust in them “resulted, in turn,
in people opening up and sharing lots of information. This got them
fully engaged, and they took ownership.”
Trust can’t be forced, however. If someone is bent on misunder-
standing you and refuses to perceive you as either well intentioned
or competent, there may be little you can do to change that percep-
tion. However, you have to remember that placing trust in others is
the safer bet with most people most of the time. Humans are hard-
wired to trust: they have to trust in order to function effectively in
the world.9
Show Concern for Others
The concern you show for others is one of the clearest and most
unambiguous signals of your trust. When others know you will put
their interests ahead of your own, they won’t hesitate to trust you.10
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E You have to listen to others, pay attention to their ideas and con-
cerns, help them solve their problems, and be open to their influ-
ence. When you show your openness to their ideas and your interest
in their concerns, your constituents will be more open to yours.
The simple act of listening to what other people have to say and
appreciating their unique points of view demonstrates your respect
for them and their ideas. Being sensitive to what others are going
through creates bonds that make it easier to accept one another’s
guidance and advice. These actions build mutual empathy and
understanding, and that in turn builds trust. Sinisa Ljujic, assistant
production manager for manufacturing at Canada’s Christie Digital,
a leader in the digital cinema and digital display technology market,
commented, “For the sake of the people you lead, you need to be
accepting of others as they are. We are all human, and we need to
treat people respectfully. I listen to what people have to say so that
I know what is going on in their heads and hearts. Only then can I
work with them to improve.”11
His respectfulness and listening are evident every day on the
floor with his team. You see it when he encourages people to solve
problems on their own, rather than jumping in to solve them himself.
You see it when he arrives early to greet everyone and inquire about
how he or she is doing. You see it when he takes the time to coach
people who are assuming new jobs and responsibilities. For example,
when Samieh Bagheri became a new manager, she needed to learn
how to motivate and inspire her new employees. She was young and
dedicated, and wanted to do more in her job. At times she probably
took on more than she was ready to handle. Sinisa spent considerable
time with Samieh, asking her questions and listening to her thoughts
about how she should approach her leadership. He worked with her
on the smaller issues of communication and handling the day-to-day
issues. Once she had these mastered, he began coaching on conflict

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management and other more difficult topics. Even when his approach
might have been different from Samieh’s, he supported her decisions
in front of others and then coached her privately about other pos-
sible approaches.
In turn, Samieh’s regard for Sinisa grew and is quite evident
when she says, “He’s a great leader. He has great knowledge and
understanding of all of the processes in our department and is great
at communicating. He has compassion for all his employees, and
great personal skills. His happy attitude is contagious.” Sinisa’s own
manager, Paul Tierney, echoes this sentiment: “He encourages his
people to be independent. He coaches people respectfully in a
manner that makes them feel that next time they will be able to do
it on their own.”
Leaders like Sinisa demonstrate how powerful listening and
empathy can be in building trust.12 You need to see the world
through others’ eyes and make sure that you consider alternative
viewpoints. Your constituents have to feel that they can talk freely
with you about their difficulties. For them to be open to sharing
their ideas, their frustrations, and their dreams with you, they have
to believe that you’ll be caring and constructive in your responses;
they have to feel that you know them.
It’s interesting how these same skills of nonjudgmental listening
and compassion show up in the people referred to as friends—and
every successful leadership relationship has some element of friend-
ship in it. Although it’s not expected that you’ll be everyone’s best
friend, researchers have demonstrated across a variety of settings that
having a friend at work and having a friendly relationship with your
supervisor contribute significantly to healthy and productive work-
places.13 Controlled experiments also bear this out. For example, in
one management simulation, whenever the person assuming the role
of CEO was informed that the financial vice president was a “friend,”

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E the latter’s influence was far more readily accepted than when their
relationship was merely professional—even though in all cases the
“information” presented was adequate to solve the company’s
problem.14 When people believe that you have their interests at
heart—that you care about them—they’re more likely to have your
interests at heart as well.
Share Knowledge and Information
Competence is a vital component of trust and confidence in a leader.
People have to believe that you know what you’re talking about and
that you know what you’re doing. One way to demonstrate your
competence is to share what you know and encourage others to do
the same. You can convey your insights and know-how, share lessons
learned from experience, and connect team members to expertise.
Leaders who play this role of knowledge builder set the example for
how team members should behave toward each other. As a result,
team members’ trust in one another and in the leader increases, along
with their performance.15
That was exactly the approach Darrell Klotzbach took with his
unit at Adobe. When he hired a new college graduate, for example,
he knew “that the work and load were going to be overwhelming,
so I had to pace her adjustment into the role.” He trained and
coached her in the role, giving her difficult problems to solve that
he had worked on in the past. “I didn’t provide solutions,” says
Darrell, “only guidance when she got stuck.” When he assigned work
to her, he said,
I did not tell her specifically what to do, but rather set out to
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gave her the freedom to act how she saw fit. The main require-
ment was, if she got stuck, she should come to me rather than
continue to be stuck, and we would work it out. I kept an open
door. In addition, I had her join me in meetings with the teams
I was supporting so she could see what was being requested and
how I, but eventually we, would handle these. After a while, I
began asking her to take on tasks to support those efforts; and,
of course, I publicly gave her credit when it was her work that
accomplished results.
Shortly thereafter, nearing the end of a particularly difficult
release cycle, Darrell’s team was loaned two people from another
team to aid their efforts. What did Darrell do? Once again, he began
by asking them about their interests and what they wanted to learn,
and by making sure that they understood that they were contribut-
ing something valuable—and that they, too, were valuable. Darrell
modeled the value of collaboration by sharing information and
teaching others techniques that he knew. He connected people in
his area with those outside whom he thought folks needed to know
and could learn from. He also spent time, in his words, “wandering
around the shop floor so that I could pick up informal pieces of
information that would be valuable for the team to know.” He would
bring this news back and share it with everyone during meetings so
that everyone could be as informed and up-to-date as he was about
what was going on. Indeed, Darrell did such a good job sharing with
others what he knew that when he took a sabbatical leave, despite
some concerns about the timing, they managed, Darrell boasts, “to
continue in my absence without needing to contact me during my
time off.”
The fact that trust among team members goes up when knowl-
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E increases as a result, underscore how important it is for leaders to
stay focused on the needs of their team. If you show a willingness
to trust others with information (both personal and professional),
constituents will be more inclined to overcome any doubts they
might have about sharing information. But if you display a reluc-
tance to trust, and withhold information—or if you’re overly
concerned about protecting your turf and keeping things to your-
self—you’ll have a dampening effect on their trust and their perfor-
mance. Managers who create distrustful environments often take
self-protective postures. They’re directive and hold tight to the reins
of power. Those who work for such managers are likely to pass the
distrust on by withholding and distorting information.16 This just
reinforces why it’s so important for you to go first when it comes to
sharing information.
FACILITATE RELATIONSHIPS
People work together most effectively when they trust one another.
Asking for help and sharing information then come naturally. Setting
a common goal becomes almost intuitive. Certainly these were the
lessons Cristian Nuñez shared in analyzing his experience as deputy
manager for business development at Ultramar Agencia Maritima
(Chile), where he was responsible for the growth of the national
logistics unit. This unit was formed by eighteen fairly independent
agencies scattered along the primary ports of the country, and their
main business was to assist arriving ships with their every need in
terms of customs paperwork and additional services for the crew and
the ship. After a number of successful years, revenues had stalled and
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After little less than a month in this position I realized what
kept the logistics unit from growing was—itself! Evaluation
purely based on bottom-line figures had generated a strong
sense of competition between agencies, basically freezing
cooperation between them. In fact, whenever cooperation was
required, agencies would normally charge each other the market
fee (sometimes even higher) that evidently left them with the
highest prices in the market. Furthermore, a rather detached
managerial style from the head office had generated some
mistrust toward it from the agencies (and vice versa), having
both parties thinking the other was not doing enough to
improve business figures.
Cristian realized that the first thing he needed to do was to
improve communication at all levels because without that, there
could be no common goal or cooperation between units. So both
he and his supervisor went to each of the agency sites to sit down
and visit with the people involved. “I learned,” recalls Cristian, “how
much relationships can improve when people meet face-to-face, even
if they’d been talking on the phone almost every day. The power and
long-lasting effect of direct interaction can hardly be replaced by
other means of communication.”
They subsequently brought together people from each of the
agencies to talk about the problem and propose solutions. Given this
opportunity to work together, they quickly realized the need to align
incentives to favor a collective way of doing business and came up
with a profit-sharing method for collaborative deals. They also agreed
to have all the agents participate in weekly telephone meetings in
which they were expected to comment on business opportunities
in their own as well as others’ territories. Because all agencies took
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E and it was easy to distribute profits. This action, says Cristian,
boosted communication between agencies because “everyone wanted
to be the first to come up with new business opportunities and get
some of the credit for it.” These collaborative experiences were so
rewarding that after a while, agencies started sharing tips directly,
without the need for any assistance from Christian and his team.
To collaborate, as Cristian discovered, people have to rely and
depend on one another. They have to know that they need each
other to be successful. To create conditions in which people know
they can count on each other, a leader needs to develop cooperative
goals and roles, support norms of reciprocity, structure projects to
promote joint efforts, and support face-to-face interactions.
Develop Cooperative Goals and Roles
Whether they are in sports or health care, in education or manage-
ment, or in the public or private sector, for a team of people to have
a positive experience together they must have shared goals that
provide a specific reason for being together. No one person can
single-handedly educate a child, build a quality car, make a movie,
create a world-class guest experience, connect a customer to the
Internet, or eradicate a disease. The most important ingredient in
every collective achievement is a common goal. Common purpose
binds people into cooperative efforts.17 It creates a sense of interde-
pendence, a condition in which all participants know that they
cannot succeed unless everyone else succeeds, or at least that
they can’t succeed unless they coordinate their efforts. If there’s not
a sense that “we’re all in this together”—that the success of one
depends on the success of the other—then it’s virtually impossible
to create the conditions for positive teamwork. If you want individu-
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reason to do so, and that good reason is generally expressed as a goal
that can only be accomplished by working together.
This is exactly what Tyson Marsh recalls about his personal-best
leadership experience, an effort to set up a rescue relief area in a
“filthy and disorganized public school” following the horrific events
of September 11, 2001. Tyson understood that to accomplish this
task, he needed many people with a variety of talents and motiva-
tions to work together; he knew that this would require them all to
have the same end goal in mind. Tyson wasn’t anyone’s boss, and he
had no formal authority. He was just a volunteer like everyone else.
But he saw an opportunity to make a difference.
“If I was going to get this done,” Tyson said, “I would need
supplies, support, and, above all, I needed other volunteers to get
on board.” Six young volunteers approached Tyson and asked what
he would like them to do: “I took the time with each one to explain
what needed to be done in order to transform this space, and each
time they would listen, ask questions, and make suggestions of their
own. We listened to one another’s ideas, incorporating them into an
overall plan which everyone felt a sense of ownership for. Within
an hour, we were a team of excited and energetic volunteers ready
to work hard, stretching our comfort zones to work together toward
a common goal.”
Tyson explained that everyone kept checking in with each other
as tasks got accomplished. The team kept everything out in the open,
helping maintain both a high level of trust and an appreciation for
their interconnectedness. People did whatever they could do to help
without being asked, and when faced with any challenges, they
figured out for themselves what needed to be done. “Whether it was
moving tables, removing trash, or folding blankets, every task felt
important, and you could use your own creativity to solve prob-
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E into a clean, organized oasis where weary rescue workers could get
a hot meal, take a nap, and escape, even for a moment, the grim
reality of their task at Ground Zero.
Tyson, like other leaders we studied, realized that keeping indi-
viduals focused on a common goal promoted a stronger sense of
teamwork than emphasizing individual objectives. For cooperation
to succeed, roles must also be designed so that every person’s con-
tributions are both additive and cumulative to the final outcome.
Individuals must clearly understand that unless they each contribute
whatever they can, the team fails. It’s like putting together a jigsaw
puzzle. Each person has a piece, and if even one piece is missing,
the puzzle is impossible to complete.18
Support Norms of Reciprocity
In any effective long-term relationship, there must be a sense of
reciprocity. If one partner always gives and the other always takes,
the one who gives will feel taken advantage of, and the one who
takes will feel superior. In such a climate, cooperation is virtually
impossible. University of Michigan political scientist Robert Axelrod
dramatically demonstrated the power of reciprocity in the well-
known study of what’s known as the Prisoner’s Dilemma.19 The
dilemma is this: two parties (individuals or groups) are confronted
with a series of situations in which they must decide whether or not
to cooperate. They don’t know in advance what the other party will
do. There are two basic strategies—cooperate or compete—and four
possible outcomes based on the choices players make: win-lose, lose-
win, lose-lose, and win-win.
The maximum individual payoff comes when the first player
selects an uncooperative strategy and the second player chooses to
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party gains at the other’s expense. If both parties choose not to
cooperate and attempt to maximize individual payoffs, then both
lose. If both parties choose to cooperate, both win, though the indi-
vidual payoff for a cooperative move is less than for a competitive
one (in the short run).
Bob invited scientists from around the world to submit their
strategies for winning in a computer simulation of this test of win-
win versus win-lose strategies. “Amazingly enough,” says Bob, “the
winner was the simplest of all strategies submitted: cooperate on the
first move and then do whatever the other player did on the previous
move. This strategy succeeded by eliciting cooperation from others,
not by defeating them.”20 Simply put, people who reciprocate are
more likely to be successful than those who try to maximize indi-
vidual advantage.
The dilemmas that can be successfully solved by this strategy are
by no means restricted to theoretical research. Similar predicaments
arise every day: Should I try to maximize my own personal gain?
What price might I pay for this action? Should I give up a little for
the sake of others? Will others take advantage of me if I’m coopera-
tive? Reciprocity turns out to be the most successful approach for
such daily decisions, because it demonstrates both a willingness to
be cooperative and an unwillingness to be taken advantage of. As a
long-term strategy, reciprocity minimizes the risk of escalation: If
people know that you’ll respond in kind, why would they start
trouble? And if people know that you’ll reciprocate, they know that
the best way to deal with you is to cooperate and become recipients
of your cooperation.
Reciprocity leads to predictability and stability in relationships.
It’s less stressful to work with others when you understand how
they will behave in response—especially to your own behavior in
negotiations and disagreements.21 Harvard professor of public policy

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E Robert Putnam explains, “The norm of generalized reciprocity is so
fundamental to civilized life that all prominent moral codes contain
some equivalent of the Golden Rule.”22 When you treat others as
you’d like for them to treat you, it’s likely that they’ll repay you many
times over.
This was precisely Florian Bennhold’s reaction after interviewing
with Wilson Rickerson, who ran his own consulting business on
energy policy issues. “Wilson built our relationship on trust,” says
Florian. “He made clear that he was willing to take the first step.
After a few hours, he invited me to work on a project with him, and
he immediately started sharing his contacts with me mainly through
direct introductions. I remember telling my wife how excited I was
to work with him because I felt that he trusted my abilities.” And
the payoff was clear: “I knew that because of Wilson’s trust, support,
and the way he made me feel, I performed better than I ever
expected.” What’s more, says Florian, “I felt compelled to reciprocate
Wilson’s trust.”
Once you help others succeed, acknowledge their accomplish-
ments, and help them shine, they’ll never forget it. The “norm of
reciprocity” comes into play, and they are more than willing to return
the favor. Whether the rewards of cooperation are tangible or intan-
gible, when people understand that they will be better off by coop-
erating, they’re inclined to recognize the legitimacy of others’ interests
in an effort to promote their own welfare.
Structure Projects to Promote Joint Effort
People are more likely to cooperate if the payoffs for interdependent
efforts are greater than those associated with working independently.
Many people growing up in Westernized countries that emphasize
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they’ll do better if everyone were each rewarded solely based on his
or her individual accomplishments. They’re wrong. In a world that’s
trying to do more with less, competitive strategies lose to strategies
that promote collaboration.23
The motivation for working diligently on one’s own job while
keeping in mind the overall common objective is reinforced when
it is the end result that gets rewarded and not simply individual
efforts. Most profit-sharing plans, for example, are based on meeting
the company’s goals and not simply those of separate independent
units or departments. Certainly each individual within the group
has a distinct role, but on world-class teams, everyone knows that if
he only does his individual part well, he is unlikely to achieve the
group’s goal. After all, if you could do it alone, why would you need
a team? Soccer isn’t a one-on-eleven sport; hockey isn’t one-on-six;
baseball isn’t one-on-nine; basketball isn’t one-on-five.24 These sports
require team effort—as do all organizational achievements.
Cooperative behavior requires individuals to understand that by
working together they will be able to accomplish something that no
one can accomplish on his or her own. Jim Vesterman considered
himself a reasonably good team player, yet he learned an indelible
lesson in the power of group effort when he joined the Marine
Corps.25 It started on his first day of boot camp at Parris Island as
he and his fellow recruits learned to make their beds—when Jim
learned that you can’t survive without helping the guys next to you.
His experience went something like this: the men are told that their
objective is to have every bed in the platoon made; the drill instruc-
tor begins counting, and everyone has three minutes to make his
bed (“hospital corners and the proverbial quarter bounce”); they
step back in line when done. So, Jim explains, he made his bed,
stepped back in line, and felt “pretty proud, because when three
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E finished.” However, the drill instructor wasn’t handing out any con-
gratulations; rather, he was shouting out that they had all day to get
this right, looking at all the beds that were unfinished.
Jim ripped off the sheets again . . . and again, and again. Finally
the drill instructor looked him in the eye and pointed out, “Your
bunkmate isn’t done. What are you doing?” Apparently, Jim had
been thinking that he was done while his bunkmate struggled.
Finally, the light dawned on Jim, and working together with his
bunkmate, they made both beds, and much faster than they had
each done on his own. Still, not everyone in the platoon was finish-
ing on time. The two of them looked at one another and realized
that although they might be done, they had to help their buddies
next to them, and then those next to them, and so on. Jim went
from thinking that he’d do as good a job as he could on his assign-
ment to “making beds for anyone who needed help” and appreciating
that they were all in this together.26
You can also structure joint efforts by emphasizing long-term
rather than short-term payoffs. That is, make certain that the long-
term benefits of mutual cooperation are greater than the short-term
benefits of working alone or competing with others. You need to get
people to realize that by working together they can complete the
project faster than by thinking about any short-term (or individual)
victories resulting from doing their own thing or complaining or
blaming or competing with others for scarce resources.
Support Face-to-Face Interactions
Group goals and roles, shared identity, reciprocity, and promoting
joint effort are all essential for collaboration to occur, but positive
face-to-face interaction is also vital. People can act as a cohesive team
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This is true not only locally but also in globally distributed relation-
ships. Getting to know others firsthand is vital to cultivating trust
and collaboration. And this need for face-to-face communication
increases with the complexity of the issues,27 as Wilson Chu, program
manager at RingCentral, realized: “Until you see someone’s face,
they are not a real person to you.”
This is why while managing an offshore development team, he
asked people to turn on their webcams so that everyone could see
one another. He felt that this made “everyone more comfortable with
expressing their ideas because it made the interactions more per-
sonal—we each had more than just a name; we also had a face.” It’s
the leader’s job, as Wilson points out, to provide frequent and lasting
opportunities for team members to associate and intermingle among
disciplines, among departments, and across continents. Technology
and social media can certainly enhance communications. Virtual
connections abound, and in a global economy, no organization
could function if people had to fly halfway around the world to
exchange information, make decisions, or resolve disputes. That said,
the stroke of a key, the click of a mouse, or the switch of a video
doesn’t get you the same results as an intimate in-person conversa-
tion. There are limits to virtual trust. Firsthand experience with
another human being is just a more reliable way of creating identi-
fication, increasing adaptability, and reducing misunderstandings.28
Virtual trust, like virtual reality, is one step removed from the
real thing. Human beings are social animals; it’s in people’s nature
to want to interact, and bits and bytes make for a very weak social
foundation.29 It’s certainly true that work relationships in today’s
global economy depend more and more on electronic connections,
and many work “places” are virtual in nature. But you have to rec-
oncile the reality of virtual organizations with the knowledge that
building trust depends on getting to know one another deeply. In

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E addition to relying on emails, instant messages, teleconferences, and
videoconferences, you need to look to other technologies such as the
bike, the car, the train, and the airplane.
People who expect durable, frequent face-to-face interactions in
the future are more likely to cooperate in the present. Knowing that
you’ll have to deal again with someone tomorrow, next week, or next
year ensures that you won’t easily forget about how you’ve treated
him and how he’s treated you. This makes the impact of today’s
actions on tomorrow’s dealings that much more pronounced. In
addition, frequent interactions between people promote positive
feelings on the part of each for the other. Encouraging people to
transfer between team sites for a period of time ensures familiarity
with the culture and practices of their peers. This notion of durable
interactions may seem quaint and anachronistic in this global eco-
nomic environment, in which speed is a competitive advantage and
loyalty is no longer a strong virtue. But that doesn’t make the reality
disappear. Begin with the assumption that in the future you’ll be
interacting with this person again in some way and that this relation-
ship will be important to your mutual success.
Foster Collaboration
“You can’t do it alone” is the mantra of exemplary leaders—
and for good reason. You simply can’t get extraordinary things
done by yourself. Collaboration is the master skill that enables
corporations, communities, and even classrooms to function ef-
T A K E A C T I O N

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fectively. Collaboration is sustained when you create a climate
of trust and facilitate effective long-term relationships among
your constituents. You have to promote a sense of mutual de-
pendence—feeling part of a group in which everyone knows he
or she needs the others to be successful. Without that sense of
“we’re all in this together,” it’s virtually impossible to keep ef-
fective teamwork going.
Trust is the lifeblood of collaborative teamwork. To cre-
ate and sustain the conditions for long-lasting connections, you
have to be able to trust others, they have to trust you, and
they have to trust each other. With out trust you cannot lead,
or get great things accomplished. Share information and knowl-
edge freely with your constituents, show that you understand
their needs and interests, open up to their influence, make wise
use of their abilities and expertise, and—most of all—demon-
strate that you trust them before you ask them to trust you.
The challenge in facilitating relationships is making sure
people recognize how much they need one another to excel—
how interdependent they really are. Cooperative goals and
roles contribute to a sense of collective purpose, and the best
incentive for people to work to achieve shared goals is the
knowledge that you and others will reciprocate, helping them in
return. Help begets help, just as trust begets trust. By support-
ing norms of reciprocity and structuring projects to reward joint
efforts, you enable people to clearly understand that it’s in their
best interest to cooperate. Get people interacting and encour-
age face-to-face interactions as often as possible to reinforce
the durability of relationships.
Exemplary leaders Foster Collaboration by building trust
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E
• Explicitly say to your constituents, “I trust you.” Saying it
matters, and, obviously, you’d better mean it.
• Extend trust to others first, even if they haven’t already
extended it to you.
• Share information about yourself—your hopes, your
strengths, your fears, your mistakes—the things that make
you who you are.
• Spend time getting to know your constituents and find out
what makes them tick.
• Show concern for the problems and aspirations others
have.
• Listen, listen, and listen some more.
• Put the interests of the organization and of your
constituents ahead of your own.
• Clearly articulate and frequently repeat the common goal
that you are all striving to achieve, the shared values that
are important, and the larger purpose of which everyone is
a part.
• Do someone a favor. If he or she does one for you,
reciprocate.
• Structure projects so that there is a common goal that
requires cooperation.
• Make sure that people understand how they are
interdependent with one another.
• Find ways to get people together face-to-face.
Use The Leadership Challenge Mobile Tool app to
immediately integrate these activities into your life and make
this practice an ongoing part of your behavioral repertoire.

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CASEY MORK AND HIS COLLEAGUES weren’t quite sure
what to make of their new manager. Initially they complained a lot
because he didn’t seem to be making decisions for them, and he
didn’t provide detailed instructions about how they should improve
or change a document, as their previous manager had done. He also
shared lots of “high-up information,” which again, their previous
manager had not bothered them with. He seemed a bit distant and
didn’t “get into the weeds” with his team members.
But as time went on, Casey realized that “this new fellow had
really trusted us right from the start,” and although initially his
trust gave them the idea that they could get away with anything,
they “learned that he knew enough about us that we weren’t likely
to sink the ship.” As a consequence, a great deal more collaboration
started to emerge between teams. They began talking with each
other a lot more, and team members got to see each other in a
whole new light. Because people started to gain a much better
understanding of what they could deliver on and what they couldn’t,
C H A P T E R 9
Strengthen
Others

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E fewer postsale complications arose, and productivity started to
go up.
Unlike their previous manager, their new manager facilitated
relationships and broke down barriers between functional groups.
He offered them the chance to create their own boundaries, and they
discovered that they needed relatively few to be effective. He shared
information, involved people in discussions and deliberations, and
allowed them discretion over their own decisions. As a result, Casey
and his team began to realize that the team was accountable for their
own success and failure. They became more self-determining. Casey
observed that
our team suddenly felt much more powerful as a result of this
transfer of decision making. His praise began to look more like
a conveyance of power. When he told us a project looked
fantastic, and that he hadn’t put much supervision into it, it
made us feel like we created something, instead of executed on
someone else’s plan.
He shared his power with us, which led to an increased
ability and desire to execute. The previous manager kept the
decision making to herself, didn’t wholly trust us, and turned
out to serve as not much more than a bottleneck. Given more
opportunities to be self-directed and make real decisions, we
began to gain this incredible new sense of competence and
confidence—because we knew our success and failure was on us
and us alone.
Looking back on this experience, Casey reflected about how
“real latitude and not supervision allowed for the most efficient
means of collaboration.” Transferring power to group members, he

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noted, “also conveys trust, which will almost always lead to a better
work product.” Casey realized that the most effective leaders help
people both feel and be more powerful and able to make things
happen on their own.
Casey’s experience illustrates how exemplary leaders make a
commitment to Strengthen Others. They enable people to take
ownership of and responsibility for their group’s success by en-
hancing their competence and their confidence in their abilities, by
listening to their ideas and acting on them, by involving them in
important decisions, and by acknowledging and giving credit for
their contributions.
Creating a climate in which people are fully engaged and feel in
control of their own lives is at the heart of strengthening others.
Exemplary leaders build an environment that develops both people’s
abilities to perform a task and their self-confidence. In a climate of
competence and confidence, people don’t hesitate to hold themselves
personally accountable for results, and they feel profound ownership
for their achievements.
To Strengthen Others, exemplary leaders engage in two essen-
tials. They
• ENHANCE SELF-DETERMINATION
• DEVELOP COMPETENCE AND CONFIDENCE
Leaders significantly increase people’s belief in their own ability
to make a difference. They move from being in control to giving over
control to others. becoming their coach. They help others learn new
skills, develop existing talents, and provide the institutional supports
required for ongoing growth and change. In the final analysis, leaders
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E ENHANCE SELF-DETERMINATION
Leaders accept and act on the paradox of power: you become more
powerful when you give your own power away. Long before empow-
erment was written into the popular vocabulary, exemplary leaders
understood how important it was for their constituents to feel strong,
capable, and efficacious. Constituents who feel weak, incompetent,
and insignificant will consistently underperform; they want to flee
the organization and are ripe for disenchantment, even revolution.
People who are not confident about their power, regardless of
their organizational position or place, tend to hoard whatever shreds
of influence they have. Powerless managers tend to adopt petty and
dictatorial styles. Powerlessness also creates organizational systems in
which political skills are essential, and “covering your backside” and
“passing the buck” are the preferred modes of handling interdepart-
mental differences.1
To get a better sense of how it feels to be powerless as well as
powerful, we’ve asked thousands of people over the past thirty years
to tell us about their own experiences of being in these situations.
Think of actions or situations that have made you feel powerless,
weak, or insignificant, like a pawn in someone else’s chess game. Are
they similar to what others have reported?
Representative Actions and Conditions That People Report Make
Them Feel Powerless
“No one was interested in, listened to, or paid attention to my
opinion.”
“People ignored or wouldn’t answer my questions.”
“I had no input into a hiring decision of someone who was to report
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“People picked me apart while I was making a presentation.”
“My boss argued with me in front of my colleagues—even called me
names.”
“My decisions were not supported by my boss, even though he said
he would back me up.”
“Someone else took credit for my hard work and results.”
“Information essential to my work was withheld, or I was out of
the loop and the last to know key data that impacted my
performance.”
“My supervisor did not care for me as an individual.”
“The manager belittled my skills, said she didn’t feel that I would
be able to be successful on this project, and made me feel
insignificant.”
“My supervisor pushed me to do things but wasn’t willing to do
them himself.”
“I was given responsibility but no authority to hold others
accountable.”
“She made sly or negative remarks about my performance.”
“My boss played favorites, and I wasn’t one of them!”
Now think about what it’s like when you feel powerful—strong,
efficacious, like the creator of your own experience. Are your recol-
lections similar to what others have experienced?
Representative Actions and Conditions That People Report Make
Them Feel Powerful
“All the financial data were shared with me.”
“I was asked to take on an important project that I had never done
before.”
“I was able to exercise my discretion about how we would handle a
difficult, and delicate, situation.”

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E “My manager (parent, teacher, coach, mentor) told me that I had
great potential and that he/she believed in me.”
“I was able to make decisions about key aspects of the project.”
“The organization invested resources in helping me to learn how to
do this job, or solve this problem, more effectively.”
“My manager publicly expressed great confidence in my ability to
handle the assignment.”
“My supervisor told others about the great work I was doing.”
“My boss showed appreciation and respect to me and my
teammates.”
“He took the time to let me know how I was doing and where I
could be improving.”
“She gave me the chance to both learn new skills and the opportuni-
ties to apply them.”
As you examine what people say about powerless and powerful
times, there is one clear and consistent message: feeling powerful—
literally feeling “able”—comes from a deep sense of being in control of
your own life. People everywhere share this fundamental need. When
you feel able to determine your own destiny, when you believe you
are able to mobilize the resources and support necessary to complete
a task, then you will persist in your efforts to achieve. But when you
feel controlled by others, when you believe that you lack support or
resources, you show little commitment to excel. Even though you
may comply, you still realize how much more you could contribute,
if you wanted to.
Liz Wiseman, author and former Oracle vice president, makes
similar points in her research about “Multipliers”—leaders who
make everyone around them smarter—versus “Diminishers”—lead-
ers who drain the energy and capability of those around them.
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they may jump in to teach and share their ideas, they always main-
tain the ownership and accountability that others have. Failing to
do so creates dependency, and is the way of the Diminishers. They
jump in, save the day, drive results through their personal involve-
ment, and remind everyone how much smarter and more capable
they are than everyone else is or even could be. In strengthening
others, leaders adopt the assumptions of Multipliers, believing in
essence that “people are smart and will figure it out” and that they
“will get even smarter in the process.”2
Any leadership practice that increases others’ sense of self-
determination, self-confidence, and personal effectiveness makes
them more powerful and greatly enhances the possibility of their
success.3 Self-determination can be enhanced in a number of ways,
based on three core principles which ensure that people are able to
decide for themselves: choice, latitude, and personal accountability.
Provide Choices
Researchers use the term “organizational citizenship behavior” to
describe those actions that employees take that are above and beyond
their job descriptions or task requirements—that make the differ-
ence between ordinary and extraordinary individual and organiza-
tional performance.4 These kinds of actions are illustrated in this
story from Tim Haun, a personal trainer with the Decathlon
Club, after he and his team experienced a change in senior
management.5
One of the first changes the new leaders made was to set up a
structure so that the trainers could earn health benefits, vacation
time, and sick time. This change established a baseline level of
trust, and showed the trainers that the new leadership cared about
them and had their best interests and needs in mind. Monthly goals

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E for the group were set around the number of hours worked, and this
required trainers to set individual goals for themselves and to be
responsible for recruiting clients to fill that number of hours. Their
individual goals and the actual number of hours that each trainer
worked were announced at monthly meetings. This newly required
accountability and responsibility made all the trainers feel more
in charge of their own destiny. They felt as though they were each
running his or her own business within the larger business, which
enhanced their own sense of control and power. In addition to this,
the company hosted continuing education workshops, free of charge,
at various points during the year. Trainers could choose to attend
these events or not, but most of them did.
Trainers began suggesting ideas at their monthly team meetings,
and many of them were implemented. For example, all the trainers
had to wear uniforms, but there was a lag time before their new
uniforms arrived, so one trainer suggested that they create shirts with
different slogans on them each month, which they did for several
months, with different people suggesting various slogans. Another
trainer suggested that they start an “every trainer needs a trainer
program,” in which they trained each other. During the implementa-
tion of this program, they learned different training tips and tricks
from each other and were able to observe each other at work, thus
building their confidence in one another as a team.
The result, according to Tim, was an increase in their overall
total number of billable hours (and thus salaries); giving the trainers
choices built their commitment and productivity. As this story
shows, leaders exercise guided autonomy: although they do set stan-
dards and hold everyone accountable for shared values and visions,
they still give people the opportunity to make choices about
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You want people to take initiative and be self-directed. You want
them to think for themselves and not continually ask someone else,
“What should I do?” This ability cannot be developed if you tell
people what to do and how to do it. They really can’t learn to act
independently unless they get to exercise some degree of choice. If
they have no freedom of choice and can act only in ways prescribed
by the organization, then how can they respond when the customer
or another employee behaves in ways that aren’t in the script? If they
have to ask the “boss” what to do—even if they think they know
what needs to be done and feel they could do it—then they are going
to be slowing down the entire organization. And if their boss doesn’t
know, then the boss will have to ask his or her manager. And up the
ladder it goes. The only way to create an efficient and effective orga-
nization is to give people the chance to use their best judgment in
applying their knowledge and skills. This implies, of course, that
you’ve prepared them to make these choices and that you’ve educated
them in the guiding principles of the organization.
Consider how Aruba Networks has done away completely with
its vacation policy.6 Like most every company, they used to spend a
great deal of time and energy keeping track and reporting about
vacations. Today they simply tell every employee to take his vacation
when he needs it, for as long as he needs it, and the only proviso is
that he has to make sure that the time off won’t interfere with his
work getting done. When you give people choices, they will find it
harder to blame “the company” (or management) when things don’t
go their way or when they don’t like the way things are going;
because, after all, if they don’t like the way something is being done,
then they can do something about it—and taking initiative like this
is one of the things leaders do. By providing choices, you are enabling
others to lead themselves.

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E Structure Jobs to Offer Latitude
If you want higher levels of performance and greater initiative from
your constituents, you must be proactive in designing work that
allows them latitude, a close cousin of choice. To feel in control of
their own work lives, people need to be able to take nonroutine
action, exercise independent judgment, and make decisions that
affect how they do their work, without having to check with someone
else.7 It means being creative and flexible—liberated from a standard
set of rules, procedures, or schedules. Responsive service and extra
employee efforts emerge when people have the necessary leeway to
meet customer needs and sufficient authority to serve customer
wants. David McCullough, a sales manager with a high-technology
firm, told us about two personal experiences that illustrate how lati-
tude in a job (or lack thereof ) can either delight or frustrate a
customer:
I wandered into the “Alpha” men’s store at the local galleria. I
needed some new slacks for work; so after trying several on, I
selected a comfortable one that was on sale for about 60 percent
off the regular price. Excited about my selection, I headed to
the checkout counter. The cashier scanned the tag and informed
me that the pants were actually not on sale. When I pointed
out the fact that the tag had a sales amount written on it, he
said there was nothing he could do because the computer was
telling him differently. I insisted it was on the sales rack, that it
wasn’t my fault that someone didn’t update the computer, and
that I was entitled to the sales price on the tag. He finally
picked up the phone and called his manager “upstairs.” I don’t
know precisely who he talked to, but approximately fifteen
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given permission to give me the price that was indicated on
the tag.
Not too long after this experience, I needed to buy a shirt
and a new suit, so this time around I headed to “Beta” men’s
store. Again, I found myself gravitating toward the sales rack
and found a nice dress shirt. It was also marked down, and
when I went to checkout, the sales associate informed me that
it had been placed on the wrong rack. Before I could say a
word, he claimed this wasn’t a problem and honored the
discount advertised on the sales rack. I was ecstatic and as a
result decided that I would just go ahead and look for the suit I
needed right then and there; and I purchased one, not on sale,
so the total transaction wasn’t a trivial amount.
The fundamental difference between David’s two experiences is
that employees in one organization were trusted and given the lati-
tude to use their judgment, whereas those at the other were viewed
merely as cogs in some machine, neither trusted nor respected for
their common sense. “There may be a certain amount of risk,” David
points out from his experience in sales, “in giving employees the
latitude to make ‘executive decisions.’ However, along with this
greater degree of trust comes a greater degree of accountability,
resulting in a higher degree of customer satisfaction (and profitabil-
ity).” These ideas don’t just apply to frontline retail personnel. A
study of the Fortune 200 revealed that in the most successful com-
panies, divisional managers could spend ten times the amount that
their counterparts could at the less successful organizations.8
Only adaptive individuals and organizations will thrive in today’s
dynamic global environment. This means you have to support more
and greater individual discretion to meet the changing demands of
customers, clients, suppliers, and other stakeholders. With increased

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E discretion comes an increased ability to use and expand one’s talents,
training, and experience. The payoff is improved performance.
Foster Accountability
When people take personal responsibility and are held accountable
for their actions, their colleagues are much more inclined to want
to work with them and are more motivated to cooperate in general.
Individual accountability is a critical element of every collaborative
effort. Everyone has to do his or her part for a group to function
effectively.
While leading a process improvement initiative for Citibank in
the Philippines, Ana Aboitiz realized that she could not do every-
thing herself and that she would have to get other people involved
and responsible for the project’s success. Although recently certified
in Six Sigma methodology, she had little technical expertise around
the bank’s statement rendition process, and had never worked with
these team members who were drawn from across various functional
areas. Dividing tasks and assigning responsibilities, Ana said, “was
very difficult for me. I had full responsibility for the project’s success,
and I did not know how to pass on this sense of accountability to
team members that did not report to me directly. I was afraid that
they would fail, and this would reflect on me.” What did she do?
I started the process of dividing tasks by acknowledging that I
had little knowledge about the particulars of the statement
rendition process and recognized that they had the technical
expertise. As a result, I proposed that my role would be to
provide guidance, Six Sigma training, as well as support for
eliminating obstacles the team might encounter along the way.
Just as I had proposed my own role, I decided to give each team

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member a chance to identify responsibilities where they felt
they could add the most value based on their expertise or
interests. Given the opportunity to mold their role in
the project, I noticed that they became more engaged in the
project. Right away, they began to brainstorm out loud and
interact with each other.
Ana shared her power (in this case, her knowledge) with the
team and validated them by highlighting that they were the experts.
She gave them choices and the latitude to take on responsibility
because they were the stakeholders in this process. She made them
powerful by following through on her promise that the ideas they
came up with would be implemented on the operations floor. “I
learned,” said Ana, “that in order to foster accountability, you need
to delegate authority and give others a chance to take responsibility.
By trusting others with responsibility, you are letting them know
you believe in them and that you have confidence that they can
achieve it.”
Ana understands something very fundamental about strength-
ening others. She knows that the power to choose rests on the
willingness to be held accountable. She knows that the more freedom
of choice people have, the more personal responsibility they must
accept. There’s also a bonus: the more that people believe that every-
one else is taking responsibility for his or her part of the project—
and has the competence to do it—the more trusting and the more
cooperative they’re going to be. People will be more confident in
doing their part when they believe others will do theirs. This inter-
connectedness between choice and accountability takes on increas-
ing importance in virtually linked global workplaces. In addition, as
Ana notes, “when you allow others to take on responsibility, you
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E learning opportunities.” As others assume more responsibility, leaders
can expend more energy in other areas, enhancing their own sphere
of influence and bringing additional resources back to their units to
be distributed once again among the group members.
Some believe that teams and other cooperative endeavors mini-
mize individual accountability. They argue that if people are encour-
aged to work collectively, somehow they’ll take less responsibility for
their own actions than if they are encouraged to compete or to do
things on their own. The evidence doesn’t support this point of view.9
It’s true that some people become social loafers when working in
groups, slacking off while others do their jobs for them. But this
doesn’t last for long, because their colleagues quickly tire of carrying
the extra load. Either the slacker steps up to the responsibility,
or the team wants that person out—provided the team has shared
goals and shared accountability.
Enhancing self-determination means giving people control over
their own lives. Therefore you have to give them something of sub-
stance to control and for which they are accountable. In Table 9.1,
we offer a few suggestions on how you can foster individual account-
ability among your constituents.
Remember to provide the necessary resources—for example,
materials, money, time, people, and information—for people to
perform autonomously. There’s nothing more disempowering than
to have lots of responsibility for doing something but nothing to do
it with. People’s increased sphere of influence should be relevant to
the pressing concerns and core technology of the business. Choosing
the color of the paint may be a place to start, but you’d better give
people influence over more substantive issues in time. For example,
if quality is top priority, find ways to expand people’s influence and
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DEVELOP COMPETENCE
AND CONFIDENCE
Choice, latitude, and accountability fuel people’s sense of power
and control over their lives. But as necessary as enhancing self-
determination is, it’s insufficient. Without the knowledge, skills,
information, and resources to do a job expertly, and without feeling
competent to skillfully execute the choices required, people feel
overwhelmed and disabled. And even if they have the resources,
there may be times when people don’t have the confidence that
they’re allowed to use them or that they’ll be backed up if things
• Make certain that everyone in your organization, no matter the task,
has a customer. The customer can be internal or external, but each
person needs to know whom he or she is serving.
• Substantially increase signature authority at all levels.
• Remove or reduce unnecessary approval steps.
• Eliminate as many rules as possible.
• Decrease the amount of routine work.
• Automate routine work wherever possible.
• Assign nonroutine jobs.
• Support the exercise of independent judgment.
• Encourage creative solutions to problems.
• Define jobs more broadly—as projects, not tasks.
• Provide greater freedom of access, vertically and horizontally,
inside and outside.
TABLE 9.1 Ideas for Fostering Individual
Accountability

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E don’t go as well as expected. And there may be times when they just
lack the self-confidence to do what they know needs to be done.
Developing competence and building confidence are essential
to delivering on the organization’s promises and maintaining the
credibility of leaders and team members alike. To make extraordinary
things happen, you must invest in strengthening the capacity and
the resolve of everyone in the organization. This is especially impor-
tant during times of great uncertainty and significant challenge.
Think about a time when the challenge you faced was greater
than the skills you had. How did you feel when the challenge
was high but your skill was low? If you’re like most people, you
felt anxious, nervous, scared, and the like. Now think of a time
when your level of skill was greater than the level of challenge in the
job. How did you feel? Bored and apathetic, most likely. Do you
do your best work when you’re anxious or bored? Of course not;
you do it when the challenge you face is just slightly greater than
your current level of skill. That’s when you feel stretched but not
stressed out.
People often refer to being “in the flow” when they feel that they
are performing effortlessly and expertly despite the difficulty of the
experience. They are confident that their skills match the level of
challenge of the experience, even though the challenge might be a
bit of a stretch. Claremont Graduate University professor of psychol-
ogy Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi has spent his entire academic career
studying the relationship of challenge and skill to optimal perfor-
mance, and he finds that “when high challenges are matched with
high skills, then the deep involvement that sets flow apart from
ordinary life is likely to occur.”10 This relationship is illustrated
graphically in Figure 9.1.
Although flow is not possible with every single task in every
single situation, it’s something that is characteristic of peak perfor-

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mances. Exemplary leaders strive to create the conditions that make
flow possible. That means they need to continuously assess their
constituents’ capacity to perform in the context of the challenges
they face. Such assessment requires attention to the skills and the
willpower of each person they lead.
Rakesh Soundaranathan put these principles into action when
he was a senior member of Oracle’s direct sales force. He realized
that when new sales reps came on board, they were being inundated
with so much information that they felt as though they were “drink-
ing from a fire hose.” Rakesh introduced a mentor program to help
guide new hires in acquiring the requisite skills and creating the
conditions for them to meet the challenges they faced. Whenever a
new sales rep—someone at the company for less than three months—
had a question, Rakesh said that “I would step away from my desk,
FIGURE 9.1 Optimal Performance, Challenge, and Skill
Relaxation
Flow
or
Optimal
Experience
Anxiety
Worry
Apathy
Boredom
Control
Arousal
Low High
High
Low
C
ha
lle
ng
es
Skills
Source: M. Csikszentmihalyi, Finding Flow: The Psychology of Engagement
with Everyday Life (New York: Basic Books, 1997), 31. Copyright © 1998 Mihaly
Csikszentmihalyi. Reprinted with permission of Basic Books, a member of the
Perseus Book Group.

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E walk over to them, and answer their question as best I could.”
Sometimes that meant going into a conference room, armed with
product collateral and finance textbooks. He would sketch out dia-
grams, processes, or technology infrastructures to help the fledgling
rep understand the products and marketplace. Sometimes their
questions were around internal processes within Oracle—such ques-
tions as “How should we communicate with cross-functional teams?”
or “What is the best way to write an executive summary?” Other
senior sales reps took on mentees; indeed, after a while, these reps
started meeting themselves to discuss how mentorship of the new
sales reps was coming along. Their coaching, Rakesh noted, “made
a tremendous difference in retention, but more importantly it built
everyone’s sense of competence and created strong collaborative
efforts.”
Educate and Share Information
People can’t do what they don’t know how to do. So when you
increase the latitude and discretion of your constituents, you also
have to increase expenditures on training and development. When
people aren’t sure about how to perform the critical tasks or are
fearful of making mistakes, they may be reluctant to exercise their
judgment. “Ensuring that employees are given the training they need
and involving them in decisions that impact their work creates both
competence and commitment,” observe Michael Burchell and Jen-
nifer Robin, authors of The Great Workplace. In their research, they
find that “Great Place to Work” companies view training and devel-
opment as a way of supporting employees and showing respect for
them and their customers: “They understand that as the business
continues to grow, they will need employees who can readily step
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skills on the fly, hiring from the outside, or simply losing market
opportunity.”11
Strengthening others requires up-front investments in initiatives
that develop people’s competencies and foster their confidence.
These investments produce profits: companies that spend more than
the average amount on training have a higher return on investment
than companies that are below-average spenders.12 Organizations
that have invested more than the average amount of money on train-
ing enjoy higher levels of employee involvement and commitment
and better levels of customer service, along with greater understand-
ing of and alignment with company visions and values.
Here’s what Erika Long did when she was faced with a lack of
skills in some of her team members at Macys.com:
I knew that they needed certain training, not only to grow as
individuals but to complete the tasks assigned to them. To
remedy this, I worked with each team member, teaching them
certain buyer responsibilities and explaining critical situations.
An issue came through from one of our vendors, and instead of
solving it on my own I called the assistant buyer over and
walked her through how I would think about fixing the
problem. It was clear that she understood, and the next time
was able to do it herself.
We also created smaller teams, partnerships, where each
person got to know one another better and helped develop each
other’s skills and confidence. With that confidence came better
understanding and trust in one another. By educating, training,
and coaching the other team members, they built self-confidence,
and our team became even stronger.
Sharing information with constituents—which showed up prom-
inently on the list of what made people feel powerful, and the lack

http://Macys.com

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E of which was frequently cited as making people feel powerless—is
another significant educational tactic. Strategist Nilofer Merchant
echoes this observation: “Everyone is better off when they know why
decisions are made with as much accuracy as possible. It gives them
an understanding of what matters and provides information on
which to base the trade-offs constantly being made at every level.
When reasons behind decisions are not shared, the decisions seem
arbitrary and possibly self-serving.”13 This is what Erika found when
she brought her team together and explained to them their chal-
lenges and opportunities. She outlined the tasks that needed to be
completed and the projects she wanted the team to take on. She
shared with them what upper management expected. Erika went on
to say,
Managers often think that withholding information will help
the team be more focused; or perhaps it has to do with wanting
the power for themselves. However, I found that sharing
information fosters collaboration and communication among
the team. Getting everyone on “the same page” not only helped
them feel like they were an important and valued member of
the team, but it also actually helped the work process. The more
information they had, the more they understood why they were
doing what they were doing, and the more “bought-in” to the
team’s overall goal they were.
For leaders, developing the competence and confidence of their
constituents so that they are more qualified, more capable, and
more effective and are leaders in their own right reflects their
appreciation of the truth that they can’t get anything extraordinary
accomplished all by themselves. Making people smarter is the job of
every leader. In today’s world, if your constituents aren’t growing

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and learning in their jobs, they’re highly likely to leave and find
better ones.
Organize Work to Build Competence
and Ownership
People confronted critical organizational issues in their personal-best
leadership case studies. Although it may seem obvious that people
do their best when the work is critical to success, this principle is
often lost in the day-to-day design of work. Organize assignments
so that people feel that their work is relevant to the pressing concerns
of the business. Enrich their responsibilities so that they experience
variety in their tasks and have opportunities to make meaningful
decisions about how their work gets accomplished. Make sure that
your constituents are well represented on the task forces, commit-
tees, teams, and problem-solving groups dealing with the critical
tasks and issues in your organization. Involve them in programs,
meetings, and decisions that have a direct impact on their job
performance.
Your constituents can’t act like owners and provide leadership if
they lack a fundamental understanding of how the organization
operates. To fully comprehend critical organizational issues and
tasks, they need to be able to answer such questions as “Who are
our most important customers, clients, suppliers, and stakeholders?
How do they perceive us?” “How do we measure success?” “What
has our track record been over the past five years?” “What new
products or services will we initiate in the next six months?” If your
constituents can’t answer critical questions like these, how can they
work together to transform shared values and common purposes
into reality? How can they know how their performance affects
other teams, units, divisions, and ultimately the success of the entire

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E enterprise or endeavor? How can they feel very strong or capable if
they don’t know the answers to the same questions every “owner” or
CEO would know?14
When Raj Limaye joined Datapro (India) as deputy manager,
his group wasn’t feeling very competent or successful. To deal with
these sentiments, he immediately implemented regular meetings,
with new themes and new chairs each week, and made a concerted
effort to get everyone present to share his or her ideas. He met with
group members individually and asked them what they wanted to
do in their jobs. Although their answers were not all the same, Raj
made certain that he found challenging extensions to the tasks they
were performing, and added variety to each job: “I tried removing
unnecessary routine tasks wherever possible; and, if not, then these
were rotated. In six months we had reduced the routine tasks to a
minimum, as everyone shared ideas about how to improve these
tasks or find alternatives. We helped everyone become more compe-
tent by creating a learning climate where people needed to look
beyond their own job descriptions and organizational boundaries.
People were assigned important tasks, and I made them accountable
at the same time.”
Like Raj and Erika, exemplary leaders carefully look at what
constituents are doing in their jobs and figure out where and how
their tasks and positions could be enriched. They provide sufficient
information so that constituents feel that they have the perspective
of owners in making decisions, which consequently fosters greater
competence and enhances their self-confidence.
Foster Self-Confidence
Even if people know how to do what needs to be done, a lack of
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key step in a psychological process that affects individuals’ intrinsic
needs for self-determination. People have an internal need to influ-
ence other people and life’s events so as to experience some sense of
order and stability in their lives. Feeling confident that they can
adequately cope with events, situations, and people puts them in a
position to exercise leadership. Without sufficient self-confidence,
people lack the conviction for taking on tough challenges. The lack
of self-confidence manifests itself in feelings of helplessness, power-
lessness, and crippling self-doubt. By building constituents’ self-
confidence, you are building their inner strength to plunge ahead
in uncharted terrain, to make tough choices, to face opposition and
the like because they believe in their skills and decision-making
abilities.15
Empirical studies document how self-confidence affects people’s
performance. Managers were told, in one study, that decision making
was a skill developed through practice: the more one worked at it,
the more capable one became. Another group of managers was told
that decision making reflected their basic intellectual aptitude: the
greater one’s underlying cognitive capacities, the better his or her
decision-making ability. Working with a simulated organization,
both groups of managers dealt with a series of production orders
requiring various staffing decisions and the establishment of different
performance targets. When faced with difficult performance stan-
dards, those managers who believed that decision making was an
acquirable skill continued to set challenging goals for themselves,
used good problem-solving strategies, and fostered organizational
productivity. Their counterparts, who believed that decision-making
ability was latent (that is, you either have it or you don’t), lost con-
fidence in themselves over time as they encountered difficulties. They
lowered their aspirations for the organization, their problem-solving
deteriorated, and organizational productivity declined.16

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E In a related set of studies, one group of managers was told that
organizations and people are easily changeable. Another group was
told, “Work habits of employees are not that easily changeable, even
by good guidance. Small changes do not necessarily improve overall
outcomes.” Those managers with the confidence that they could
influence organizational outcomes through their actions maintained
a higher level of performance than those who felt that they could
do little to change things.17 A study of entry-level accountants
revealed that those with the highest self-confidence were rated ten
months later by their supervisors as having the best job performance.
Their level of self-confidence was a stronger predictor of job perfor-
mance than the actual level of skill or training they had received
before being hired.18
These studies document what experience underscores: having
confidence and believing in your ability to handle the job, no matter
how difficult, are essential in promoting and sustaining consistent
effort. By communicating to constituents that you believe that they
can be successful, you help them extend themselves and persevere.19
Coach
Although it’s true that exemplary leaders communicate their confi-
dence in others, you can’t just tell people they can do something if
they really can’t. There’s a direct connection between self-confidence
and competence. You need to coach constituents, because no one
ever got to be the best at anything without the constructive feedback,
probing questions, and active teaching of respected coaches.20 Among
sales managers, for example, developing others has been shown to
be the competency most frequently found among those at the top
of their field.21 In a three-year study of the impact of training, it was

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found that the high-improvement learners were four times more
likely to have had one-on-one conversations with their managers
than individuals who showed little or no improvement.22 In other
words, it wasn’t the training that had the most effect on improve-
ment; it was the coaching that followed it. You have to make yourself
available to offer advice and counsel as people apply what they have
learned in real-time situations.
Abhijit Chitnis provides testament to how coaching made a
difference in his development. He was just starting out in the cor-
porate world, and he was facing his first “really tough” consulting
assignment:
I had to deliver a critical solution proposal for my client,
and I was chosen to be the one who would make
the presentation. However, since this was my first client
presentation, in front of a sizeable and senior audience,
I was tense and a bit underconfident. My boss, however,
showed full confidence in me and coached me to take
advantage of this opportunity. He said that the team had
worked hard to deliver the solution, and he had absolute
confidence in our proposal. During the presentation, I made a
minor mistake in my delivery, and at the break he stood by me,
said it was going great, not to worry and that the client
absolutely loved the proposal. This really boosted my confi-
dence, and I went on to finish the presentation with great
applause.
Looking back on this experience, Abhijit appreciated how “leaders
have to coach their teams and keep the motivation and energy
flowing so that people can reach their full potential.”

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E When at their best, leaders never take control away from
others. They leave it to their constituents to make decisions and take
responsibility for them. When leaders coach, educate, enhance self-
determination, and otherwise share power, they’re demonstrating
profound trust in and respect for others’ abilities. When leaders help
others grow and develop, that help is reciprocated. People who feel
capable of influencing their leaders are more strongly attached to
those leaders and more committed to effectively carrying out their
responsibilities.23 They own their jobs.
Strengthening others involves paying attention and believing
that people are smart enough to figure things out for themselves,
if given the opportunity and provided with support and coaching.
Coaching stretches people to grow and develop their capabilities, and
it provides them with opportunities to both hone and enhance
their skills in challenging assignments.
Good coaches also ask good questions. Frances Hesselbein,
former CEO of the Girls Scouts of the U.S.A. and founding presi-
dent of the Leader to Leader Institute, says her personal motto is
“Ask, don’t tell.” She learned it from Peter Drucker, who said, “The
leader of the future asks; the leader of the past tells.”24 The benefits
of asking questions are numerous. For one, it gives other people the
room to think and to frame issues from their own perspective.
Second, asking questions indicates an underlying trust in people’s
abilities by shifting accountability, and it has the benefit of creating
almost immediate buy-in for the solution. (After all, it’s their idea.)
Asking questions also puts leaders in a coaching position, more of a
guiding role, which frees them up to think more freely and
strategically.
Neera Patel, finance manager with Applied Materials, richly
describes her own experiences of coaching one of her direct reports
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The objective of the meeting was to teach her how I dealt
with a mapping issue in the financial systems. I thought
about how I could approach this entire meeting without
speaking in statements. I was able to get through 80
percent of the meeting with questions only. Thinking
back to how the meeting went, I am shocked at what I
learned about how to lead others. I was able to pull
information out of her, thereby guiding her to learn
what the issue was and how to approach it without
having to work as hard. It was amazing! I also learned that
she knew more than I gave her credit for, which is
something I would not have known had I approached this
another way.
I first showed her the reports out of the two financial
systems and asked, “What do you see wrong here?” Then I
asked her, “What seems to be off between the systems?
What is the specific trigger that is causing these mapping
issues? How can we approach the fix? Is this a temporary fix?
How can we fix this permanently? Who are the players that
need to be involved in the permanent fix? What are all the steps
needed?” I found that I was able to do less explaining and
essentially shifted the burden of thinking and accountability
to her. I made her feel much better about herself and confident
as well.
The success of every organization is a shared responsibility. As
we said in Chapter Eight, you can’t do it alone. You need a compe-
tent and confident team, and the team needs a competent and
confident leader. Coaching is an essential part of exemplary leader-
ship. And while you’re at it, think about getting a coach yourself.
There’s no better way to model the behavior you expect from others
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Strengthen Others
Strengthening others is essentially the process of turn-
ing constituents into leaders—making people capable
of acting on their own initiative. A virtuous cycle is created as
power and responsibility are extended to others and as they re-
spond successfully. Leaders strengthen others when they make
it possible to exercise choice and discretion, when they design
options and alternatives to the ways that work and services are
produced, and when they foster accountability and responsibil-
ity that compel action.
Leaders develop in others the competence, as well as the
confidence, to act and to excel. They make certain that con-
stituents have the necessary data and information to understand
how the organization operates, gets results, makes money, and
does good work. They invest in people’s continuing compe-
tence, and they coach people on how to put what they know
into practice, stretching and supporting them to do more than
they might have imagined possible. Exemplary leaders use
questions to help people think on their own, and coach people
on how to be at their best.
To Enable Others to Act, you must strengthen others by
increasing their self-determination and developing competence.
This means you need to
• Take actions that make people feel powerful and in control
of their circumstances.
• Let people make choices about how they do their work
and serve their customers.
T A K E A C T I O N

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• Structure jobs so that people have opportunities to use
their judgment.
• Provide the necessary resources (especially information) to
perform effectively.
• Do away with routine assignments as quickly as possible.
• Find a balance between people’s skills and the challenges
associated with their work.
• Educate, educate, and educate yourself and your
constituents.
• Promote an ownership perspective by making sure that
people understand the big picture of how the enterprise
operates.
• Demonstrate your confidence in the capabilities of
constituents and colleagues.
• Set aside the time necessary to coach.
• Ask questions; stop giving answers.
Use The Leadership Challenge Mobile Tool app to
immediately integrate these activities into your life and make
this practice an ongoing part of your behavioral repertoire.

ENCOURAGE
THE HEART

Getting extraordinary things done in organizations is hard work. The climb to the summit is arduous and steep.
Leaders encourage others to continue the quest. They inspire
others with courage and hope.
Leaders give heart by visibly recognizing people’s contri-
butions to the common vision. With a thank-you note, a smile,
and public praise, the leader lets others know how much they
mean to the organization.
Leaders express pride in the accomplishments of their
teams. They make a point of telling the rest of the organization
about what the teams have achieved. They make people feel
like heroes.
Hard work can also be fun work. Hoopla is important to a
winning team. Everybody loves a parade. Leaders find creative
ways to celebrate accomplishments. They take time out to
rejoice in reaching a milestone.
And what sustains the leader? From what source comes
the leader’s courage? The answer is love. Leaders are in love—
in love with the people who do the work, with what their
organizations produce, and with their customers.
In the next two chapters, we will see how you must
• Recognize Contributions by showing
appreciation for individual excellence.
• Celebrate the Values and Victories by
creating a spirit of community.
P R A C T I C E 5
ENCOURAGE THE HEART

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FROM HER VERY FIRST DAY at Ambition Group—a leading
provider of recruitment and career services, with operations in Aus-
tralia, the United Kingdom, and Asia—Jade Lui experienced “a
strong sense of community and an encouraging culture.” Her first
meeting was with Guy Day, the managing director. “Guy personally
greeted me, spent an hour introducing me to the firm’s corporate
vision and values, then introduced me to each and every person in
the office,” Jade told us. “I was pleasantly surprised that the most
senior executive actually devoted such time and effort to bringing
on board the most junior new recruit. He showed that he cared.”
One of the regular practices at Ambition was for each consultant
to write his or her successful new placements onto one of the several
whiteboards throughout the office. These postings detailed the can-
didate, the client employer, and the billing amount. Jade said,
Every time a consultant got up to write on the whiteboard, the
entire office would cheer. And every morning when he arrived
C H A P T E R 1 0
Recognize
Contributions

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E at the office, Guy would walk around the floor and chat with
individual consultants regarding their new placements. He was
concerned not only about the billing amount; he would also
inquire about the process, the challenges, how the consultants
surmounted those hurdles, and what people learned from the
experience. Guy also volunteered to attend client meetings
with the consultants. This solidified his presence in the firm-
client interface and also demonstrated his genuine interest in
our work.
Guy’s personal involvement and interest were evident in the
quarterly coffees he would host with each individual consultant to
provide performance feedback and to discuss development areas and
career growth opportunities. During monthly meetings, Guy would
ask every consultant to share a success story, giving him or her an
opportunity to showcase a job well done in front of fellow colleagues.
Guy also offered his personal commendation to select consultants
each month, not for their revenue generation, but for their contribu-
tion to shared values like teamwork, creativity, and quality service.
“These gestures,” Jade explained, “were especially encouraging
because they conveyed the notion that profitability was not the only
performance metric we were measured against. He cared a lot about
our contribution to company culture and long-term firm values
as well.”
To foster a sense of spirit and community, regular celebrations
were held for everyone in the firm—including the management
team, front-office consultants, and back-office support staff. Month-
ly birthday parties, quarterly bashes, annual Christmas parties, and
community service days offered opportunities for cross-department
rapport building and, more important, for everyone in the firm to
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Guy won over the hearts of his constituents, and the result, Jade
said, “was that the firm came easily together to work toward common
goals, and staff in general had a greater sense of satisfaction at work,
and we made lots of money!” Throughout her tenure at Ambition,
Jade said, “there was never a day that went by that I did not feel
motivated or enthusiastic about going to work. I felt that my work
mattered, because it was recognized.”
Just as Guy did with Jade, all exemplary leaders make the com-
mitment to Recognize Contributions. They do it because people need
encouragement to function at their best and to persist for months
when the hours are long, the work is hard, and the task is challeng-
ing. Getting to the finish line of any demanding journey demands
energy and commitment. People need emotional fuel to replenish
their spirits. They need the will to continue and the courage to do
something they have never done before. No one is likely to persist
for very long when he or she feels ignored or taken for granted. It’s
your job to make sure that your constituents feel that their work
matters and that they make a difference. It’s your job to recognize
their contributions to success by showing your appreciation for
individual excellence.
To Recognize Contributions, you need to utilize these two
essentials:
• EXPECT THE BEST
• PERSONALIZE RECOGNITION
By putting these essentials into practice, you uplift people’s
spirits and arouse the internal drive to strive. You stimulate their
efforts to reach for higher levels of performance and to aspire to be
true to the visions and values of the organization. You help people
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E EXPECT THE BEST
Belief in others’ abilities is essential to making extraordinary things
happen. Exemplary leaders elicit high performance because they
strongly believe in the abilities of their constituents to achieve even
the most challenging goals. That’s because positive expectations pro-
foundly influence not only your constituents’ aspirations but also,
often unconsciously, how you behave toward them. Your beliefs
about people are broadcast in ways you may not even be aware of.
You give off cues that say to people either “I know you can do it”
or “There’s no way you’ll ever be able to do that.” You can’t realize
the highest level of performance unless you let people know in word
and deed that you are confident that they can attain it.
Social psychologists have referred to this as the “Pygmalion
effect,” from the Greek myth about Pygmalion, a sculptor who
carved a statue of a beautiful woman, fell in love with the statue,
and appealed to the goddess Aphrodite to bring her to life. His
prayers were granted. Leaders play Pygmalion-like roles in devel-
oping their constituents. Ask people to describe the best leaders
they’ve ever had, and they consistently talk about individuals who
brought out the best in them. They say things like, “She believed in
me more than I believed in myself ” or “He saw something in me
even I didn’t see.”
Exemplary leaders bring others to life, figuratively speaking.
These leaders dramatically improve others’ performance because they
care deeply for them and have an abiding faith in their capacities.
Constituents are able to respond positively to these expectations not
only because they have the abilities but also because leaders are more
nurturing, supportive, and encouraging toward people in whom they
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provides ample evidence that people act in ways that are consistent
with others’ expectations of them.1
When you expect people to fail, they probably will. If you expect
them to succeed, they probably will. James Stout, an energy resource
analyst at Public Finance Solutions and Engineering, thinks back on
one of his early internships, and attributes his positive experience
in that company in large part to the way he was made to feel like a
valuable contributor:
When I arrived on the job, I knew that there were high
expectations for my performance. Along with the standard
pleasantries, I was greeted with a work plan for my projects
spelled out in calendar format. What could have been
intimidating was not, for my manager made it clear that she
had hired me because she felt confident in my skills and
internal drive. I felt empowered to do my job and to do it with
independence and pride. I was given the freedom to review the
work plan and to discuss the projects with my manager if I felt
they were somehow not right for me.
The best leaders bring out the best in their constituents. If the
potential exists within someone, exemplary leaders always find a way
to release it. The emerging field of positive organizational psychology
provides solid evidence that leaders who create an affirmative orien-
tation in organizations, foster virtuousness among people, and focus
on achieving outcomes beyond the norm are significantly more suc-
cessful.2 There’s increasing proof that it pays to be positive.
Show Them You Believe
As social scientists have documented, leaders’ positive expectations
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E or getting others psyched up. The expectations you hold as a leader
provide the framework into which people fit their own realities.
They shape how you behave toward others and how they behave on
the task. Maybe you can’t turn a marble statue into a real person,
but you can draw out the highest potential of your constituents.
Here’s how Patti Kozlovsky, senior consultant at PKM Consulting,
did it:
I let team members know that I really thought they could do
the job, and I trusted their judgment to find the information
and extract what was needed in a timely manner. In our group
meetings, as we reviewed the information team members were
contributing, I made a conscious effort to thank members for
what they had contributed rather than commenting on what
had not been done. What impact did this have? First of all,
there was less tension in the group, and team members felt as
though everyone was participating to their fullest capacity.
Instead of sniping at each other over what was not done,
people were generally supporting one other, sharing
resources and letting their colleagues know what they had
found, and sharing ideas about where others might find
critical data.
It was also interesting that team members were genuinely
interested in what others had discovered and how that
connected with information they had gathered. Because the
team had confidence in each other’s abilities, this strengthened
our respect for one another and made it easy to incorporate
multiple perspectives into our final product. This experience
taught me that people live up to our expectations. If you
express confidence in their abilities, they will put their heart
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Patti acknowledged that she wasn’t always comfortable giving
over control to her teammates, but she had clearly learned that her
holding positive expectations of high performance and motivation
in others, along with recognizing them for their contributions, easily
beat the alternative of command-and-control management. For your
constituents to be successful on a job, you have to make certain that
they feel that they belong, are accepted and valued, and have the
skills and inner resources needed to be successful.
Believing in others is an extraordinarily powerful force in propel-
ling performance.4 If you want your constituents to have a winning
attitude, you have to do two things. First, you have to believe that
your constituents are already winners. It’s not that they will be
winners someday; they are winners right now! If you believe that
people are winners, you will treat them that way. Second, if you want
people to be winners, you have to behave in ways that communicate
to them that they are winners—not just through your words but
also through tone of voice, posture, gestures, and facial expressions.
No yelling, frowning, cajoling, making fun of them, or putting them
down in front of others. Instead, it’s about being friendly, positive,
supportive, and encouraging. Offer positive reinforcement, share lots
of information, listen deeply to people’s input, provide them with
sufficient resources to do their jobs, give them increasingly challeng-
ing assignments, and lend them your support and assistance.5
It’s a virtuous circle: you believe in your constituents’ abilities;
your favorable expectations cause you to be more positive in your
actions; and those encouraging behaviors produce better results,
reinforcing your belief that people can do it. And what’s really pow-
erful about this virtuous circle is that as people see that they are
capable of extraordinary performance, they develop that expectation
of themselves. Another virtuous circle begins.

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E Be Clear About the Goals and the Rules
Positive expectations are necessary to generate high performance, but
that level of performance isn’t sustainable unless people are clear
about ground rules and outcomes. When you were a kid you might
have read Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. Remem-
ber the croquet match? The flamingos were the mallets, the playing-
card soldiers were the wickets, and the hedgehogs were the balls.
Everyone kept moving, and the rules kept changing all the time.
There was no way of knowing how to play the game or what it took
to win. You don’t have to fall down the rabbit hole to know how
Alice felt.
Sachin Gad, project director with a high-technology company,
recalled a time when he learned how essential it is to be clear about
what you’re trying to accomplish and how to accomplish it, espe-
cially when the going gets tough.6 Faced with a situation where
timelines were not only challenging but ever changing—where doc-
umentation was unclear and the customer’s requirements were con-
sidered “unrealistic”—Sachin found, not surprisingly, that morale
and motivation on the project team were low. He spent considerable
time listening to everyone involved, held sales responsible for real-
istically managing customer expectations, and worked together with
others to set clear guidelines that addressed conflicting resource
requirements. At the same time, he systematically tracked achieve-
ment and identified and recognized high performers. Over the
course of a single year, the situation improved significantly: employee
attrition within the program fell 55 percent, and employee satisfac-
tion improved by more than 34 percent.
Just believing that people can succeed is only part of the equa-
tion. If you want people to give their all, to put their hearts and
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what they are supposed to be doing. You need to clarify what the
expected outcomes look like and make sure that there are some
consistent norms governing how the game is played.
Both goals and values provide people with a set of standards that
concentrates their efforts. Goals are shorter term, and values (or
principles) are more enduring. Values and principles serve as the
basis for goals. They’re your standards of excellence, your highest
aspirations, and they define the arena in which goals and metrics
must be set. Values mediate the path of action. Goals release the
energy.
The ideal state—on the job, in sports, and in life generally—is
often called “flow.” “Flow experiences,” as described in Chapter
Nine, are those times when you feel pure enjoyment and effortless-
ness in what you do.7 To experience flow, it’s necessary to have clear
goals, because they help you concentrate and avoid distractions. By
having an intention to do something that is meaningful to you, by
setting a goal, you take purposeful action. Action without goals, at
least in an organizational context, is just busywork. It’s a waste of
precious time and energy.
But what do goals have to do with recognition? They give rec-
ognition context. People should be recognized for achieving some-
thing, for doing something extraordinary—coming in first, breaking
a record, setting a new standard of excellence. Leaders should abso-
lutely make sure they affirm the worth of every one of their constitu-
ents. But for recognition to be meaningful and for it to reward
appropriate behaviors, you have to have an end in mind. Goals help
people keep their eyes on the vision. Goals and intentions keep them
on track. They help people put the phone in do-not-disturb mode,
shut out the noise, and schedule their time. Goal setting affirms the
person, and, whether you realize it or not, contributes to what people
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E Give Regular Feedback
People need to know if they’re making progress toward the goal or
simply marking time. Their motivation to perform a task increases
only when they have a challenging goal and receive feedback on their
progress.8 Goals without feedback, or feedback without goals, has
little effect on people’s willingness to put extra effort (or motivation)
into the task, as the research findings in Figure 10.1 illustrate.
Just announcing that the idea is to reach the summit is not
enough to get people to put forth more effort. They need informa-
tion on whether they’re still climbing in the right direction, making
progress toward the top, or sliding downhill. With clear goals and
detailed feedback, people can become self-correcting and can more
FIGURE 10.1 The Impact of Goals and Feedback on
Motivation
M
ot
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0
70
60
50
40
30
10
20
Goals and
Feedback
Goals Feedback No Goals or
Feedback
Source: A. Bandura and D. Cervone, “Self-Evaluative and Self-Efficacy
Mechanism Governing the Motivational Effects of Goal Systems,” Journal of
Personality and Social Psychology 45 (1983): 1017–1028.

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easily understand their place in the big picture. With feedback they
can also determine what help they need from others and who might
be able to benefit from their assistance. Under these conditions, they
will be willing to put forth more productive effort. When there is
no feedback, production will be less efficient and will exact a signifi-
cant toll in the form of increased levels of stress and anxiety.
That is exactly why Harun Özkara, project manager in the R&D
department at an Istanbul-based HVAC manufacturing company,
initiated “the Friday Meetings.”9 For a time, the department was
without a senior manager and experienced high turnover and low
morale. One Friday afternoon just before the workweek ended,
Harun called a meeting. Everybody was curious about this unex-
pected meeting, fearing that more organizational changes and layoffs
would be announced. The meeting began with Harun sharing the
results of his conversations with all the other department managers
regarding their thoughts about R&D and what could be done better.
The feedback was sobering, but Harun wanted to set a clear direction
together for the division so that they didn’t lose their way in these
times of uncertainty. This first meeting began what became a weekly
ritual for the R&D department.
In these meetings, all the department members gathered together
in a big conference room in the factory. The meeting usually started
with an update on the current condition of the department. Members
discussed any problems they had or difficulties they were expe-
riencing in getting tasks done. They aired common issues and
explored solutions. Although these meetings were about solving
problems and improving performance, it was the feedback that was
the spark for these discussions and for the department’s continued
productivity.
Feedback is at the center of any learning process. For example,
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E In a study, people were told that their efforts would be compared
with how well hundreds of others had done on the same task.
They received praise, criticism, or no feedback on their performance.
Those who heard nothing about how well they did suffered as great
a blow to their self-confidence as those who were criticized. Only
those who received positive feedback improved.10 Saying nothing
about a person’s performance doesn’t help anyone—not the per-
former, not the leader, and not the organization. People hunger for
positive feedback. They really do prefer to know how they are doing,
and no news generally has the same negative impact as bad news. In
fact, people actually would prefer to hear bad news rather than no
news at all.
Without feedback there is no learning—it’s the only way for you
to know whether or not you’re getting close to your goal and whether
or not you’re executing properly. Feedback can be embarrassing, even
painful. While most people realize intellectually that feedback is a
necessary component of self-reflection and growth, they are often
reluctant to make themselves open to it. They want to look good
more than they want to get good! Researchers consistently point out
that the development of expertise or mastery requires one to receive
constructive, even critical, feedback.11
Moreover, setting the right climate for feedback is critical.
Reviewing past behavior can’t be a search for culprits or an oppor-
tunity to fix the blame. Make sure you “test for understanding” when
you give feedback. See if the recipient of your feedback can put into
his own words what he believes you have said—to your satisfac-
tion—and in this way ensure that you are both on the same page.
Test out some hypotheses about possible future actions to see if these
would address the issues being raised.
When leaders provide a clear sense of direction and feedback
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best. Information about goals and about progress toward those goals
strongly influences people’s abilities to learn and to achieve.12 Because
encouragement is more personal and positive than other forms of
feedback, it’s more likely to accomplish something that other forms
cannot: strengthening trust between leaders and constituents.
Encouragement, in this sense, is the highest form of feedback.
PERSONALIZE RECOGNITION
One of the more common complaints about recognition is that far
too often it’s highly predictable, routine, and impersonal. A one-size-
fits-all approach to recognition feels insincere, forced, and thought-
less. Over time it can even increase cynicism and actually damage
credibility. Maurice Chan provided personal testimony to the weak-
nesses of this strategy when he told us about his experience working
as an engineer in a multinational telecommunications company. The
Hong Kong branch adapted an incentive scheme from headquarters
to reward staff achievements:
I got such a reward almost every year. The intention of this
incentive scheme was great. However, the prize was nothing
much, maybe a few thousand dollars and an email telling you
that the money was already banked in your account. No one
would come to your cube and talk to you about what you had
achieved. It made the incentive scheme just like a “bureaucratic
procedure.” It didn’t make me or anyone else very excited about
getting the reward.
Recognition should be personalized; otherwise it will quickly be
forgotten and discounted. It should be made and expressed from

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E your heart. Try to step into the shoes of other people and ask your-
self, “What do I wish other people would do to celebrate and rec-
ognize my contribution?” Let your answer to this question guide
your own behavior with others.
Alexey Astafev echoes Maurice’s observations. Alexey was in-
volved with international business development for the Russian
railways administration, and he still remembers the day when his
department head called him into the office and silently handed him
a merit citation from the CEO, along with a bonus certificate. The
peculiar thing, said Alexey,
was that the bonus amount was determined by the CEO
himself—marked with his pen over the standard sum that
usually was given out with that type of award. But I don’t even
remember now how much it was! Probably because the way I
was rewarded was neither “personalized” nor “visible.” He told
me that he was doing this privately because he didn’t want
others to envy me. I tried to understand it back then, but failed
to. And it surely had no big impact on my performance.
What Alexey learned from this experience, and many others like
it, was, in his words,
that in order to encourage people to do their best, you should
be able to recognize their achievements and make them feel
trusted and valued. It has to be personal, precise, and visible.
Even if it is a great reward, if you don’t give it out right—or get
it right—it will be forgotten soon without achieving the
purpose of bringing out the best in people. On the other hand,
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and meant specifically to you, can inspire people to great
performance.
When we’ve asked people to tell us about their “most meaning-
ful recognition,” they, like Maurice and Alexey, consistently report
that it’s “personal.” They say that it feels special. That’s why it’s
so important for leaders to pay attention to the likes and dislikes
of each and every individual. You get a lot more emotional bang
for your buck when you make recognition and rewards personal.
“A sincere word of thanks from the right person at the right time
can mean more to an employee than a raise, a formal award, or
a whole wall of certificates and plaques,” writes Bob Nelson in
1001 Ways to Reward Employees.13 As he points out, “Part of the
power of such rewards comes from the knowledge that someone
took the time to notice the achievement, seek out the employee
responsible, and personally deliver praise in a timely manner.”
When it comes to encouraging the heart, personalizing recognition
pays off.
Get Close to People
“ ‘Shukriya [“thank you” in Hindi]. You have done an awesome job’
was the first thing I read in the morning,” says Meghana Mehta.
This was an email sent to her by Beth, her indirect manager and also
her internal customer from Citibank. “I was highly elated reading
this email,” Meghana told us. It was evidence, she said, that
Beth had gone an extra mile to learn Hindi and to appreciate
my work. It was a small gesture, but so dearly valued that I still

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E remember it after ten years. Though she was not my reporting
manager and also not even in my same location, she had made
a personal connection with me. For example, she knew I am a
chocolate lover and used to bring my favorite chocolates
especially for me. At the end of the project, she gave all of us an
engraved star that read “The Star Team of Citidirect,” which I
still have displayed on my cubicle today. Such appreciation had
never been done in India, and this was a tremendous morale-
boosting event for us.
As Meghana’s story illustrates, to make recognition personally
meaningful, you first have to get to know your constituents. If you’re
going to personalize recognition and make it feel genuinely special,
you’ll have to look past the organizational diagrams and roles people
play and see the person inside. You need to get to know who your
constituents are, how they feel and what they think. For Beth, this
meant learning at least a few words in another language, and learning
about what sort of treat would be special for Meghana. This means
that as a leader, you need to be regularly walking the halls and plant
floors, meeting often with small groups, and hitting the road for
frequent visits with associates, key suppliers, and customers. Paying
attention, personalizing recognition, and creatively and actively
appreciating others increase their trust in you. This kind of relation-
ship is even more critical as workforces are becoming increasingly
global and diverse. If others know that you genuinely care about
them, they’re more likely to care about you. This is one important
way that you bridge cultural divides.
Because proximity is the single best predictor of whether two
people will talk to one another, you have to get close enough
to people if you’re going to find out what motivates them, what
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appreciate. Yet managerial myth says that leaders shouldn’t get too
close to their constituents, that they can’t be friends with people at
work.14 Well, set this myth aside. Over a five-year period, researchers
observed groups of friends and groups of acquaintances (people who
knew each other only vaguely) performing motor-skill and decision-
making tasks. The results were unequivocal. The groups composed
of friends completed, on average, more than three times as many
projects as the groups composed merely of acquaintances. In terms
of decision-making assignments, groups of friends were over 20
percent more effective than groups of acquaintances.15 Other studies
have shown that employees who have a friendly relationship with
their manager are two-and-a-half times more satisfied with their
jobs.16
Darren Gest, human capital senior consultant at Deloitte17 in
Chicago, recalled an early experience where he was the “low man on
the totem pole” on a financial services project that featured a Fortune
500 client and the top human capital leadership in Deloitte:
I expected a high-pressure work environment: Darren do this,
Darren do that. Pay your dues. Earn your place here. Prove
your worth. Go run the numbers and come back with a latte.
Instead, Marc Kaplan, my senior manager, took me out to
dinner that evening to introduce me to the city and laid out my
role and expectations in the clearest and most concise way
possible. “You are like the point guard on this team,” he said.
“We need you to assist us with reports, meetings, scheduling,
and presentations. Your role is really important; it’s the nerve
center of the team.” He gave me my dignity back. He
humanized the experience and opened up the channels of
communication. He showed that he cared about me, and in
turn, I wanted to show him how much I cared.

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E Although it was many years ago, Darren remembers opening up
an email from Alice Kwan, a Deloitte principal who thanked him
for his efforts on a project:
“We are getting close to our goal and could not have done it
without your analysis. I just wanted to thank you.” I was
amazed that Alice took the time to recognize my efforts. She
continued, “I remember at dinner you mentioned that you have
never tried lobsters. Let me take you out for lunch on
Wednesday and we can talk about your career aspirations.”
Hands down, that lunch provided a backdrop for the most
meaningful conversation I have had at Deloitte. I am now on
an assignment with our team in Hyderbad (India)—if she called
me right now, no matter where I was in the world, I would
drop what I was doing to readily assist her with a project need.
That’s exactly what happens when you get close to people, espe-
cially through personalizing recognition and appreciation. The
payoff from connecting with team members on a meaningful level,
according to Darren, is that this will be “reciprocated with loyalty.”
He explained: “I suspect that Alice knew that our one-hour lunch
would translate into a lifetime of high performance for me—because
I had been incentivized by her recognition and was grateful for her
appreciation. As a leader, I now know that sincere recognition and
personalized appreciation can translate into endless productivity
and loyalty. The heart is a powerful tool, and when tapped into, it
will do amazing things for the people by whom it is encouraged.”
People are just more willing to follow someone with whom they
have a relationship, as Darren’s experiences attest. Relationships are
built on trust. An open door is a physical demonstration of a willing-
ness to let others in. So is an open heart. To become fully trusted,

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you must be open to and with others. This means disclosing things
about yourself in order to build the basis for a relationship. This
means telling others the same things you’d like to know about
them—talking about your hopes and dreams, your family and
friends, your interests and your pursuits.
Certainly, disclosing information about yourself can be risky.
You can’t be sure that other people will like you, appreciate your
candor, agree with your aspirations, buy into your plans, or interpret
your words and actions in the way you intend. But by demonstrating
the willingness to take such risks, you encourage others to take a
similar risk—and thereby take the first steps necessary to build
mutual trust, the foundation for any relationship.
Be Creative About Incentives
Donna Wilson, the VP and general manager of station KJRH, the
NBC affiliate in Tulsa, Oklahoma, got creative in her efforts to
personalize recognition. She figured that if she took $300 of her own
money and spent it on recognition efforts, it probably would not
touch that many people. So she split that money among fifteen
people and asked them to spend it over the course of a month to
encourage the hearts of others.18
Donna thought this would be really fun to do—and it sure was.
Some gave gas cards to photographers (to ease the burden of rising
prices at the pump) or iTunes cards to IT folks (so that the song fit
the person rather than being something “generic”), and some gave
mementoes to people outside their department (which, Donna said,
was quite unusual). Someone created “the Big Fish” award so that
recognition could go on and on long after the month had passed. A
giant plastic fish was hung over the cubicle of the “star performer”
from sales each month; there was plenty of friendly competition to

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E become the Big Fish. Some bought lunch for folks; several had some
buttons made up that said “I encourage,” and handed them out to
people they saw doing good work around the station.
As Donna’s experience underscores, leaders don’t need to rely
exclusively on the organization’s formal reward system, which offers
only a limited range of options. After all, promotions and raises are
scarce resources. And don’t make the mistake of assuming that
individuals respond only to money. Although salary increases
and bonuses are certainly valued, individual needs for apprecia-
tion and rewards extend much further than cash.
Jane Binger, executive director of leadership development and
education for Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital at Stanford, for
years has asked people during job interviews and meet-and-greet
appointments how they would like to be recognized. She has found
that most just want a simple gesture acknowledging that their work
was appreciated and valued—usually taking the form of a personal
note or email, a comment during a meeting or in the hall, or just a
stop by their office. “They want to know that I value them. That I
think they are doing a great job. And that I am not taking them or
their contribution for granted. This doesn’t require any over-the-top
grand actions,” says Jane.
Spontaneous, unexpected rewards are often more meaningful
than expected, formal ones. “The form of recognition that has the
most positive influence on us and that should be used most often is
on-the-spot recognition,” says Sonia Clark, vice president of human
resources for several high-technology firms. “When something really
terrific happens, I comment on it right away and to anyone who
might be close enough to hear.” Rewards are the most effective when
they’re highly specific and given in close proximity to the appropriate
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as a leader is that you can personally observe people doing things
right and then reward them either on the spot or at the next public
gathering.
Your options are quite limited if you rely exclusively on the
organization’s formal reward system. There is usually too much of a
time lag between performance and rewards. Our research found that
the time lapse between performance and promotion is often more
than six months.19 It’s tough to remember exactly what you did to
earn the promotion when the feedback follows a half-year later. And
although it’s true that money may get people to do the job, it doesn’t
get them to do a particularly outstanding job.20
People respond to all kinds of informal recognition and rewards.21
That’s the beauty of being creative and personalizing them. You have
lots and lots of options. We’ve seen people give out stuffed giraffes,
rainbow-striped zebra posters, T-shirts, mugs with team photos,
crystal apples, rides in a classic car, clocks, pens, plaques, and hun-
dreds of other creative expressions of appreciation. We’ve seen it
done verbally and nonverbally, elaborately and simply. There are no
limits to kindness and consideration.
It’s important to understand that genuine recognition does not
have to include anything tangible. Exemplary leaders make tremen-
dous use of intrinsic rewards—rewards that are built into the work
itself, including such factors as a sense of accomplishment, a chance
to be creative, and the challenge of the work—all directly tied to
an individual’s effort. These rewards are far more important than
salary and fringe benefits in improving job satisfaction, commit-
ment, retention, and performance.22 Praise and coaching are signifi-
cant forms of recognition as well. Often it’s the simple, personal
gestures that are the most powerful rewards, which is exactly what
Jacqueline Wong experienced. Jacqueline recalls how she felt when

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E her CEO, stationed in Singapore, flew to the Hong Kong branch to
thank her:
The sincere and timely appreciation and the simple “thank you”
encouraged my heart. It created a sense of well-being and a
sense of belonging to the team. While I used to think I was
only motivated by monetary rewards, the recognition by
someone important greatly contributed to my sustained and
accelerated drive to further uphold the responsibility bestowed
upon me by my CEO. It was an important lesson for me. It is
the power, the refreshing energy, which touches the heart that
makes me challenge myself to improve.
It’s all about being considerate. The techniques that you use are
less important than your genuine expression of caring. People appre-
ciate knowing that you care about them, and they are more caring
about what they are doing as a result. When you genuinely care,
even the smallest of gestures reap huge rewards.
Just Say Thank You
Not enough people make enough use of the most powerful but
inexpensive two-word rewards—“thank you.” In fact, that’s exactly
what they found at Sullivan and Cromwell, one of the oldest and
most respected law firms in the United States. For years, they noticed
that they were routinely losing high-value first-year associates
recruited from the top law schools, and they conducted a survey to
find out why. What they found was a shock: it wasn’t because of the
money, the hours, or the work. It was because the young lawyers
didn’t feel appreciated by the partners. So the firm instituted a very
simple policy: every partner was required to say “Please” and “Thank

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you” whenever he or she made a request. In one year, attrition was
reversed, and Sullivan and Cromwell was voted the best law firm to
work for by American Lawyer magazine.23
Ian Foo, IT strategy and transformation consultant with Accen-
ture in Singapore, would be the first to admit that it took him a
while to appreciate how important recognizing contributions is to
achieving excellent results. He’s results-oriented, and hadn’t focused
on the personal side of business. But as he began to reflect about
this he concluded, “I think the key lesson is that everyone needs to
be told what they are doing well and how to improve, despite often
feeling that it is obvious. This is because thanking someone is one
of the first manners we teach to our children, yet people in the
workforce often feel underappreciated because ‘we are just doing our
jobs.’ ”
Ian’s insight is important. Personal congratulations rank at the
top of the most powerful nonfinancial motivators identified by
employees.24 There are few if any more basic needs than to be
noticed, recognized, and appreciated for one’s efforts. It’s true for
everyone—volunteers, teachers, doctors, priests, politicians, sales-
people, customer service representatives, maintenance staff, and
executives. Little wonder, then, that a greater volume of thanks is
reported in highly innovative companies than in low-innovation
firms.25 Extraordinary achievements bloom more easily in climates
in which performance is nurtured with a higher volume of apprecia-
tive comments.26 Studies show that work teams in which the ratio
of positive to negative interactions is greater than three to one are
significantly more productive than those teams that haven’t achieved
this ratio.27
It is always worth the few extra moments to recognize someone’s
hard work and contributions. All too often, people forget to extend
a hand, a smile, or a simple thank you. People naturally feel a little

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E frustrated and unappreciated when their manager or a colleague
takes them for granted. Sometimes this can be overlooked because
people are under the pressure of deadlines, and the mandate to
deliver on time overtakes expressing gratitude. But it’s really impor-
tant that you stick around for that extra minute to say thanks.
Olivia Lai recalls that when she took the lead in managing the
customer service support team at Kimberly-Clark, she always made
sure that she said “Thank you” or “I really appreciate your help”
before she ended meetings or walked away from people’s desks. “You
should see the smile that it generates,” she beams. “It gives them
a warm feeling knowing that their work was welcomed and recog-
nized by others.” Olivia remembers one occasion when she had just
returned from a three-day vacation:
The first thing I did was to stop at my team’s cubicles. I didn’t
even check email; I didn’t want to read about what happened
while I was gone. I wanted to hear it from my team. I stopped
by each person individually and thanked him or her for holding
down the fort. They spent fifteen minutes giving me a full
update, but no one looked stressed. They were glad to have me
back so they could get approvals on paperwork and process
changes, but it was as if I had never left. And the best part? As I
got up to leave, I received a hug from each one of them. It was
such a nice feeling to be back and have my team again.
What I realized as I was walking back to my office was that
recognition goes both ways. They appreciated the extra time I
spent with them. They appreciated that I didn’t read all my
emails first before hearing their version of what happened the
last few days. I trusted them to do their job and do it well. At
the same time, I felt appreciated knowing I had a great team
that not only could work together competently, but also
enjoyed working with me. It gives me the extra boost of
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A few moments spent together empowered Olivia’s team to work
even harder. They wanted not only to live up to her expectations but
also to go above and beyond. When you take the time to set the bar
high and make it known that you believe people can excel, you will
notice extraordinary results. And you will foster strong team collabo-
ration and unity. “If I can empower my team to work together and
be excited about coming to work every day, then that’s all I can ask
for,” Olivia said. For a leader, it’s not about just achieving financial
results and delivering on annual objectives. It’s also about creating a
winning team through trust and through a personal connection. This
includes extending a simple pat on the back, a handshake, a smile,
and a ‘Thank you for your hard work.’ ”
Making a point of regularly saying thank you goes a long way
in sustaining high performance. Personalized recognition comes
down to being thoughtful. It means knowing enough about an-
other person to answer the question, “What could I do to make this
a memorable experience so that this person will always remember
how important his or her contributions are?”
Recognize Contributions
Exemplary leaders have positive expectations of themselves
and of their constituents. They expect the best of people and
create self-fulfilling prophecies about how ordinary people can
produce extraordinary actions and results. Exemplary leaders’
goals and standards are unambiguous, helping people focus
on what needs to be done. They provide clear feedback and
T A K E A C T I O N

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reinforcement. By maintaining a positive outlook and providing
motivating feedback, they stimulate, rekindle, and focus peo-
ple’s energies and drive.
Exemplary leaders recognize and reward what individuals
do to contribute to the vision and values. They express their
appreciation far beyond the limits of the organization’s formal
systems. They enjoy being spon taneous and creative in saying
thank you. Personalizing recognition requires knowing what’s
appropriate individually and culturally. Although recognizing
someone’s efforts may be uncomfortable or embarrassing at first,
it really isn’t difficult to do. And it’s well worth the effort to make
a connection with each person. Learn from many small
and often casual acts of appreciation what works for each of
your constituents and how best to personalize recognition.
To Encourage the Heart, you must recognize contributions
by showing appreciation for individual excellence. This means
you have to
• Make sure people know what is expected of them.
• Maintain high expectations about what individuals and
teams can accomplish.
• Communicate your positive expectations clearly and
regularly.
• Let people know that you believe in them, not just in
words, but also through actions.
• Create an environment that makes it comfortable to
receive and give feedback—including to you.
• Link recognition and rewards with performance outcomes
so that only those who meet or exceed the standards
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• Find out the types of encouragement that make the most
difference to others. Don’t assume you know. Ask. Take
the time to inquire and observe.
• Connect with people in person. Stop by and visit them in
their workspaces.
• Be creative when it comes to recognition. Be spontaneous.
Have fun.
• Make saying thank you a natural part of your everyday
behavior.
• Don’t take anyone for granted.
Use The Leadership Challenge Mobile Tool app to
immediately integrate these activities into your life and make
this practice an ongoing part of your behavioral repertoire.

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ALL OVER THE WORLD, people celebrate. They take time off
work to gather to mark an important occasion. They march in elabo­
rate parades down the city’s main street to shower a championship
team with cheers of appreciation. They set off fireworks to com­
memorate great historic victories or the beginning of a new year.
They convene impromptu ceremonies in the company conference
room to toast the award of a new contract. They attend banquets to
show their respect for individuals and groups who’ve accomplished
an extraordinary feat. They get all dressed up in tuxedos and gowns—
and sometimes in very silly costumes—to rejoice at the passing of
another season. They sit down at elaborate feasts to give thanks for
the bountiful harvest. They get together with colleagues at the end
of a grueling work session and give each other high­fives for a job
well done. And in tragic times, people gather together in eulogy and
song to honor those who showed courage, conviction, and sacrifice.
Why do people take time away from their jobs to come together,
tell stories, and raise their spirits? Because celebrations are among
Celebrate
the Values
and Victories
C H A P T E R 1 1

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E the most significant ways people all over the world proclaim respect
and gratitude, renew a sense of community, and remember shared
values and traditions. They are as important to an organization’s
long­term health as is the daily performance of tasks.
Leaders at DeVry, a global provider of educational services and
one of the largest publicly held educational organizations in the
world, understand this very well. They know that it takes the highest
levels of integrity, dedication, and excellence to serve their students
and colleagues well. And they know that to sustain this kind of
exemplary performance, they need to take time out to strengthen
relationships, celebrate successes, and reaffirm commitment. At
DeVry, the TEACH Summit and PRIDE event is one of the most
important ways they accomplish this. Each annual celebration is
unique, but they all share a common purpose. It is, explained Daniel
Hamburger, president and CEO, “a rare opportunity for us to gather
our leaders and highest performers together to recognize excellence
in the things that matter most to us.”
On the first night of one TEACH Summit we observed, more
than 250 DeVry leaders gathered for the inaugural dinner, where
senior leaders recognized several individuals who had been exem­
plary at living DeVry’s TEACH values. (TEACH is an acronym for
Teamwork and Communication, Employee Focus, Accountabil­
ity + Integrity = Ownership, Continuous Improvement, and Help
Our Students Achieve Their Goals.) They presented the Talent
Developer Award for modeling employee focus, the Change Leader­
ship Award for continuous improvement, and the Leadership Excel­
lence Award for truly demonstrating and living the DeVry purpose,
vision, and values as a whole. The spirit of appreciation on that
first night set the tone for three days of educational sessions, team­
building activities, and recognition ceremonies.

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The next day, DeVry leaders welcomed 375 very special employ­
ees—the year’s PRIDE (Professional Recognition of Integrity and
Dedication to Excellence) honorees. They had been invited so that
senior leaders could thank them for exemplifying TEACH values
and for going above and beyond in service of DeVry’s students. And,
at this particular event, organization leaders also went above and
beyond to show their gratitude to the honorees. They put on red
DeVry T­shirts and congratulated PRIDE members arriving at the
airport, rode with them on the bus to the hotel, greeted them when
they got to the lobby, and guided them to the registration area. At
dinner that evening, leaders held the doors open for the PRIDE
honorees and cheered loudly as they ceremoniously received their
individual awards. It was an extraordinary evening, and something
that all recipients remember for the rest of their lives. Lori Mendi­
cino, program manager at DeVry University and a winner in a prior
year of a PRIDE award, told us that receiving this recognition was
“more exciting than I can even begin to tell you. It’s an honor, and
to see that the leaders understand what you do and value what you
do is just phenomenal.”
The awards ceremony was followed by another day of learning
and community building. Together leaders and honorees explored,
through presentations, videos, and interactive activities, the meaning
and importance of TEACH values. They took part in a TEACH quiz
show, renewed their commitment by making short “I TEACH”
videos, and focused attention on creating a culture of service. To cap
the event off, DeVry employees had great fun building bicycles and
then donating them to local kids—an intense learning experience
about the “T” value of Teamwork and Communication, as well as
a reaffirmation of DeVry’s philosophy of “Doing Well by Doing
Good.”

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E Bill Hughson, president of DeVry’s Healthcare Group, says
that although it’s important to take time to celebrate outstanding
achievement for its own sake, he reaffirms that celebrations are
important ways that leaders and their organizations also communi­
cate what is important to them:
It has been said that an organization produces most what it
honors most. We believe that publicly recognizing and
celebrating those who exemplify our purpose, vision, and values
is the best possible way to encourage others to behave
consistently with them as well. How the accomplishments are
celebrated is just as important as what is celebrated. If executed
publicly and with thoughtfulness and intentionality, celebrations
make clear what activities, behaviors, and outcomes the
organization values, and therefore what it takes for employees to
be successful in the organization, in a very powerful way.
The experience of DeVry’s leaders is confirmed in our research.
Performance improves when leaders publicly honor those who have
excelled and who have been an example to others. That is why
exemplary leaders make a commitment to Celebrate the Values and
Victories by mastering these essentials:
• CREATE A SPIRIT OF COMMUNITY
• BE PERSONALLY INVOLVED
When leaders bring people together, rejoice in collective
successes, and directly display their gratitude, they reinforce the
essence of community. Being personally involved makes it clear that
everyone is committed to making extraordinary things happen.

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CREATE A SPIRIT OF COMMUNITY
Human beings are social animals—hardwired to connect with
others.1 Otherwise everyone would live like hermits, working alone,
eating alone, shopping alone, sleeping alone, and avoiding contact
with others. It’s an absurd notion, but many organizations operate
as if social gatherings were a nuisance. They aren’t. People are meant
to do things together, to form communities, and in this way dem­
onstrate a common bond.
When social connections are strong and numerous, there’s more
trust, reciprocity, information flow, collective action, and happi­
ness—and, by the way, greater wealth.2 Some of the fastest­growing
and most successful businesses these days are evidence of the need
for social connection. Facebook, Foursquare, Friendster, Google+,
LinkedIn, StumbleUpon, Twitter, and Pinterest are only a few of the
more than two hundred (and growing) social networking sites with
over one hundred million users.3 Research indicates that “social
networking site users have more friends and more close friends” than
nonusers4 and may be reversing what had been a three­decade­long
downward trend toward people’s being less involved in communities.
Social capital has been added to physical and intellectual capital as
a major source of success and happiness.
Corporate celebrations are among the best ways to capitalize on
the need to connect, to socialize, and to form community. Research
on corporate celebrations has found that “Celebrations infuse life
with passion and purpose. . . . They bond people together and
connect us to shared values and myths. Ceremonies and rituals create
community, fusing individual souls with the corporate spirit. When
everything is going well, these occasions allow us to revel in our
glory. When times are tough, ceremonies draw us together, kindling

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E hope and faith that better times lie ahead.”5 In acknowledging com­
munity, leaders create a sense of team spirit, building and maintain­
ing the social support necessary to thrive, especially in stressful and
uncertain times.
Sometimes celebrations can be elaborate, but more often they
are about connecting everyday actions and events to the values of
the organization and the accomplishments of the team. Exemplary
leaders seldom let an opportunity pass to make sure that constituents
know why they’re there and how they should act in service of that
purpose. For example, Kurt Richarz, executive vice president of sales
at Seagate Technology, uses regular monthly conference calls with
the entire sales organization to shine the spotlight on people who
have recently been given “Standing Ovations.”6 This program is very
simple: peers nominate colleagues by filling out a brief form high­
lighting their contributions or achievements. The form is forwarded
on not only to the recipient but to the recipient’s manager as well.
Even more important, the recipient’s photo and summary of accom­
plishments are featured on the monthly sales call, and Kurt reserves
time to highlight and congratulate the “heroic efforts” of people in
supporting the sales organization. He tells everyone it’s “one of my
favorite parts of the call.” Afterwards, Kurt goes on to thank the
nominators. After all, he says, “you guys are all very busy, and I
appreciate you taking the time to do this.” This public, enthusiastic,
and heartfelt recognition goes a long way in making both the recipi­
ents and bystanders feel that they are valued, and toward building a
positive, empowering community.
Whether they’re to honor an individual, group, or organizational
achievement or to encourage team learning and relationship build­
ing, celebrations, ceremonies, and similar events offer leaders the
perfect opportunity to explicitly communicate and reinforce
the actions and behaviors that are important in realizing shared

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values and shared goals. Exemplary leaders know that promoting a
culture of celebration fuels the sense of unity essential for retaining
and motivating today’s workforce. Besides, who really wants to work
in a boring place that neither remembers nor celebrates anything?
David Campbell, former senior fellow with the Center for Creative
Leadership, says it well: “A leader who ignores or impedes organiza­
tional ceremonies and considers them as frivolous or ‘not cost­
effective,’ is ignoring the rhythms of history and our collective
conditioning. [Celebrations] are the punctuation marks that make
sense of the passage of time; without them, there are no beginnings
and endings. Life becomes an endless series of Wednesdays.”7
Celebrate Accomplishments in Public
As we noted in the previous chapter, individual recognition increases
the recipient’s sense of worth and improves performance. Public
celebrations have this effect as well, and they add other lasting con­
tributions to the welfare of individuals and organizations that private
individual recognition can’t accomplish.8 It’s these added benefits
that make celebrating together so powerful.
For one thing, public events are an opportunity to showcase real
examples of what it means to “do what we say we will do.” When
the spotlight shines on certain people, and stories are told about their
actions, they become role models. They represent how the organiza­
tion would like everyone to behave, and demonstrate concretely that
it is possible to do so. Public celebrations of accomplishment also
build commitment, both among the individuals being recognized
(“Keep up the good work; it’s appreciated”) and among those in the
audience (“Here are people just like you who are examples of what
we stand for and believe in. You too can do this. You too make a
significant contribution to our success”).

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E This was precisely the reflection that MT Vu, program analyst
at Lockheed Martin, shared with us: “I received an Operational
Excellence Award for my contribution to a new business proposal.
The award was presented in front of all my peers and management.
I felt a great sense of pride and fulfillment. This encouraged me to
continue to perform well to show my peers and management that
the award represented my values.” She said that this public acknowl­
edgment not only energized her but also “revalidated to others that
great performance will be recognized.”
Public ceremonies also serve as a collective reminder of why
people are there, of the values and visions they share. By making
celebrations a public part of organizational life, leaders create a sense
of community. The process of creating community helps ensure that
people feel that they belong to something greater than themselves
and that they are working together toward a common cause. Cele­
brations serve to strengthen the bond of teamwork and trust.
Jan Pacas, general manager of Hilti Australia, which provides
leading edge technology to the global construction industry, under­
stood this when he instituted the “Champions League.”9 Because
teamwork is one of the four nonnegotiable values at Hilti Austra­
lia—the other three are integrity, courage, and commitment—Jan
wanted to make sure that people knew that it wasn’t just the sales
force who was responsible for top­level results. There were also many
people in support functions who contributed to the company’s
success.
To ensure that these behind­the­scenes folks did not go unno­
ticed, Jan introduced peer­nominated awards for people in non­
managerial roles who had demonstrated outstanding customer focus.
Anyone in the company could submit a nomination along with a
story to support their nomination, which the executive management
team reviewed to make sure that the candidates consistently lived
the company’s values. The process took nine months, and the final

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winners were not selected until the last week. The first of the Cham­
pions League awards were given out at the gala dinner to celebrate
Hilti’s fifty years in Australia, and there was an air of excitement as
Jan read the list of recipients. No one knew until that moment who
would be walking up on stage, and it was inspiring to see 250 people
give a standing ovation to those who exemplified the shared values
of Hilti. “The announcement of the Champions League winners was
the pièce de résistance to an overall great two­day event,” Jan said.
“It was not about the prize, although the prize was very exciting; it
was the feeling that you had been selected by your peers for some­
thing very, very special that you had achieved. . . . It made everybody
proud being a winner of this, and at the same time it cemented the
‘high expectations–high rewards’ culture with all staff.”
Some people are reluctant to recognize people in public, fearing
that it might cause jealousy or resentment. Allay these fears. All
winning teams have Most Valuable Players, and usually it’s the team
that selects them. Public celebrations, like the Champions League
awards, are important opportunities to reinforce shared values and
to recognize individuals for their contributions. They give you the
chance both to say thanks to specific individuals for their outstand­
ing performance and to remind people of exactly what it is that the
organization stands for.
Private rewards may work fine to motivate individuals, but they
don’t have the same impact on the team. To generate community­
wide energy and commitment for the common cause, you need to
celebrate successes in public.
Provide Social Support
Supportive relationships at work—relationships characterized by a
genuine belief in and advocacy for the interests of others—are criti­
cally important in maintaining personal and organizational vitality.10

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E Ceremonies and celebrations are opportunities to build healthier
groups, to enable members of the organization to know and care
about each other.
One of the significant lessons learned from an extensive ten­
year study of service quality is that social support networks are
essential for sustaining the motivation to serve. Shortfalls in service
performance are highly correlated with the absence of social support
and teamwork.11 Indeed, an antidote to service burnout is ensuring
that coworkers support one another and feel a sense of achieving
together. People who don’t like the folks they’re working with don’t
stay around very long. Working with others on your team should
be energizing, rejuvenating, even inspirational and fun.
This is just what Ferhat Zor experienced when he was working
on a warehouse performance management project with Borusan
Logistics (Turkey). The Tuzla warehouse manager reviewed the per­
formance of the various operational units at his monthly meetings
and made the point that they needed to support and help one
another. These meetings always ended, according to Ferhat, with
celebrating their accomplishments as an entire group. Sometimes
the celebrations were quite lavish—everyone would be taken out for
dinner—other times, more simply, dessert was served in the ware­
house after lunch or dinner, and group members enjoyed one anoth­
er’s company. After the group successfully completed one very
challenging project, a “spontaneous” surprise party was held, and
each and every employee was personally congratulated. Ferhat
explained that “their happiness and pride were evident.” Lots of
photographs were taken, and later these pictures were shared on the
Web with other divisions. A few months later, their accomplishment
was highlighted in the company’s newsletter, “in order,” said Ferhat,
“to show that each person makes an important contribution and
each doing their best makes the company a success.”

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Research across a wide variety of disciplines consistently dem­
onstrates that this kind of social support enhances productivity,
psychological well­being, and even physical health. Researcher and
former Harvard teaching fellow Shawn Achor, for example, has
found that among undergraduate students “social support was a far
greater predictor of happiness than any other factor, more than GPA,
family income, SAT scores, age, gender, or race.”12 Other studies
have found that social support not only enhances wellness but also
buffers against disease, particularly during times of high stress. This
latter finding is true irrespective of an individual’s age, gender, or
ethnic group. Even after adjusting for such factors as smoking and
histories of major illness, people with few close contacts were two
to three times more likely to die during the study period than those
who regularly had friends to turn to.13 In fact, George Vaillant,
Harvard professor of psychiatry, who directed the world’s longest
continuous study of physical and mental health, when asked what
he had learned from his forty years of research, said that “the only
thing that really matters in life are your relationships to other
people.”14
Social support is not just good for your physical and mental
health. It’s also vital to outstanding performance. Consider what
researchers found when analyzing the speeches of baseball players
when they were inducted into the National Baseball Hall of Fame.
As elite athletes, they had achieved the highest recognition in a field
demanding top physical skills. Yet for almost two­thirds of them,
their words of appreciation were less about technical or practical
assistance than about such factors as emotional support and friend­
ship. Social support was mentioned even more prominently for those
elected in their very first year of eligibility.15
What’s true at home, in the community, and on the playing field
is just as true at work. Research indicates, for instance, that “if you

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E have a best friend at work you are significantly more likely to engage
customers, get more done in less time, have more fun on the job,
have a safe workplace with fewer accidents, innovate and share ideas,
feel informed and know that your opinion counts, and have the
opportunity to focus on your strengths each day.”16 Friends are not
only good for your health but good for business. There is plenty of
opportunity for strengthening these relationships because, unfortu­
nately, only 18 percent of people report that their organizations offer
opportunities to develop friendships at work.17
Our files are full of personal­best leadership cases in which
strong human connections produced spectacular results. Extraordi­
nary accomplishments are achieved when everyone gets personally
involved with the task and with other people. When people feel a
strong sense of affiliation and attachment to their colleagues, they’re
much more likely to have a higher sense of personal well­being, to
feel more committed to the organization, and to perform at higher
levels. When people feel distant and detached, they’re unlikely to get
much of anything done.18
Leaders understand that what makes people most miserable is
being alone. Celebrations provide concrete evidence that individuals
aren’t alone in their efforts, that other people care about them,
and that they can count on others. People are reminded that they
need each other, that their work gets done because they’re connected
and caught up in each other’s lives. Celebrations reinforce the fact
that it takes a group of people working together with a common
purpose, in an atmosphere of trust and collaboration, to get extraor­
dinary things done. By making achievements public, leaders build
a culture in which people know that what they do is not taken for
granted, and clearly feel that their efforts are appreciated and
applauded.

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Invest in Fun
Fun isn’t a luxury, even at work. Every personal­best leadership
experience was a combination of hard work and fun. In fact, most
people agreed that without the enjoyment and the pleasure they
experienced with others on the team, they wouldn’t have been able
to sustain the level of intensity and hard work required to do their
personal best. People simply feel better about the work they’re doing
when they enjoy the people they’re working with.19 Every day might
not be all laughs, but if it’s all drudgery, then it’s hardly worth the
effort to get out of bed and come to work.
Joie de Vivre Hospitality—the country’s second­largest boutique
hotelier—was celebrating their twentieth anniversary, and founder­
CEO Chip Conley decided to throw a “Joy party” in celebration of
the company’s name (French for “joy of life”) and the company’s
mantra (“Create joy”). For years, the company’s three thousand
employees had often worn blue wrist bands with this mantra
imprinted on it, and one of the core values of the organization was
to create opportunities to celebrate joy with employees, customers,
and even innocent bystanders.
The company invited ten thousand women from around Cali­
fornia—all with the name Joy—to a party at their new, luxury Hotel
Vitale on San Francisco’s waterfront. The first twenty­five who gave
them an affirmative RSVP were given a free hotel room for the night
of the event so that they could have a Joy slumber party. Chip said,
That night, I showed up and saw smiles everywhere. We ended
up with a roomful of joy (and Joys), 125 women sharing the
same name, along with their husbands, significant others,
friends, and children. What was miraculous was how those

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E strangers bonded so quickly through their stories of “being Joy,”
as if they were long­lost friends. There were lots of Joy­full tears.
It was one big love bubble, not just for the Joys and their
families but also for our employees, who realized the
significance of our company name and our mission of creating
joy in the world. To this day, many Joie de Vivre employees say
this is one of their fondest memories in the company.
It’s easy to imagine the fun people had in thinking about, planning,
and eventually en­Joy­ing this event. And, although the intent of the
event wasn’t necessarily to drive business, that hotel received a large
new piece of business, a corporate retreat that more than paid for
the party, thanks to the word of mouth from the event.
Having fun sustains productivity, creating what researchers
refer to as “subjective well­being.” And it’s not all about parties,
games, festivities, and laughter. Wayne Tam describes his manager
Stephen Barkhuff, director of planning tools, at Bank of America,
as a quantitative guy who really enjoyed problem solving and logic
problems:
He really had fun dissecting complex computer code or
translating business processes to functional specifications. While
these tasks could be quite difficult, he was always positive and
built up our skills so that we could meet these challenges with
the same attitude he had. He encouraged the heart by showing
us how to have fun with this work. Many of us reporting to
him often worked together on complex problems and
encouraged each other as well. Since we often had fun
completing these challenges, we also shared the passion that
Steve had with his work.
Wayne went on to say that “I learned that though you get paid to
do a job, it’s better to be able to enjoy what you do and have fun.”

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When you appreciate Chip’s Joy party and how Steve was able
to make solving challenging problems fun, you can also under­
stand that these leaders—and hundreds of others we studied—are
passionate about their purpose, what they believe in, and how they
pass this on to others. They know that work in today’s organiza­
tions is difficult and demanding, and in this climate people need
to have a sense of personal well­being in order to sustain their
commitment. And leaders set the tone. When leaders openly dem­
onstrate the joy and passion they have for their organizations, team
members, clients, and challenges, they send a very loud message
to others that it’s perfectly acceptable for people to make public
displays of playfulness; it is more than okay to show enthusiasm
both at work and for the work you do.
GET PERSONALLY INVOLVED
Remember what we said at the beginning of this book: leadership is
a relationship. People are much more likely to enlist in initiatives
led by those with whom they feel a personal attachment. We started
our discussion of personal­best leadership with Model the Way, and
we’ve come full circle. If you want others to believe in something
and behave according to those beliefs, you have to set the example
by being personally involved. You have to practice what you preach.
If you want to build and maintain a culture of excellence and
distinction, then you have to recognize, reward, reinforce, and cel­
ebrate exceptional efforts and successes. You have to get personally
involved in celebrating the actions that contribute to and sustain the
culture. And if you want people to have the courage to continue the
quest in the face of great adversity, you have to encourage them
yourself.

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E What you preach and what you celebrate must be one and the
same. If they aren’t, the event will come off as insincere and phony—
and your credibility will suffer. The celebration must be an honest
expression of commitment to key values and to the hard work and
dedication of the people who have lived the values. Elaborate pro­
ductions that lack sincerity are more entertainment than encourage­
ment. It’s authenticity that makes conscious celebrations work.
When it comes to sending a message throughout the organiza­
tion, nothing communicates more clearly than what the leaders do.
By directly and visibly showing others that you’re there to cheer them
along, you’re sending a positive signal. When you set the example
that communicates the message, “Around here we say thanks, show
appreciation, and have fun,” others will follow your lead. The orga­
nization will develop a culture of celebration and recognition. Every­
one becomes a leader, everyone sets the example, and everyone takes
the time to celebrate the values and victories. When leaders are
encouraging, others follow their example, and organizations develop
a reputation for being great places to work. They’re magnetic, attract­
ing and retaining employees and customers far better than their
competitors can. People form a strong bond with these institutions.
They’re proud to be affiliated. Employees want to excel, business
partners want to delight, and customers want to stay loyal for a
lifetime.
Wherever you find a strong culture built around strong values,
you’ll also find endless examples of leaders who personally live the
values. You have to set the example of what’s expected and what will
be rewarded by being personally involved, which is precisely what
Beth Taute described to us about a manager (Jo) she worked with
at Citibank, who headed up a small team of analysts responsible for
the mammoth task of upgrading the human resources system, which
involved over 150,000 employees dotted across more than fifty­two

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countries: “Jo had taken on the task because she felt her team
could do it. She shared her belief in the team’s ability to do it with
them in their weekly team meeting. She then sat with each of them
individually in one­to­one meetings to allow them to express their
fears or reservations. She wanted each person in her team to feel as
though his or her opinions were important enough to be considered
individually.”
Jo got the ball rolling, and within a few days the team members
were up to their necks in various systems and issues. They were rarely
out of the office before midnight due to the tight time constraints
placed on them, and Jo was right alongside them at all times. She
even moved out of her office onto the floor to be closer to them,
and they converted her office to a meeting room for the various
conference calls they were making. She often had to leave the office
early to pick her daughter up and take her home, but would always
return with pizza, late­night snacks, or coffee to keep the team fed
and content.
Jo showed her appreciation in various ways that other managers
did not—even if it cost her time and personal funds. She would do
small things, such as taking the team out for a surprise lunch. She
let team members leave early if she knew they had something special
happening in the evening. She let team members with children come
in late or leave early on special occasions like birthdays so that they
could spend the morning or afternoon with them. She knew they
were putting in more hours per week than was required and wanted
them to know that the hours were appreciated. Small and silly gifts
with hidden jokes or meaning were scattered on everyone’s desks.
The result, according to Beth, was that “her team was completely
dedicated to her. She was an inspiration to them, and that meant
they would work until all hours to ensure this project was
completed.”

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E Jo knew that the project was an enormous undertaking, and so
did her team. Because of her hands­on personal involvement,
her team wanted to show her, by meeting and trying to exceed her
expectations, that her confidence and trust in them were correctly
placed. She was their chief cheerleader and supporter. She was also
their first line of help when they needed it, as well as the biggest
believer in their ability to succeed. She mounted a huge poster in
what had been her office documenting country by country where
they were making inroads and where they had to do more work. Her
enthusiasm for the project and their ability to complete it spilled
over to the team. Every time they reached a milestone, they would
go out for a celebratory drink. Said Beth,
Jo had such close relationships with a varied group of
individuals and knew which buttons to push to get
each individual to perform beyond their comfort zone and to
remain dedicated to the cause. She made coming to work and
being there late seem fun and not like a hard slog. I learned
that leaders have to be involved and connected with what’s
going on and that the best recognition is ongoing, without
being expected or predictable. To have done great work and be
recognized by Jo was more than any other recognition team
members wanted.
It’s this kind of personal dedication and involvement that earns
leaders the respect and trust of their teams. It’s what builds credibility
and loyalty. It’s also what develops an engaged and productive
workforce.
Show You Care
Leaders make sure that people know they are being paid attention
to and not being taken for granted. “People appreciate knowing that

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I care about them,” explained Judith Wiencke, an engineering
manager at Australia’s Telecom, “and they seem to care more about
what they’re doing as a result.” Indeed, Peter Birgbauer remembers,
when he was working as an investment banking analyst, how the
CEO made “everyone he interacted with feel important and val­
ued, regardless of their title or role in the company.” And he still
recalls the impact that receiving a handwritten note of appreciation
from the CEO had on him: “It would have been very easy for him
to send me an email or thank me in person when we ran into one
another, but he personalized his gratitude, showing that he cared,
and this made a significant impression on me. I felt valued, and it
made me want to work harder for the company.”
One of the most significant ways in which leaders show others
that they care is to be there with them. Thank­you notes and emails
expressing your appreciation are important, but being visible makes
you more real, more genuine, more approachable, and more hu­
man. You show you care when you attend meetings, visit customers,
tour the plants or service centers, drop in on the labs, make presenta­
tions at association gatherings, attend organizational events (even
when you’re not on the program), recruit at local universities, hold
roundtable discussions, speak to analysts, or just drop by your con­
stituents’ cubicles to say hello. Being there also helps you stay in
touch, almost literally, with what’s really going on. And it shows that
you walk the talk about the values you and your constituents share.
Believability goes up when leaders are personally involved.
For instance, when news of a possible physical move (with
potential layoff implications) leaked to employees, Kurt Richarz
dropped what he was doing, got on a plane, and flew halfway across
the country to speak with the potentially affected team.20 He began
the lunchtime conversation very honestly and plainly, in his signa­
ture Texan accent: “I didn’t know whether I should come out or not,
but I decided that I wanted to make sure I had the chance to talk

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E with y’all and set the record straight. I want to talk about what’s
going on, and hear what’s on your minds, too.” Kurt went on to
paint a more detailed picture, in the hopes of allaying fears and
letting people know the truth about what was really going on. He
expressed his belief in their capabilities, and his desire to help them
get more satisfaction out of their jobs. For some, this additional
information was a breath of fresh air; others left the lunch just as
concerned, but better educated on the situation.
The important thing was that Kurt not only acknowledged that
his support team was upset but actually did something major to
show them that they were important to him. Had he just sent an
email or scheduled a conference call, his acknowledgment wouldn’t
have been very impressive; the fact that he made a special trip just
for twenty­five support individuals was a monumental demonstra­
tion that he cared for his team. What’s more, the roundtable lunch
was a celebration of sorts, one recognizing the importance of com­
munity and their shared value of transparency.
In case you have any doubt that getting personally involved in
celebrations has an impact on others or on their assessment of your
leadership, take a look at what we consistently find in our research.
Those constituents who say that their leaders “almost always” (or at
least “very frequently”) find ways to celebrate score nearly 25 percent
higher on the extent to which “the organization values my work.”
Ask people if they feel that they are making a difference, and those
who say their leaders find ways to celebrate again score 25 percent
higher than those who report that their leaders don’t often find ways
to celebrate. And here’s another result you should pay attention to:
we ask people how effective, overall, they think their leader is; we
then correlate their ratings of their leaders’ effectiveness with the
extent to which their leaders find ways to celebrate. Once again we
see highly significant differences. People who work for leaders who

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more frequently celebrate rate their leaders’ effectiveness nearly one­
third higher compared to those who say their leaders celebrate less.
Bottom line: showing you care pays big dividends to leaders and
constituents alike.
Spread the Stories
Being out and about and getting personally involved in showing that
they care give leaders like Kurt the opportunity to both create and
find stories that put a human face on values. First­person examples
are always more powerful and striking than third­party examples. It’s
that critical difference between “I saw for myself ” and “Someone
told me about.” Exemplary leaders are constantly on the lookout to
“catch people doing things right,” and you can’t do this very well if
you stay behind a desk or counter.21 You need to see and know
firsthand what’s being done right so that you can not only let that
person know to “keep up the good work” but also tell others about
it. That way, you can give “up close and personal” accounts of what
it means to put into practice the shared values and aspirations. You
create organizational role models to whom everyone can relate. You
put the behavior in a real context. Values become more than simply
rules; you make them come alive. Stories also quickly translate infor­
mation about how people are actually supposed to act and make
decisions.22
Stories by their nature are public forms of communication.
Storytelling is how people pass along lessons from generation to
generation, culture to culture. Stories aren’t meant to be secret;
they’re meant to be told. And because they’re public, they’re tailor­
made for celebrations. Emory psychology professor Drew Westen
argues that “the stories our leaders tell us matter, probably almost as
much as the stories our parents tell us as children, because they orient

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E us to what is, what could be, and should be; to the worldviews they
hold and to the values they hold sacred.”23 In fact, you can think of
stories as celebrations; and celebrations, in turn, are ready­made
occasions to tell and share stories.
Leaders find numerous ways to perpetuate the important sto­
ries—for instance, by publishing a story in the company newsletter
or annual report, relating a story in a public ceremony, or making a
video and broadcasting it on the internal television network. Leaders
shine the spotlight on someone who’s lived out an organizational
value—and provide others in the organization with an example they
can emulate.
“The stories that resulted from the Cheer Ticket program at
Sprint’s corporate audit services team,” says Justin Brocato, then
intermediate financial auditor, “is one of the key reasons why it
worked so well.” At the start of each year, each employee was given
fifty yellow tickets that had a big smiley face on them. Anytime
someone helped you out or you wanted to recognize a job well done,
you could give them a cheer ticket along with a handwritten personal
message to explain what they did to help and how it was connected
with one of the seven Sprint values (for example, initiative,
adaptability, and leadership, to name three). Clearly this program
made some direct connections with the company’s core values, and
because employees were required to write in a descriptive message,
it served as a reminder of organizational and project goals and values.
This connection between goals and values helped keep employees
focused and energized. It was a simple way to say thank you and
give real­time feedback. According to Justin, “the program worked
because the stories were all so personal. . . . The employee receiving
the ticket knew right away what they did well and who made the
observation. This is an important point because I feel that feedback
is too often unspecific and untimely. The program also made coming

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to work fun. Having fun can be a powerful way to motivate
individuals.”
This “storytelling” program created an interesting dynamic in
the group and, Justin felt, “brought out the best in people.” People
were always aware that they could become “a story” because oth­
ers were taking note of their behavior, but at the same time, they
too were observing their peers. They expected the best in others
because they knew others expected the same from them. Many of
the stories were told throughout the year, and some were handed
down and related from year to year.
By telling stories, you can more effectively accomplish the
objectives of teaching, mobilizing, and motivating than you can
through bullet points in a PowerPoint presentation or tweets on
a mobile device. Listening to and understanding the stories lead­
ers tell do more to inform people about the values and culture
of an organization than do company policies or the employee
manual. They communicate what really goes on within the organi­
zation. Well­told stories reach inside people and pull them along.
They simulate the actual experience of being there and give people
a compelling way of learning what is really important about
the experience. Reinforcing stories through celebrations deepens the
connections.
Make Celebrations Part of Organizational Life
You need to put celebrations on your calendar. You probably do this
already for birthdays, holidays, and anniversaries, and you should
also do it for the important markers in the life of your organization.
Giving them a date, time, and place announces to everyone that
these things matter to you. It also creates a sense of anticipation.
Scheduling celebrations doesn’t rule out spontaneous events; it just

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E means that certain occasions are of such significance that everyone
needs to pay special attention to them.
In setting up celebrations, you first need to decide which orga­
nizational values, events of historical significance, or specific suc­
cesses are of such importance that they warrant a special ritual,
ceremony, or festivity. Perhaps you want to honor the group or team
of people who created the year’s important innovations, praise those
who gave extraordinary customer service, or thank the families of
your constituents for their support. Whatever you wish to celebrate,
you need to formalize it, announce it, and tell people how they
become eligible to participate. At a minimum, you ought to have at
least one celebration each year that involves everyone, though not
necessarily at the same site, and one that draws attention to each of
the key values of your organization.
Leaders make celebrations as much a part of their organization’s
life as they can. In their book Corporate Celebration, professors Ter­
rence Deal and M. K. Key provide a detailed framework for schedul­
ing and anticipating celebrations, and many of their celebration
ideas are presented in Table 11.1. Think about what might work for
your organization.
Of course celebrations are not always about one achievement or
for one person. Each year, the three employees in Sprint’s Cheer
Ticket program who had the most tickets in a particular values
category were nominated for a special award. The management team
reviewed the nominees for each value’s category, and the overall
category winners were revealed at an annual dinner. Justin described
the annual awards banquet
as a wonderful way to celebrate our accomplishments and
spread that sense of community. Significant others were
encouraged to attend, so it was a nice way to get to know

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Cyclical celebrations. Seasonal themes, key milestones, corporate
anniversaries, individual birthdays, marriages, reunions, and other
recurring events.
Recognition ceremonies. Public applause and
acknowledgment for a job well done, being best in class,
attaining specific goals, achieving a special rank, getting a
promotion, and other achievements that deserve broad
attention.
Celebrations of triumph. Special occasions for accentuating collective
accomplishments, such as winning a championship, beating
forecasts, beating the competition, launching a new product or
strategy, founding a new company, and opening a new office, plant,
or store.
Rituals for comfort and letting go. Not all of organization life is about
victory; sometimes there’s calamity and loss. There’s the loss of a
contract, layoffs of employees, a death of a colleague,
an experiment that failed, and site closings. These occasions
can be marked by ceremony and ritual to help people let go and
move on.
Personal transitions. Celebrations of entrances and exits, initiations,
separations, and other life passages as people come and go in the
organization.
Workplace altruism. Celebrations of doing good for others,
pulling together to help others, promoting social change, showing
appreciation to customers and clients.
Events. Celebrations of the company’s anniversary, opening
day, holidays, milestones, and articulation of the organization’s
vision.
Play. Energizing meetings and conventions, spoofing and poking fun,
games and sporting events.
Source: T. Deal and M. K. Key, Corporate Celebration: Play, Purpose, and Profit
at Work (San Francisco: Berrett-Koehler, 1998), 28.
TABLE 11.1 Events, Accomplishments, and
Actions to Schedule

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E people outside of an office setting and further build upon
existing relationships. It was also the perfect forum to publicly
recognize all of the contributions of the team and reflect upon
what we had accomplished.
Looking at it from the opposite perspective, what if
management had just sent out an email to announce and
congratulate the winners? How would that affect the impact of
the program? Yes, I am sure employees would have appreciated
that, but compare that to the roar of applause and whistles
when someone goes on stage to accept their award. Then
imagine your boss, on stage, telling you and an audience full of
your peers why they felt your accomplishments were worthy of
recognition. Celebrating in public is so much more memorable,
and the impact that it has on the recipient and on the team is
longer lasting. People get energized, and suddenly they have a
renewed sense of commitment for the year to come.
There really is no shortage of opportunities to bring people
together to celebrate your organization’s values and victories. In good
times or bad, gathering together to acknowledge those who’ve con­
tributed and the actions that have led to success signals to everyone
that their efforts made a difference. Their energy, enthusiasm, and
well­being—and yours—will be all the better for it.
Celebrate the Values and Victories
Celebrating together reinforces the fact that extraordinary per-
formance is the result of many people’s efforts. By visibly and
publicly celebrating people’s accomplishments, leaders cre-
T A K E A C T I O N

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ate community and sustain team spirit. By basing celebrations
on consistency with key values and attainment of critical mile-
stones, leaders reinforce and sustain people’s focus.
Social interaction increases individuals’ commitments to the
standards of the group and has a profound effect on people’s
well-being. Intimacy heals; loneliness depresses. When people
are asked to go beyond their comfort zones, the support and
encouragement of their colleagues enhance their resistance
to the possible debilitating effects of stress. Make sure that
your organization is not regarded as the place where “fun goes
to die.”
Leaders set the example by getting personally involved in
celebration and recognition, demonstrating that encouraging
the heart is something everyone should do. Telling stories about
individuals who have made exceptional efforts and achieved
phenomenal successes provides opportunities for leaders to
showcase role models for others to emulate. Stories make peo-
ple’s experiences memorable, often even profound in ways
that they hadn’t envisioned, and serve as a marker for future
behaviors. Making personal connections with people in a cul-
ture of celebration also builds and sustains credibility. It reduces
we-they demarcations between leaders and constituents. Add-
ing vitality and a sense of appreciation to the workplace is es-
sential.
To Encourage the Heart, you must celebrate the values
and victories by creating a spirit of community. This means you
have to
• Find and create occasions to bring people together.
• Be sure to make connections to the fundamental principles
when you explain why you are holding a celebration.

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• Find out about people’s stories—what they are doing to
make the organization successful. Write them down in a
journal to make sure you capture them.
• Never pass up any opportunity to publicly relate true
stories about how people in your organization went above
and beyond the call of duty.
• Hallways, elevators, and cafeterias, in addition to meeting
rooms, are all acceptable venues for telling and posting
good stories.
• Make sure that people understand how they are “part of
the whole” and that lots of others are working to make
them successful, even if they don’t know them.
• Repeat this phrase at every celebration: “We are in this
together.”
• Plan a festive celebration for even the smaller milestones
that your team reaches. Don’t wait until the whole project
is completed before you celebrate.
• Get personally involved in as many recognitions and
celebrations as possible.
• Have fun when you’re celebrating—laugh and enjoy
yourself, along with others.
• End each of your team meetings with a round of public
praise.
Use The Leadership Challenge Mobile Tool app to
immediately integrate these activities into your life and make
this practice an ongoing part of your behavioral repertoire.

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THROUGHOUT THIS BOOK, we’ve told stories of ordinary
people who’ve made extraordinary things happen. They are from all
over the globe, from all age groups and walks of life. They represent
a wide variety of organizations—public and private, governmental
and nongovernmental, high-tech and low-tech, small and large,
educational and professional. Chances are you haven’t heard of most
of them. They’re not public figures, celebrities, or megastars. They’re
people who might live next door or work in the next cubicle over.
They are people just like you.
We’ve focused on everyday leaders because leadership is not
about position or title. It’s not about organizational power or author-
ity. It’s not about fame or wealth. It’s not about the family you are
born into. It’s not about being a CEO, president, general, or prime
minister. And it’s definitely not about being a hero. Leadership is
about relationships, about credibility, and about what you do. And
everything you will ever do as a leader is based on one audacious
assumption: that you matter.
Leadership
Is Everyone’s
Business
C H A P T E R 1 2

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E You don’t have to look up for leadership. You don’t have to look
out for leadership. You only have to look inward. You have the
potential to lead others to places they have never been. But before
you can lead others, you have to believe that you can have a positive
impact on others. You have to believe that what you do counts. You
have to believe that your words can inspire and that your actions
can move others. And you have to be able to convince others that
the same is true for them. In these turbulent times, there is no short-
age of opportunities to lead, and the world needs more people who
believe they can make a difference and who are willing to act on that
belief.
LOOK TO LEADERS EVERYWHERE
For a long time now, we’ve been asking people of all ages and back-
grounds about the leaders in their own lives who are role models.
Not well-known historical leaders, but leaders with whom they’ve
had personal experience. We’ve asked them to identify the person
they’d select as their most important role model for leadership, and
then we’ve given them a list of eight possible categories from which
these leaders might come.1 They can choose from business leader,
community or religious leader, entertainer or cinema star, family
member, political leader, professional athlete, teacher or coach, or
other/none/not sure. Take a look at the results in Table 12.1.
When thinking back over their lives and selecting their most
important leader role models, people of all ages are more likely
to choose a family member than anyone else. It turns out that
relatives are the most influential leaders. In second place, for respon-
dents thirty years of age and under, is a teacher or coach. For the
over-thirty crowd, a business leader is number two. But when we

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probe further, people tell us that “business leader” really refers to the
person who was an immediate supervisor at work, not someone in
the C-suite; for those in the workplace, these leaders are their teach-
ers and coaches.
What do you notice about the top groups on the list? You should
notice that they’re the people you know well and who know you
well. They’re the leaders you are closest to and who are closest to
you. They’re the ones with whom you have the closest contact.
Leader role models are local. You find them close to where you live
and work.
Our research clearly demonstrates that the experience of leader-
ship is not something that happens only at the very top of organiza-
tions or that is confined to formal organizations at all. It’s experienced
everywhere. In other words, Leadership is everyone’s business.
Role Model Category Respondent Age
Category
18–30
years old
Over 30
years old
Family member 40% 46%
Teacher or coach 26% 14%
Community or religious leader 11% 8%
Business leader 7% 23%
Political leader 4% 4%
Professional athlete 3% 0%
Entertainer 2% 0%
None/not sure/other 7% 4%
TABLE 12.1 Who Are Role Models for
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E KNOW HOW IMPORTANT YOU ARE
Here’s something else the data show. People are watching you,
regardless of whether you know it or not. And you are having an
impact on them, regardless of whether you intend to or not.
If you’re a manager in an organization, to your direct reports
you are the most important leader in your organization. You are more
likely than any other leader to influence their desire to stay or leave,
the trajectory of their careers, their ethical behavior, their ability to
perform at their best, their drive to wow customers, their satisfaction
with their jobs, and their motivation to share the organization’s
vision and values.
If you’re a parent, teacher, coach, or community leader you are
the person that’s setting the leadership example for young people.
It’s not hip-hop artists, movie stars, or professional athletes they seek
guidance from. You are the one they are most likely going to look
to for the example of how a leader responds to competitive situa-
tions, handles crises, deals with loss, or resolves ethical dilemmas.
It’s not someone else. It’s you.
These data challenge further the myth that leadership is about
position and power. And they support the notion that leadership is
about the actions you take. That’s certainly what Yukari Huguenard,
solutions product manager at KANA Software, learned when she
examined her assumptions about the origins of leadership: “I used
to think leaders had to be at the top level of a large organization.
With that view of leadership, the chasm between where I am and
being a leader was uncrossable. Now, I see leaders leading a group
of people of any size and leading at any level. You are a leader if you
employ the five leadership practices because people around you want
to follow. In that sense, I feel that I’m already a leader.”

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There’s no escape. No matter what your position is, you have to
take responsibility for the quality of leadership your constituents’
experience. You are accountable for the leadership you demonstrate.
And because you are the most important leader to those closest to
you, you have to decide how good a leader you want to be.
There’s little debate that leaders make a difference. The only real
question is what kind of difference they make. Consider what people
report when we ask them to think about the worst leader they have
ever worked for and then to write down a number representing the
percentage of their talents that this leader utilized. Our research
results (displayed in Figure 12.1) show that people report that their
worst leaders generally use only about a third of their available
energy and talents. Those few who reported a higher percentage than
the average, when referring to their worst leader, clearly noted and
FIGURE 12.1 The Best Leaders Bring Out the Talents in
Others
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AVG 31.2
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AVG 95.1

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E voiced their resentment about how they had to do so much more
than was really necessary because of their boss’s ineptitude.
This percentage is in sharp contrast to what people report when
they think about their most admired leader. For these folks, the
bottom of the range is typically higher than the top of the range for
the former group. Many people indicate over 100 percent, and the
average is around 95 percent. Bottom line: the best leaders elicit
nearly three times the amount of energy, drive, commitment, and
productivity from their constituents compared to their counterparts
at the other end of the spectrum. When people reflect on their own
experience, it becomes crystal clear that, to repeat, leaders make a
difference.
We’re certain that you want to become the best leader you can
be, not just for your own sake, but also for the sake of others and
for the success of the endeavors you are pursuing. After all, it’s
unlikely that you’d be reading this book if you didn’t. But how can
you learn to lead better than you do now?
PRACTICE
Nearly every time we give a speech or conduct a workshop, someone
asks, “Are leaders born or made?” Whenever we’re asked this ques-
tion, our answer, always offered with a smile, is this: “We’ve never
met a leader who wasn’t born. We’ve also never met an accountant,
artist, athlete, engineer, lawyer, physician, writer, or zoologist who
wasn’t born. We’re all born. That’s a given. It’s what you do with
what you have before you die that makes the difference.”
Let’s get something straight. Leadership is not preordained. It’s
not a gene, and it’s not a trait. There is no hard evidence to support

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the assertion that leadership is imprinted in the DNA of only some
individuals and that everyone else missed out and is doomed to be
clueless.
Leadership can be learned. It’s an observable pattern of practices
and behaviors and a definable set of skills and abilities. And any
skill can be learned, strengthened, honed, and enhanced, given
the motivation and desire, along with practice, feedback, and
coaching. When we track the progress of people who participate
in leadership development programs, for example, the research
demonstrates that they improve over time.2 They learn to be better
leaders.
But here’s the rub. Although leadership can be learned, not
everyone wants to learn it, and not all those who learn about leader-
ship master it. Why? Because becoming the very best requires having
a strong desire to excel, a strong belief that new skills and abilities
can be learned, and a willing devotion to deliberate practice and
continuous learning. No matter how good you are, you have to
always want to be better. The truth is that the best leaders are the best
learners.
One midcareer executive told us about an address he still remem-
bers by General Colin Powell, given at the Naval Academy in 1992:
“He told the assembled brigade of midshipmen that one of the tenets
of a good leader is to never stop learning. He stressed that we must
use every experience, good or bad, to strengthen our leadership
identity.” He went on to say that “among the leadership lessons I
learned, the impact of making time for practicing good leadership
strikes me as the most significant.” You can’t learn to be a good leader
without putting in the time and practice.
Florida State University professor and noted authority on exper-
tise K. Anders Ericsson made this same point when he said, “Until

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E most individuals recognize that sustained training and effort is a
prerequisite for reaching expert levels of performance, they will
continue to misattribute lesser achievement to the lack of natural
gifts, and will thus fail to reach their own potential.”3 Anders and
his colleagues have found, over the thirty years of their research, that
raw talent is not all there is to becoming a top performer. It doesn’t
matter whether it’s in sports, music, medicine, computer program-
ming, mathematics, or other fields; talent is not the key that unlocks
excellence.
Staggeringly high IQs don’t characterize the great performers,
either. Sometimes world-class performers are really brilliant, but in
many instances they possess just average intelligence. Similarly, years
of experience don’t necessarily make someone a high performer, let
alone the greatest performer. And as startling as it might sound,
sometimes more years of experience can mean poorer performance
compared to those newly graduated in a specialty.
What truly differentiates the expert performers from the good
performers is hours of deliberate practice. You’ve got to work at
becoming the best, and it sure doesn’t happen over a weekend. If
you want a rough metric of what it takes to achieve the highest level
of expertise, the estimate is about 10,000 hours of deliberate practice
over a period of ten years.4 That’s about 2.7 hours a day, every day,
for ten years!
In other words, you have to have a passion for learning in order
to become the best leader you can be. You have to be open to new
experiences and open to honestly examining how you and others
perform, especially under conditions of uncertainty. You have to be
willing to learn quickly from your failures as well as your successes,
and find ways to try out new behaviors without hesitation. You won’t
always be right or do things perfectly, but you will get the chance
to grow.

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REFLECT
Engineers have computers; painters, canvas and brushes; musicians,
instruments. Leaders have only themselves. The instrument of lead-
ership is the self, and mastery of the art of leadership comes from
mastery of the self. Leadership development is self-development, and
self-development is not about stuffing in a whole bunch of new
information or trying out the latest technique. It’s about leading out
of what is already in your soul. It’s about liberating the leader within
you. And it starts with taking a look inside.
Your ability to excel as a leader depends on how well you know
yourself. The better you know yourself, the better you can make sense
of the often incomprehensible and conflicting messages you receive
daily. Do this, do that. Support this, support that. Decide this, decide
that. Change this, change that. You need inter nal guidance to navi-
gate the turmoil in today’s highly uncertain environment.
Harry Kraemer Jr., Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of
Management professor and former chairman and CEO of Baxter
International, strongly affirms that self-reflection is indispensible for
leaders. “The more you self-reflect,” he says, “the better you know
yourself: your strengths, weaknesses, abilities, and areas to be devel-
oped. Being self-aware, you know what you stand for and what is
important to you. With this clarity, you are able to connect and
communicate with others more effectively. Grounded in self-knowl-
edge, your leadership becomes more authentic.”5
For Harry, self-reflection is a personal discipline he’s cultivated
over many years. It all started when he was dating his then girlfriend
and now wife, Julie, and was invited on a weekend retreat by his
prospective father-in-law. Of course Harry accepted, but he didn’t
know until he arrived that it would be a “silent retreat.” Harry asked

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E what this meant, and he was told, “Harry, I have already noticed
that you can’t shut up for three minutes. This is going to be a chal-
lenge, because you are not going to say anything for three days.”
Harry was intrigued, and learned that you can’t really reflect—can’t
actually think through what’s important—unless you shut up and
listen to your inner self.
Every single day, usually at the end of the day when the work
is done and it’s quiet, Harry spends fifteen to thirty minutes reflect-
ing on “the day that is coming to a close, the impact I have made,
and the impact that others have made on me.” He asks himself a
number of questions about what he said, what he actually did, what
went well, what didn’t, what he’d do differently, what he learned that
had an impact on how he lives going forward, and so on. This prac-
tice of self-reflection is something every leader should adopt.
As you begin and continue your journey toward exemplary
leadership, you must wrestle with some difficult questions:
What are the values that should guide my decisions and actions?
What are my beliefs about how people ought to conduct the affairs
of our organization?
What are my leadership strengths and weaknesses?
How consistent is my view of my leadership with how others see
me?
What do I need to do to improve my abilities to move the organiza-
tion forward?
Where do I think the organization should be headed over the next
ten years?
How clear are others about our shared vision of the future?
How much do I understand about what is going on in the organiza-
tion and the world in which it operates?
What are the challenges we face, and how prepared are we to deal
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How prepared am I to handle the complex problems that now con-
front my organization?
What gives me the courage to continue in the face of uncertainty
and adversity?
How will I handle disappointments, mistakes, and setbacks?
What keeps me from giving up?
How solid are my relationships with my constituents?
How much do my constituents trust me and trust each other?
How can I keep myself motivated and encouraged?
How am I doing at sharing the credit and saying thank you?
What can I do to keep hope alive—in myself and others?
Am I the right one to be leading at this very moment? Why?
All exemplary leaders have wrestled with questions like these. Such
personal searching is essential in the development of leaders. You
can’t lead others until you’ve first led yourself on a journey of
self-discovery.
As Harry said, “Turn the spotlight on yourself. The glare will
not be more than you can handle. Rather, let it illuminate your life
and your choices—personal and professional—and help you see how
you are affecting the course of your life and your leadership.”6 If you
are to become the leader you aspire to be, you will have to take the
time to step back and reflect on your past, your present, and your
future.
REMAIN HUMBLE AND HUMAN
We need to add, however, that there’s a messy reality all leaders have
to face: you can do everything we talk about in this book perfectly
and still fail! As a leader, you quickly learn what it feels like to be

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E squeezed between lofty expectations and your own limitations.
Sometimes, in spite of your best efforts and your very best inten-
tions, you don’t succeed. Perhaps we should have told you this
sooner, but it’s our guess that you knew it already. You knew it
from your personal experience, or you knew it from the experience
of those close to you. You knew it because no one can ever be
that good.
There is no get-rich-quick, instant-weight-loss program for
leaders. There’s absolutely no way that we can say that The Five
Practices of Exemplary Leadership will always work, all the time or
with everyone. We do know for certain that these leadership prac-
tices will make a significant difference, but there’s no ironclad,
money-back guarantee. In addition, you will never find, in historic
or present times, even one example of a leader who controlled every
variable in the environment. And you’ll never find an example of a
leader who enlisted 100 percent of the possible constituency in even
the most compelling of future possibilities.
And there’s still another reality to confront: the treachery of
hubris is far more insidious than any of the other potential problems
a leader might encounter. It’s fun to be a leader, gratifying to have
influence, and exhilarating to have scores of people cheering your
every word. In many all-too-subtle ways, it’s easy to be seduced by
power and importance. It’s possible for any leader to get infected
with the disease of arrogance and pride, becoming bloated with an
exaggerated sense of self and pursuing one’s own ends. How then
can you avoid this?
Humility is the only way to resolve the conflicts and contradic-
tions of leadership. “Dig a hole, throw your ego into it, and pour
concrete on top. Find humility instead,” advises Dave Balter, founder
of BzzAgent, the leading word-of-mouth marketing company.7
Dave knows what he’s talking about. His ego, which gave him the

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confidence to be an entrepreneur and leader, almost destroyed his
business.
BzzAgent was Dave’s fourth start-up, and it was a hit. Venture
capitalists came knocking, he was featured on the cover of the New
York Times Magazine, and Harvard Business School wrote two cases
on the company. He was heralded as a genius, and confesses that he
believed all the positive press. He thought he was the reason for the
business’s success, and said that his “entire style evolved from confi-
dent to cocky.” He dismissed comments from others around him as
“shortsighted,” and the only voices he really heard, he later realized,
“were the ones in my head.”8
Then the recession hit, and in 2009, reality struck. It was a
hard time for every business, but it was particularly hard on
BzzAgent because of “my outsized ego and the way I was leading the
company,” as Dave himself observed. The chairman of the board
eventually took Dave aside and told him that it was his attitude that
was the problem. Fortunately, that encounter awakened him from
his ego-induced slumber. He took action to make some changes.
“I was forced to grasp that I didn’t have all the answers,” he said.
“In fact, I had to face the fact that I was pretty lousy at some
things. . . . Humbled, I started to change my mindset. I became a
student and a sponge.”
Humility is the antidote for hubris. You can avoid excessive
pride only when you recognize that you’re human and need the help
of others. Exemplary leaders know that “you can’t do it alone,” and
they act accordingly. They lack the pride and pretense displayed by
many leaders who succeed in the short term but leave behind a weak
organization that fails to remain viable after their departure. Instead,
with self-effacing humor, deep listening to those around them, and
generous and sincere credit to others, humble leaders realize higher
and higher levels of performance.

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E The word human and the word humble both derive from the
Latin humus, meaning “earth.” To be human and humble is to be
down-to-earth, with your feet planted firmly on the ground. Inter-
esting, isn’t it, how as you climb the ranks you often climb to a
higher floor in the building, getting farther and farther away from
the ground? Is it any wonder that the higher you go, the harder it
gets to keep your footing?9
You have to have the courage to be human and the courage to
be humble. It takes a lot of courage to admit that you aren’t always
right, that you can’t always anticipate every possibility, that you can’t
envision every future, that you can’t solve every problem, that you
can’t control every variable, that you aren’t always congenial, that
you make mistakes, and that you are, well, human. It takes courage
to admit all these things to yourself, but it may take even more
courage to admit them to others. If you can find the humility to do
that, you invite others into a courageous conversation. When you
let down your guard and open yourself up to others, you invite them
to join you in the creation of something that you could not create
alone. When you become more modest and unpretentious, others
have the chance themselves to become visible and noticed.10
Nothing in the research hints that leaders should be perfect.
Leaders aren’t saints. They’re human beings, full of flaws and failings
like everyone else. They make mistakes. Perhaps the very best advice
for all aspiring leaders is to remain humble and unassuming—to
always remain open and full of wonder.
SEIZE THE MOMENT
Sometimes leadership is imagined to be something majestic and awe
inspiring. Grand visions, world-changing initiatives, transforming

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the lives of millions—all are noble possibilities, but real leadership
is in the daily moments. Sergey Nikiforov, country manager, Russia
and CIS, for CA Technologies, one of the world’s largest indepen-
dent software companies, put it to us this way:
Where do I start becoming a better leader? This question has
been nagging me for some time. Naively I assumed that to
become a better leader meant to perform formidable tasks:
moving mountains, saving lives, changing the world for the
better. As you pointed out, these noble, grandiose tasks are
often insurmountable for a single person.
Then it occurred to me—I was thinking selfishly. What I
envisioned was instant gratification, recognition for my skills
and talent. Although the issues at work matched well with your
book’s materials, the way I dealt with them was far from ideal.
In most cases, I used wrong tools and methods.
I found that every day I had an opportunity to make a
small difference. I could have coached someone better, I could
have listened better, I could have been more positive toward
people, I could have said thank you more often, I could
have . . . the list just went on.
At first, I was a bit overwhelmed with the discovery of how
many opportunities I had in a single day to act as a better
leader. But as I have gotten to put these ideas into practice I
have been pleasantly surprised by how much improvement
I have been able to make by being more conscientious and
intentional about acting as a leader.
Sergey is right on point. Each day provides countless chances to
make a difference. The chance might come in a private conversation
with a direct report or in a meeting with colleagues. It might come
while you’re sitting at the family dinner table. It might come when

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might come when you’re listening to a friend talk about a current
conflict with a peer.
Leadership is in the moment. There are many moments each
day when you can choose to lead, and many moments each day when
you can choose to make a difference. Each of these moments serves
up the prospect of contributing to a lasting legacy.
REMEMBER THE SECRET
TO SUCCESS IN LIFE
There’s one final leadership lesson that we’d like to pass along. It’s
the secret to success in life.
When we began our study of leadership bests, we were fortunate
to cross paths with then U.S. Army Major General John H. Stanford.
We knew that he had grown up poor, that he failed sixth grade but
went on to graduate from Penn State University on an ROTC schol-
arship, that he survived multiple military tours in both Korea and
Vietnam, that he was highly decorated, and that the loyalty of his
troops was extraordinary. John headed up the Military Traffic Man-
agement Command for the U.S. Army during the Persian Gulf War.
When he retired from the Army, he became county manager of
Fulton County, Georgia, when Atlanta was gearing up to host the
1996 Summer Olympics, and then he became superintendent of
the Seattle Public Schools, where he sparked a revolution in public
education.
All that we learned of John’s public service was impressive, but
it was his answer to one of our interview questions that most influ-

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enced our own understanding of leadership. We asked John how he’d
go about developing leaders, whether in colleges and universities,
in the military, in government, in the nonprofit sector, or in private
business. He replied,
When anyone asks me that question, I tell them I have the
secret to success in life. The secret to success is to stay in love.
Staying in love gives you the fire to ignite other people, to see
inside other people, to have a greater desire to get things done
than other people. A person who is not in love doesn’t really
feel the kind of excitement that helps them to get ahead and to
lead others and to achieve. I don’t know any other fire, any
other thing in life that is more exhilarating and is more positive
a feeling than love is.
“Staying in love” isn’t the answer we expected to get—at least
not when we began our study of leadership. But after researching
leadership for over thirty years, through thousands of interviews and
case analyses, we are constantly reminded of how many leaders use
the word love freely when talking about their own motivations
to lead.
Of all the things that sustain a leader over time, love is the most
lasting. It’s hard to imagine leaders getting up day after day, putting
in the long hours and hard work it takes to get extraordinary things
done, without having their hearts in it. The best-kept secret of suc-
cessful leaders is love: staying in love with leading, with the people
who do the work, with what their organizations produce, and
with those who honor the organization by using its products and
services.
Leadership is not an affair of the head. Leadership is an affair of
the heart.

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Making Extraordinary Things Happen in Organizations
Chapter 1: When Leaders Are at Their Best
  1.  Unless otherwise noted, all quotations are taken from personal interviews or 
from Personal-Best Leadership Experience case studies written by the respon-
dent leaders. The titles and affiliations of the leaders may be different today 
from what  they  were  at  the  time  of  their  case  study  or  publication  of  this 
volume. We expect that many have moved on to other leadership adventures 
while  we  were  writing,  or  will  do  so  by  the  time  you  read  this.  It  is  also 
interesting to note that many of the leaders we interviewed were not always 
comfortable talking about themselves as “leaders,” preferring to give credit for 
any of  their  accomplishments  to the “great people”  they were blessed  to be 
working with. Barby Siegel is a good case in point.
  2.  For  detailed  information  on  our  research  methodology,  the  theory  and  
evidence behind The Five Practices of Exemplary Leadership, our Personal-
Best  Leadership  Experience  questionnaire,  the  psychometric  properties  
of  the  Leadership  Practices  Inventory  (LPI),  and  reports  on  the  analyses  
of  our  data,  please  see  the  research  section  of  our  Web  site:  http://www 
.leadershipchallenge.com/WileyCDA/Section/id-131060.html.
  3.  J.  M.  Kouzes  and  B.  Z.  Posner,  The Truth About Leadership: The No-Fads,
Heart-of-the-Matter Facts You Need to Know  (San  Francisco:  Jossey-Bass, 
2010).
  4.  Throughout this book, we use cooperate and collaborate synonymously. Their 
dictionary  definitions  are  very  similar.  In  Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate
Notes

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S Dictionary, 10th ed. (2001), the first definition of cooperate is “To act or work 
with  another  or  others:  act  together”  (p.  254).  The  first  definition  of  
collaborate is “To work jointly with others or together esp. in an intellectual 
endeavor” (p. 224).
  5.  B.  Kowitt,  “Full-Time  Motivation  for  Part-Time  Employees,”  Fortune, 
October 17, 2011, 58.
  6.  See B. Posner,  “Leadership Practices  Inventory  (LPI) Data Analysis,”  acces-
sible  on  our  Web  site  at  http://media.wiley.com/assets/2260/07/LPIData 
AnalysisSept2010 .  The  LPI  is  also  available  for  review  at  http://www 
.leadershipchallenge.com/WileyCDA/LCTitle/productCd-PCOL52.html.
  7.  Respondents  identify  their  age,  gender,  educational  level,  ethnicity  (U.S. 
respondents only), nationality (or country of origin), hierarchical (organiza-
tional)  level, functional field or discipline,  industry,  time with their current 
organization, and organization size (number of employees).
  8.  These ten statements were used to measure workplace engagement and com-
mitment:  (1)  This  person’s  work  group  has  a  strong  sense  of  team  spirit;  
(2) People who are part of this person’s work group are proud to tell others 
that they work for their organization; (3) People who are part of this person’s 
work group are committed to the organization’s success; (4) People who are 
part of this person’s work group would work harder and for longer hours if 
the job demanded it; (5) People who are part of this person’s work group are 
highly productive in their job; (6) People who are part of this person’s work 
group are clear about what is expected of them in their job: (7) People who 
are  part  of  this  person’s  work  group  feel  that  the  organization  values  their 
work;  (8)  People  who  are  part  of  this  person’s  work  group  are  effective  in 
meeting  the demands of  their  job;  (9) People who  are part of  this person’s 
work  group  seem  to  trust  the  management;  and  (10)  People  who  are  part  
of  this  person’s  work  group  feel  like  they  are  making  a  difference  in  the 
organization.
A 5-point response scale (with 1 indicating strongly disagree; 2, disagree; 
3, neither agree nor disagree; 4, agree; and 5, strongly agree) is used for each 
statement; the leader is the “person” referred to in each item. The measure is 
completed by the leader’s manager(s), coworkers (colleagues), direct reports, 
and “others” (people not in one of the previous three categories). The results 
do not vary systematically on the basis of these distinctions in the relationship 
with the leader.
  9.  Ann Rhoades quotes  a 2009  study by  the Gallup Organization  that  “com-
panies  in  the  top  decile  for  employee  engagement  boosted  earnings  per  
share  at  nearly  four  times  the  rate  of  companies  with  lower  scores.”  A. 
Rhoades,  “Passionate  People = A  Profitable  Company,”  Fortune,  September 
5, 2011, 22.
10.  Abstracts  of  more  than  500  studies  using  the  Five  Practices  of  Exemplary 
Leadership  framework and the Leadership Practices  Inventory (LPI) can be 
found at www.theleadershipchallenge.com/research.

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http://media.wiley.com/assets/2260/07/LPIDataAnalysisSept2010

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11.  R. Roi, Leadership Practices, Corporate Culture, and Company Financial Per-
formance: 2005 Study Results (Palo Alto, CA: Crawford & Associates Interna-
tional, 2006). Downloadable copy available from www.hr.com.
12.  For a more  in-depth discussion about  leadership being a  relationship, what 
people  look  for  in  their  leaders,  and  the  actions  leaders  need  to  take  to 
strengthen that relationship, see J. M. Kouzes and B. Z. Posner, Credibility:
How Leaders Gain and Lose It, Why People Demand It, 2nd ed. (San Francisco: 
Jossey-Bass, 2011).
13.  For more information about the original studies, see B. Z. Posner and W. H. 
Schmidt, “Values and the American Manager: An Update,” California Man-
agement Review  26,  no.  3  (1984):  202–216;  and  B.  Z.  Posner  and  W.  H. 
Schmidt,  “Values  and  Expectations  of  Federal  Service  Executives,”  Public
Administration Review 46, no. 5 (1986): 447–454.
14.  See Kouzes and Posner, Credibility, 9.
15.  A point that respondents often make about the checklist is that leadership is 
not about following a person per se but about following a person who embod-
ies for them a purpose (vision) that they believe is worthy and makes it pos-
sible for them to be leaders themselves.
16.  The classic study on credibility goes back to C. I. Hovland, I. L. Janis, and  
H. H. Kelley, Communication and Persuasion (New Haven, CT: Yale Univer-
sity Press, 1953); early measurement studies include J. C. McCroskey, “Scales 
for  the Measurement of Ethos,” Speech Monographs 33  (1966): 65–72;  and 
D. K. Berlo, J. B. Lemert, and R. J. Mertz, “Dimensions for Evaluating the 
Acceptability of Message Sources,” Public Opinion Quarterly 3 (1969): 563–
576.  However,  even  further  back,  Aristotle  (384–322  bc),  writing  in  the 
Rhetoric, suggested that ethos, the trust of a speaker by the listener, or what 
some have referred to as “source credibility,” was based on the listener’s percep-
tion  of  three  characteristics  of  the  speaker:  the  intelligence  of  the  speaker 
(correctness of opinions, or competence),  the character of  the speaker (reli-
ability, a competence factor; and honesty, a measure of  intentions), and the 
good will of the speaker (positive energy and favorable intentions toward the 
listener).  These  three  characteristics  (competence,  honesty,  and  inspiration) 
have consistently emerged in factor-analytic investigations of communicator 
credibility; see D. J. O’Keefe, Persuasion: Theory and Research (Thousand Oaks, 
CA: Sage, 2002). Another contemporary perspective is provided in R. Cialdini, 
Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion (New York: Collins, 2007).
17.  See, for example, B. Z. Posner and J. M. Kouzes, “Relating Leadership and 
Credibility,” Psychological Reports 63 (1988): 527–530.
18.  P. J. Sweeney, V. Thompson, and H. Blanton, “Trust and Influence in Combat: 
An  Interdependence  Model,”  Journal of Applied Social Psychology  39,  no.  1 
(2009): 235–264. Influence was defined as the willingness to allow another 
group  member  to  change  one’s  motivation,  attitudes,  values,  thoughts,  or 
behaviors. A  sample  statement:  “Motivates  you  to push yourself  to  achieve 
excellence.”

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S Model the Way
Chapter 2: Clarify Values
  1.  This example was provided by Gautam Aggarwal.
  2.  M. Rokeach, The Nature of Human Values (New York: Free Press, 1973), 5.
  3.  B. Z. Posner, “Values and the American Manager: A Three-Decade Perspec-
tive,” Journal of Business Ethics 91, no. 4 (2010): 457–465.
  4.  B.  Z.  Posner  and  W.  H.  Schmidt,  “Values  Congruence  and  Differences 
Between the Interplay of Personal and Organizational Value Systems,” Journal
of Business Ethics 12 (1992): 171–177. See also B. Z. Posner, “Another Look 
at the Impact of Personal and Organizational Values Congruency,” Journal of
Business Ethics 97, no. 4 (2010): 535–541.
  5.  Posner, “Another Look.”
  6.  C.  Daniels,  “Developing  Organizational  Values  in  Others,”  in  Leadership
Lessons from West Point, ed. D. Crandall (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2007), 
62–87.
  7.  See, for example, A. Rhoads and N. Shepherdson, Build on Values: Creating
an Enviable Culture That Outperforms the Competition (San Francisco: Jossey-
Bass,  2011); R. C. Roi, Leadership, Corporate Culture and Financial Perfor-
mance,  doctoral  dissertation,  University  of  San  Francisco,  2006;  and  J.  P. 
Kotter and J. L. Heskett, Corporate Culture and Performance (New York: Free 
Press, 1992).
  8.  See, for example, B. Z. Posner, W. H. Schmidt, and J. M. Kouzes, “Shared 
Values Make a Difference: An Empirical Test of Corporate Culture,” Human
Resource Management 24, no. 3 (1985): 293–310; B. Z. Posner, W. A. Ran-
dolph, and W. H. Schmidt, “Managerial Values Across Functions: A Source 
of Organizational Problems,” Group & Organization Management 12, no. 4 
(1987): 373–385; B. Z. Posner and W. H. Schmidt, “Demographic Charac-
teristics and Shared Values,” International Journal of Value-Based Management 
5, no. 1 (1992): 77–87; B. Z. Posner, “Person-Organization Values Congru-
ence:  No  Support  for  Individual  Differences  as  a  Moderating  Influence,” 
Human Relations  45,  no.  2  (1992):  351–361;  and  B.  Z.  Posner  and  R.  I. 
Westwood,  “A  Cross-Cultural  Investigation  of  the  Shared  Values  Relation-
ship,”  International Journal of Value-Based Management  11,  no.  4  (1995): 
1–10.
  9.  Posner, “Another Look.”
10.  Posner, “Values and the American Manager.”
11.  This example was provided by Jo Bell and Renee Harness.
12.  R.  A.  Stevenson,  “Clarifying  Behavioral  Expectations  Associated  with 
Espoused  Organizational  Values,”  doctoral  dissertation,  Fielding  Institute, 
1995.
Chapter 3: Set the Example
  1.  This example was provided by Craig Haptonstall.
  2.  T.  Yaffe  and  R.  Kark,  “Leading  by  Example:  The  Case  of  Leader  OCB,” 
Journal of Applied Psychology 96, no. 4 (July 2011): 806–826.

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  3.  T. Simons, “The High Cost of Lost Trust,” Harvard Business Review 80, no. 
9  (September  2002):  19.  See  also  T.  Simons,  The Integrity Dividend  (San 
Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2008).
  4.  Ed Schein has written extensively on how leaders help shape the culture of 
organizations; see E. Schein, Organizational Culture and Leadership, 4th ed. 
(San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2010), 197–298, and also E. Schein, The Corpo-
rate Culture Survival Guide (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2009).
  5.  This example was provided by Nick Fan.
  6.  For  a discussion of how  language  influences our behavior  in organizations, 
see S. Zuboff, In the Age of the Smart Machine: The Future of Work and Power 
(New York: Basic Books, 1988). See also S. Zuboff and J. Maxim, The Support
Economy: Why Corporations Are Failing Individuals and the Next Episode of
Capitalism (New York: Penguin, 2004). Gary Hamel points out that “the goals 
of  management  are  usually  described  in  words  like  ‘efficiency,’  ‘advantage,’ 
‘value,’ ‘superiority,’ ‘focus,’ and ‘differentiation.’ Important as these objectives 
are, they lack the power to rouse human hearts . . . [and leaders] must find 
ways  to  infuse mundane business activities with deeper,  soul-stirring  ideals, 
such as honor, truth, love, justice, and beauty.” See G. Hamel, “Moon Shots 
for Management,” Harvard Business Review, February 2009, 91.
  7.  Additional  information  on  DaVita’s  culture  and  language  can  be  found  in  
J. Pfeffer,  “Kent Thiry and DaVita: Leadership Challenges  in Building  and 
Growing  a  Great  Company,”  Stanford  Graduate  School  of  Business,  Case 
OB-54 (February 23, 2006).
  8.  F.  A.  Blanchard, T.  Lilly,  and  L.  A.  Vaughn,  “Reducing  the  Expression  of 
Racial Prejudice,” Psychological Science 2, no. 2 (1991): 101–105.
  9.  For in-depth examination of the importance of self-awareness and leadership 
effectiveness, see the landmark book: D. Goleman, Emotional Intelligence: Why
It Can Matter More Than IQ (New York: Bantam, 1995). See also D. Goleman, 
Leadership: The Power of Emotional Intelligence—Selected Writings (Northamp-
ton, MA: More Than Sound, 2011); D. Goleman, Social Intelligence: The New
Science of Human Relationships  (New  York:  Bantam,  2006);  D.  Goleman, 
Working with Emotional Intelligence  (New  York:  Bantam,  1998);  and  D. 
Goleman,  A.  McKee,  and  R.  E.  Boyatzis,  Primal Leadership: Realizing the
Power of Emotional Intelligence  (Boston:  Harvard  Business  School  Press, 
2002).
10.  R.  W.  Eichinger,  M.  M.  Lombardo,  and  D.  Ulrich,  100 Things You Need
to Know: Best Practices for Managers & HR  (Minneapolis,  MN:  Lominger, 
2004), 492.
11.  More information about the Leadership Practices Inventory (LPI), including 
its psychometric properties  and use,  can be  found on our Web site: http://
www.leadershipchallenge.com/WileyCDA/Section/id-131362.html.
12.  One final  source of  feedback  is yourself. Take a  few moments each day, on  
a  regular  basis,  to  review,  reflect,  and  look  ahead.  Casey  Harbin,  account 
manager at Apple, sets aside a few minutes each day “to reflect on something 
that bothered me or that I did well, so that I can both move on and move 

http://www.leadershipchallenge.com/WileyCDA/Section/id-131362.html

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S forward. Reflecting  in  this manner  also  helps  me  learn  about  other  people 
and appreciate the impact that I have on them, and vice versa.”
13.  We’ll have more to say about this in Chapter Nine, Strengthen Others.
14.  D. G. Kolb, “Seeking Continuity Amidst Organizational Change: A Storytell-
ing Approach,” Journal of Management Inquiry 12 (2003): 180–183.
15.  S. Denning, The Springboard: How Storytelling Ignites Action in Knowledge-Era
Organizations  (Boston:  Butterworth-Heinemann,  2001),  xiii.  For  the  best 
ways to tell and use stories to communicate vision and values, see S. Denning, 
The Secret Language of Leadership: How Leaders Inspire Action Through Narra-
tive (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2007).
16.  J. Martin and M. E. Power, “Organizational Stories: More Vivid and Persua-
sive Than Quantitative Data,” in Psychological Foundations of Organizational
Behavior, ed. B. M. Staw (Glenview, IL: Scott, Foresman, 1982), 161–168. 
For additional  evidence  that  storytelling  improves a  leader’s ability  to com-
municate, see also M. Bennett, Once upon a Time in Leadership: Inspiring a
Shared Vision Through Storytelling,  master’s  thesis,  College  of  Business  and 
Public Management, University of La Verne, March 2005. For more about 
being a storyteller, see C. Wortmann, What’s Your Story? Using Stories to Ignite
Performance and Be More Successful (Chicago: Kaplan, 2006).
17.  A. L. Wilkens, “Organizational Stories as Symbols Which Control the Orga-
nization,”  in  Organizational Symbolism,  ed.  L.  R.  Pondy,  P.  J.  Frost,  G. 
Morgan, and T. C. Dandridge (Greenwich, CT: JAI Press, 1983), 81–92; also 
Kolb, “Seeking Continuity.”
18.  For  a  detailed  blueprint  you  can  use  to  create  and  reinforce  a  culture  that  
is based on shared values, see A. Rhoades, Built on Values: Creating a Culture
That Outperforms the Competition (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2011).
19.  We’ll  say  a  lot  more  about  reward  and  recognition  in  Chapters  Ten  and  
Eleven.
Inspire a Shared Vision
Chapter 4: Envision the Future
  1.  D. Gilbert, Stumbling on Happiness (New York: Knopf, 2006), 5–6.
  2.  G.  Hamel  and  C.  K.  Prahalad,  Competing for the Future  (Boston:  Mass.: 
Harvard Business Press, 1996).
  3.  For  extensive  research  on  intuitive  decision  making  under  conditions  of 
extreme  uncertainty,  see  G.  Klein,  The Sources of Power: How People Make
Decisions  (Cambridge,  MA:  MIT  Press,  1998).  Envisioning  and  intuiting 
aren’t logical activities, and they’re extremely difficult to explain and quantify. 
Alden M. Hayashi, a senior editor of Harvard Business Review who has studied 
executive  decision  making,  reports,  “In  my  interviews  with  top  executives 
known for their shrewd business instincts, none could articulate precisely how 
they routinely made important decisions that defied any logical analysis. To 
describe that vague feeling of knowing  something without knowing exactly 
how  or  why,  they  used  words  like  professional  judgment,  intuition,  gut 
instinct, inner voice, and hunch, but they couldn’t describe the process much 

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beyond that.” Yet, as he points out, the leaders he studied agreed that these 
hard-to-describe abilities were crucial to effectiveness. They even went so far 
as to say that it was the “X-Factor” that separated the best from the mediocre. 
See A. M. Hayashi, “When to Trust Your Gut,” Harvard Business Review 79, 
no. 2 (February 2001): 59–65. In fact, by definition, intuition and vision are 
directly connected. Intuition has as its root the Latin word meaning “to look 
at”; see E. Partridge, A Short Etymological Dictionary of Modern English (New 
York: Macmillan, 1977), 359, 742.
  4.  J.  P.  Schuster,  The Power of Your Past: The Art of Recalling, Recasting, and
Reclaiming (San Francisco: Berrett-Koehler, 2011).
  5.  O. A. El Sawy, “Temporal Perspective and Managerial Attention: A Study of 
Chief Executive Strategic Behavior,” unpublished doctoral dissertation, Stan-
ford University, 1983. See also O. A. El Sawy, “Temporal Biases in Strategic 
Attention,”  research  paper,  November  1988,  Marshall  School  of  Business, 
University of Southern California.
  6.  Bob Rodriguez  is  the managing director and CEO of  the $17 billion value 
investing firm First Pacific Advisors, which under his twenty-five year leader-
ship has never had an annual loss. Bob tells the story that in 1974 when he 
was  taking  a  portfolio  management  investment  class  at  the  University  of 
Southern California, he asked Charlie Munger, when he was giving a guest 
lecture, if there was one thing that he could do that would make him a better 
investment  professional.  “His  answer  was,  ‘Read  history,  read  history,  read 
history.’  And  so  I  became  a  good  historian,  reading  both  economic  and 
financial history as well as general history.” Reflecting on the past definitely 
helps you see into the future and understand more about what is going on in 
the  present. As  told  by  E. Florian,  “The  Best Advice  I Ever Got,” Fortune, 
February 6, 2012, 14.
  7.  Gary Hamel observes, “One of the reasons many people fail to fully appreciate 
what’s changing  is because  they’re down at ground  level,  lost  in the thicket  
of confusing, conflicting data. You have to make time to step back and ask 
yourself,  ‘What’s  the big  story  that cuts  across  all  these  little  facts?” See G. 
Hamel,  Leading the Revolution  (Boston:  Harvard  Business  School  Press, 
2000), 128.
  8.  Elliot Jaques has written extensively about future orientation. See, for example, 
E. Jaques, Requisite Organization: The CEO’s Guide to Creative Structure and
Leadership, 2nd rev. ed. (Arlington, VA: Cason Hall, 2006), 15–32.
  9.  Einstein went on to say, “For knowledge is limited to all we know and under-
stand, while imagination embraces the entire world, and all there ever will be 
to know and understand.”
10.  This  was  precisely  the  viewpoint  advocated  by  the  late  Bill  Walsh,  who 
coached the San Francisco 49ers to three Super Bowl championships. See B. 
Walsh, S. Jamison, and C. Walsh, The Score Takes Care of Itself: My Philosophy
of Leadership (New York: Penguin Group, 2009).
11.  N. Halevy, Y. Berson, and A. D. Galinsky, “The Mainstream Is Not Electable: 
When  Vision  Trumps  Over  Representativeness  in  Leader  Emergence  and 

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S Effectiveness,”  Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin  37,  no.  7  (2011): 
893–904; J. E. Bono and T. A. Judge, “Self-Concordance at Work: Toward 
Understanding  the  Motivational  Effects  of  Transformational  Leaders,” 
Academy of Management Journal 46 (2003): 554–571; D. A. Waldman, G. G. 
Ramirez,  R.  J.  House,  and  P.  Puranam,  “Does  Leadership  Matter?  CEO 
Leadership Attributes and Profitability Under Conditions of Perceived Envi-
ronmental  Uncertainty,”  Academy of Management Journal  44  (2001):  134–
143;  B.  Shamir,  E.  Zakay,  E.  Breinin,  and  M.  Popper,  “Correlates  of 
Charismatic Leader Behavior in Military Units: Subordinates’ Attitudes, Unit 
Characteristics and Superiors’ Appraisals of Leader Performance,” Academy of
Management Journal 41 (1998): 387–409; and K. B. Lowe, K. Kroeck, and 
N. Sivasubramaniam, “Effectiveness Correlates of Transformation and Trans-
actional Leadership: A Meta-Analytic Review of the MLQ Literature,” Leader-
ship Quarterly 7 (1996): 385–425.
12.  See E. L. Deci with R. Flaste, Why We Do What We Do: Understanding Self-
Motivation  (New York: Penguin, 1995). For  another  excellent  treatment of 
this subject, see K. W. Thomas, Intrinsic Motivation at Work: Building Energy
and Commitment, 2nd ed. (San Francisco: Berrett-Koehler, 2009); and for an 
extensive academic treatment, see C. Sansone and J. M. Harackiewicz (eds.), 
Intrinsic and Extrinsic Motivation: The Search for Optimal Motivation and
Performance (New York: Academic Press, 2000).
13.  D.  Pink,  Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us  (New York: 
Penguin Group, 2009); L. Freifeld, “Why Cash Doesn’t Motivate,” Training 
48, no. 4 (July–August 2011): 17–22.
14.  Deci with Flaste, Why We Do What We Do, 25.
15.  J. M. Kouzes and B. Z. Posner, “To Lead, Create a Shared Vision,” Harvard
Business Review, January 2009, 20–21.
16.  J. Selby, Listening with Empathy: Creating Genuine Connections with Customers
and Colleagues  (Charlottesville,  VA:  Hampton  Roads,  2007);  D.  Patnaik, 
Wired to Care: How Companies Prosper When They Create Widespread Empathy 
(Upper Saddle River, NJ: FT Press, 2009).
17.  B. L. Kaye and S. Jordon-Evans, Love ’em or Lose ’em: Getting Good People to
Stay, 4th ed. (San Francisco: Berrett-Koehler, 2008).
18.  This particular list was originally shared with us in a telephone interview with 
Dave Berlew, November 14, 1994, based on his research. See D. E. Berlew, 
“Leadership and Organizational Excitement,” California Management Review 
17, no. 2 (1974): 21–30. Others have reported similar findings about what 
employees  want  most  at  work.  For  example,  a  survey  of  more  than  ninety 
thousand  workers  worldwide  by  the  management  consulting  firm  Towers 
Perrin found that 84 percent wanted challenging work that broadened their 
skills, and 83 percent wanted opportunities to develop new knowledge skills 
(Towers Perrin Global Workforce Study, 2007–2008); according to one popular 
Web site, the key factors are to be respected, to be members of the in-crowd, 
to impact decision making about their jobs, to have the opportunity to grow 

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and  develop,  and  access  to  reasonable  leadership  (http://humanresources 
.about.com/od/managementtips/qt/four_factors_b4.htm);  and  the  list  pro-
vided by Kelly Services, a global workforce recruiting and staffing organiza-
tion, begins with  the opportunity  to make a difference  (purpose),  followed 
by  clear  goals  and  objectives,  responsibility,  autonomy,  and  job  flexibility 
(http://www.kellyservices.us/web/us/services/en/pages/careertips_oct10 
_what_employees_want.html).
19.  In  their  studies  of  “great  workplaces,”  the  authors  note  that  although  the 
context in which people have responded since the 1980s has changed quite  
a  bit,  their  answers  “point  to  strikingly  consistent  experiences:  Specifically, 
they believe their leaders to be credible, respectful, and fair—they trust them. 
They also take pride in what they do, and they share a sense of camaraderie 
with their coworkers.” M. Burchell and J. Robin, The Great Workplace: How
to Build It, How to Keep It, and Why It Matters  (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 
2011), 7.
20.  Researchers have challenged the assumption that giving people more money—
providing or increasing financial incentives—improves performance. In fact, 
current  thinking  is  that  contingent  rewards  (for  example,  pay  for  perfor-
mance) may be a losing proposition. See, for example, D. Ariely, Predictably
Irrational: The Hidden Forces That Shape Our Decisions  (New York: Harper-
Collins, 2009); and “LSE: When Performance-Related Pay Backfires,” Finan-
cial, June 25, 2009.
21.  See, for example, Pink, Drive; M. Novak, Business as a Calling: Work and the
Examined Life (New York: Free Press, 1996); R. J. Leider and D. A. Shapiro, 
Whistle While You Work: Heeding Your Life’s Calling  (San Francisco: Berrett-
Koehler, 2001); P. J. Palmer, Let Your Life Speak (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 
2000); D. Zohar and I. Marshall, Spiritual Capital  (San Francisco: Berrett-
Koehler, 2004); and R. Barrett, Building a Values-Driven Organization (Bur-
lington, MA: Butterworth-Heinemann, 2006).
22.  See, for example, H. Mintzberg and R. A. Norman, Reframing Business: When
the Map Changes the Landscape (Hoboken, NJ: Wiley, 2001); C. Handy, The
Hungry Spirit: Beyond Capitalism  (New York: Broadway Books, 1999);  and 
G.  Hamel, Leading the Revolution  (Boston:  Harvard Business School Press, 
2000).
23.  H. Mintzberg,  “The  Rise  and  Fall  of Strategic  Planning,”  Harvard Business
Review 72, no. 1 (January–February 1994): 109.
24.  As quoted in L. Ioannou, “Make Your Company an Idea Factory,” Fortune, 
June 12, 2000, F264N–F264R.
Chapter 5: Enlist Others
  1.  This  example  was  provided  by  Pierfrancesco  Ronzi.  Their  achievements 
reached far beyond the results in the race. Shosholoza became a “hope genera-
tor”  for  many  South  Africans,  who  identified  in  this  success  with  pride. 
Thanks to the creation of the Izivunguvungu MSC Foundation for Youth, a 

http://humanresources.about.com/od/managementtips/qt/four_factors_b4.htm

http://humanresources.about.com/od/managementtips/qt/four_factors_b4.htm

http://www.kellyservices.us/web/us/services/en/pages/careertips_oct10_what_employees_want.html

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S sailing center based  in Simonstown near Cape Town, disadvantaged youths 
and street children are taught life skills through sail training.
  2.  “Portraits of Team Shosholoza,” http://www.teamshosholoza.com/cms/index 
.php?id=310&tx_ttnews%5Btt_news%5D=425&tx_ttnews%5BbackPid%5
D=310&cHash=de77148e29.
  3.  For more on  the  role of meaning  and purpose  in work,  see S.  Sinek, Start
with Why: How Great Leaders Inspire Everyone to Take Action  (New  York: 
Portfolio, 2010); R. M. Spence, It’s Not What You Sell, It’s What You Stand For:
Why Every Extraordinary Business Is Driven by Purpose (New York: Portfolio, 
2010); and D. Ulrich and W. Ulrich, The Why of Work: How Great Leaders
Build Abundant Organizations That Win (New York: McGraw-Hill, 2010).
  4.  M. Burchell and J. Robin, The Great Workplace: How to Build It, How to Keep
It, and Why It Matters (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2011), 127–128. The Great 
Place to Work Institute, where Burchell and Robin work, does the research 
that each year selects the Fortune 100 Best Companies to Work For.
  5.  Market researcher and author Doug Hall has found that “dramatically differ-
ent”  levels  of distinctiveness  in  a new product or  service  increase  the  idea’s 
probability of success in the marketplace from 15 percent to 53 percent. That’s 
a  353  percent  greater  chance  of  success.  The  same  is  true  for  a  vision;  the 
more unique it is, the higher the probability of success  in getting people to 
buy in. See D. Hall, Jump Start Your Business Brain: Win More, Lose Less, and
Make More Money with Your New Products, Services, Sales and Advertising 
(Cincinnati: Clerisy Books, 2005), 126.
  6.  Researchers Michael Burchell and Jennifer Robin find that “pride” is one of 
the five dimensions of a great workplace, and scoring high on this dimension 
is one of the things that qualify a company as a Fortune 100 Best Companies 
to  Work  For.  See  their  discussion  of  pride  in  Burchell  and  Robin,  Great
Workplace, 127–154.
  7.  When we did this on March 1, 2012, for “leadership books,” an Amazon.com 
search  returned  82,803  choices,  and  a  Google  search  returned 205  million 
hits in 0.28 seconds.
  8.  “ ‘I Have a Dream’ Leads Top 100 Speeches of the Century,” press release from 
the University of Wisconsin, December 15, 1999. Available online at www 
.news.wisc.edu/releases/3504.html  or  at  http://www.americanrhetoric.com 
/top100speechesall.html. See also S. E. Lucas and M. J. Medhurst, Words of
a Century: The Top 100 American Speeches, 1900–1999  (New York: Oxford 
University Press, 2008). Other leaders often seen on international lists of great 
speakers  from  recent  history  are  Winston  Churchill,  Charles  de  Gaulle, 
Mahatma Gandhi, Vaclav Havel, Robert Kennedy, Nelson Mandela, Jawahar-
lal Nehru, Barack Obama, Ronald Reagan, Eleanor Roosevelt, Gloria Steinem, 
Mother Teresa, Margaret Thatcher, and Lech Walesa.
  9.  The audio version of the “I Have a Dream” speech that we have found to be 
most  instructive  is  the  six-minute,  eleven-second  version  that  contains  the 
most famous passages. It is in the collection Greatest Speeches of All Time, Vol.
1.  You  can  download  it  from  Amazon.com:  http://www.amazon.com

http://www.teamshosholoza.com/cms/index.php?id=310&tx_ttnews%5Btt_news%5D=425&tx_ttnews%5BbackPid%5D=310&cHash=de77148e29

http://www.teamshosholoza.com/cms/index.php?id=310&tx_ttnews%5Btt_news%5D=425&tx_ttnews%5BbackPid%5D=310&cHash=de77148e29

http://www.teamshosholoza.com/cms/index.php?id=310&tx_ttnews%5Btt_news%5D=425&tx_ttnews%5BbackPid%5D=310&cHash=de77148e29

http://www.news.wisc.edu/releases/3504.html

http://www.news.wisc.edu/releases/3504.html

http://www.americanrhetoric.com/top100speechesall.html

http://www.americanrhetoric.com/top100speechesall.html

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S
/Grea te s t -Speeches -A l l -Time-Vol /dp/B001L0RONE/re f= s r_1
_cc_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1301516046&sr=1–3-catcorr.  A  printed  version  of 
this portion of the speech is in C. S. King (ed.), The Words of Martin Luther
King, Jr. (New York: Newmarket Press, 1983), 95–98. A video can be viewed 
on YouTube at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z4qrGWRbUng&feature=
related.
10.  This example was provided by Steve Coats.
11.  This  example  was  provided  by  Terri  Armstrong  Welch.  It  also  appears  in  
J.  M.  Kouzes  and  B. Z. Posner,  The Five Practices of Exemplary Leadership:
Nursing (San Francisco: Pfeiffer, 2011).
12.  J. Geary, I Is an Other: The Secret Life of Metaphor and How It Shapes the Way
We See the World (New York: Harper, 2011), 5.
13.  V. Lieberman, S. M. Samuels, and L. Ross, “The Name of the Game: Predic-
tive Power of Reputations Versus Situational Labels in Determining Prisoner’s 
Dilemma Game Moves,” Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin 30 (2004): 
1175–1185.  See  also  Y.  Benkler,  “The  Unselfish  Gene,”  Harvard Business
Review, July–August 2011, 78.
14.  For  a  discussion  of  the  role  of  images,  stories,  and  emotions  in  creating 
memorable ideas, see C. Heath and D. Heath, Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas
Survive and Others Die (New York: Random House, 2007).
15.  Those who are more auditory by nature talk about this as a “calling.”
16.  D. Goleman, Social Intelligence: The New Science of Human Relationships (New 
York: Bantam, 2006).
17.  Barbara  L.  Fredrickson,  Positivity: Groundbreaking Research Reveals How to
Embrace the Hidden Strengths of Positive Emotions, Overcome Negativity, and
Thrive (New York: Crown, 2009), 21.
18.  Fredrickson, Positivity, 60–65.
19.  See,  for  example,  H.  S.  Friedman,  L.  M.  Prince,  R.  E.  Riggio,  and  M.  R. 
DiMatteo,  “Understanding  and  Assessing  Nonverbal  Expressiveness:  The 
Affective  Communication Test,”  Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 
39, no. 2 (1980): 333–351; D. Goleman, R. Boyatzis, and A. McKee, Primal
Leadership: Realizing the Power of Emotional Intelligence  (Boston:  Harvard 
Business School Press, 2002); J. Conger, Winning ’em Over: A New Model for
Management in the Age of Persuasion (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1998); 
and M. Greer, “The Science of Savoir Faire,” APA Monitor 36, no. 1 (2005): 
28.
20.  B. L. Halpren and K. Lubar, Leadership Presence: Dramatic Techniques to Reach
Out, Motivate, and Inspire (New York: Gotham Books, 2003), 141.
21.  J. L. McGaugh, Memory and Emotion (New York: Columbia University Press, 
2003), 90. See also R. Maxwell and R. Dickman, The Elements of Persuasion:
Use Storytelling to Pitch Better Ideas, Sell Faster, & Win More Business  (New 
York:  HarperCollins,  2007),  especially  “Sticky  Stories:  Memory,  Emotions 
and Markets,” 122–150.
22.  McGaugh, Memory and Emotion, 93.
23.  McGaugh, Memory and Emotion, 92.

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S 24.  See C. Heath and D. Heath, Switch: How to Change Things When Change Is
Hard (New York: Broadway Books, 2010), 101–123.
25.  This  example  was  provided  by  John  Wang.  For  more  information,  see  J.  
Udell,  “An  Unforgettable  Lesson,”  http://blog.jonudell.net/2010/10/27/an 
-unforgettable-lesson/.
26.  This  example  was  provided  by Terri  Armstrong  Welch  and  Dick  Heller.  It  
also appears in J. M. Kouzes and B. Z. Posner, The Five Practices of Exemplary
Leadership: Non-Profit (San Francisco: Pfeiffer, 2011) and in J. M. Kouzes and 
B. Z. Posner, The Leadership Challenge Workshop Facilitator’s Guide Set, 4th 
ed. (San Francisco: Pfeiffer, 2010).
Challenge the Process
Chapter 6: Search for Opportunities
  1.  R. M. Kanter, The Change Masters: Innovation for Productivity in the American
Corporation (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1983), 125.
  2.  J. M. Crant and T. S. Bateman, “Charismatic Leadership Viewed from Above: 
The Impact of Proactive Personality,” Journal of Organizational Behavior 21, 
no. 1 (2000): 63–75.
  3.  T. S. Bateman and J. M. Crant, “The Proactive Component of Organizational 
Behavior:  Measures  and  Correlates,”  Journal of Organizational Behavior  14 
(1993):  103–118;  T.  S.  Bateman  and  J.  M.  Crant,  “Proactive  Behavior: 
Meaning, Impact, Recommendations,” Business Horizons 42, no. 3 (May–June 
1999):  63–70;  and  J.  M.  Crant,  “Proactive  Behavior  in  Organizations,” 
Journal of Management 26, no. 3 (2000): 435–463.
  4.  See, for example, J. M. Crant, “The Proactive Personality Scale and Objective 
Job  Performance  Among  Real  Estate  Agents,”  Journal of Applied Psychology 
80, no. 4 (August 1995): 532–537; J. A. Thompson, “Proactive Personality 
and Job Performance: A Social Capital Perspective,” Journal of Applied Psychol-
ogy 90, no. 5 (2005): 1011–1017. See also S. E. Seibert and M. L. Braimer, 
“What  Do  Proactive  People  Do?  A  Longitudinal  Model  Linking  Proactive 
Personality and Career Success,” Personnel Psychology 54 (2001): 845–875; D. 
Goetsch,  Effective Leadership: Ten Steps for Technical Professions  (Englewood 
Cliffs,  NJ:  Prentice-Hall,  2004);  and  D.  J.  Brown,  R. T.  Cober,  K.  Kane,  
P.  E.  Levy,  and  J.  Shalhoop,  “Proactive  Personality  and  the  Successful  Job 
Search: A Field Investigation of College Graduates,” Journal of Applied Psychol-
ogy 91, no. 3 (2006): 717–726.
  5.  Our sample involved managers from both the United States and Switzerland. 
See B. Z. Posner and J. W. Harder,  “The Proactive Personality, Leadership, 
Gender and National Culture” (paper presented to the Western Academy of 
Management Conference, Santa Fe, New Mexico, April 2002).
  6.  H.  Schultz  and  D.  J. Yang,  Pour Your Heart into It  (New York: Hyperion, 
1999), 210.
  7.  For detailed information on mental simulation, see G. Klein, Sources of Power:
How People Make Decisions (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1999), 45–77; see 

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also G. Klein, The Power of Intuition: How to Use Your Gut Feelings to Make
Better Decisions at Work (New York: Currency, 2004).
  8.  The  finding  that  how  we  deal  with  challenge  comes  from  the  inside  was 
dramatically related by V. E. Frankl in Man’s Search for Meaning: An Introduc-
tion to Logotherapy  (New  York:  Touchstone,  1984;  originally  published  in 
1946).
  9.  See E. L. Deci with R. Flaste, Why We Do What We Do: Understanding Self-
Motivation (New York: Penguin, 1995). See also D. Pink, Drive: The Surpris-
ing Truth About What Motivates You (New York: Riverhead Press, 2011); and 
K.  W.  Thomas,  Intrinsic Motivation at Work: What Really Drives Employee
Engagement, 2nd ed. (San Francisco: Berrett-Koehler, 2009).
10.  A. Blum, Annapurna: A Woman’s Place, Twentieth Anniversary Edition (San 
Francisco: Sierra Club Books, 1998), 3.
11.  P. LaBarre,  “How to Make It  to  the Top,” Fast Company, September 1998, 
72.
12.  For a discussion of myths and truths about financial incentives, see J. Pfeiffer 
and  R.  I.  Sutton,  Hard Facts, Dangerous Half-Truths, and Total Nonsense:
Profiting from Evidence-Based Management (Boston: Harvard Business School 
Press, 2006), 109–134. See also A. Kohn, Punished by Rewards  (New York: 
Houghton Mifflin, 1993).
13.  See R. Foster and S. Kaplan, Creative Destruction: Why Companies That Are
Built to Last Underperform the Market—and How to Successfully Transform
Them (New York: Currency Doubleday, 2001); C. M. Christensen, The Inno-
vator’s Dilemma: When New Technologies Cause Great Firms to Fail  (Boston: 
Harvard Business School Press,  1997); C. M. Christensen, S. D. Anthony, 
and E. A. Roth, Seeing What’s Next: Using the Theories of Innovation to Predict
Industry Change  (Boston:  Harvard  Business  School  Press,  2004);  and  G. 
Hamel, The Future of Management (Boston: Harvard Business School Press, 
2007).
14.  See,  for  example,  S.  Johnson,  Where Good Ideas Come From: The Natural
History of Innovation (New York: Riverhead, 2010); J. Ettlie, Managing Inno-
vation,  2nd  ed.  (Burlington,  MA:  Butterworth-Heineman,  2004);  E.  von 
Hippel, Democratizing Innovation (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2005); and 
T. Davila, M. J. Epstein, and R. Shelton, Making Innovation Work: How to
Manage It, Measure It, and Profit from It (Upper Saddle River, NJ: Wharton 
School Publishing, 2006).
15.  IBM,  Expanding the Innovation Horizons: The Global CEO Study 2006 
(Somers, NY: IBM Global Services, 2006).
16.  G. Berns, Iconoclast: A Neuroscientist Reveals How to Think Differently (Cam-
bridge, MA: Harvard Business School Press, 2008).
17.  M. M. Capozzi, R. Dye,  and A. Howe, “Sparking Creativity  in Teams: An 
Executive’s Guide,” McKinsey Quarterly, April 2011.
18.  Capozzi, Dye, and Howe, “Sparking Creativity.”
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S 20.  R.  Katz,  “The  Influence  of  Group  Longevity:  High  Performance  Research 
Teams,” Wharton Magazine 6, no. 3  (1982): 28–34; and R. Katz and T.  J. 
Allen, “Investigating the Not Invented Here (NIH) Syndrome: A Look at the 
Performance,  Tenure,  and  Communication  Patterns  of  50  R&D  Project 
Groups,”  in  Readings in the Management of Innovation,  2nd  ed.,  ed.  M.  L. 
Tushman and W. L. Moore (Cambridge, MA: Ballinger, 1988), 293–309.
21.  Katz, “The Influence of Group Longevity,” 31.
22.  L. Huston and N. Sakkab, “Connect and Develop: Inside Procter & Gamble’s 
New Model for Innovation,” Harvard Business Review 84, no. 2 (March 2006): 
60.
23.  C. Christensen, J. Dyer, and H. Gregersen, “The Innovator’s DNA,” Harvard
Business Review 87, no. 12 (December 2009): 60–67.
24.  Capozzi, Dye, and Howe, “Sparking Creativity.”
25.  On February 7, 2010, the CBS television series Undercover Boss premiered to 
a staggering 38.6 million viewers, the most watched premiere episode of any 
reality series  in the history of television. It was the most popular new show 
of the 2009–2010 television season.
26.  Quoted  in  S.  Lambert  and  E.  Holzman,  Undercover Boss  (San  Francisco: 
Jossey-Bass, 2011), 41.
Chapter 7: Experiment and Take Risks
  1.  K. E. Weick, “Small Wins: Redefining the Scale of Social Problems,” American
Psychologist 39, no. 1 (1984): 43. Karl attributes the concept of small wins to 
author Tom Peters, who wrote about it in his doctoral dissertation at Stanford 
University. For a related treatment of this topic, see P. Sims, Little Bets: How
Breakthrough Ideas Emerge from Small Discoveries  (New  York:  Free  Press, 
2011), 141–152.
  2.  This example was provided by Dan Schwab.
  3.  The  initial  discoveries  of  psychological  hardiness  came  from  a  twelve-year 
longitudinal study of executives at Illinois Bell Telephone as that organization 
experienced  the firestorm of changes produced by  the  federal  antitrust  case 
against  the  Bell  system  and  the  resulting  breakup  of  the  company.  Some 
executives were undermined by the mounting stresses of this upheaval; they 
had high stress  scores along with high rates of  illness. Yet another group of 
executives with equally high stress scores thrived and were below average on 
incidence of illness. As the researchers predicted, there was a clear attitudinal 
difference between the high-stress and high-illness group and the high-stress 
and low-illness group. For a history of the research, see S. R. Salvatore, “The 
Story  of  Hardiness:  Twenty  Years  of  Theorizing,  Research,  and  Practice,” 
Consulting Psychology Journal: Practices and Research 54, no. 3 (2002): 175–
185.  See  also  S.  R.  Maddi  and  S.  C.  Kobasa,  The Hardy Executive: Health
Under Stress (Chicago: Dorsey Press, 1984); S. R. Maddi and D. M. Khoshaba, 
“Hardiness and Mental Health,” Journal of Personality Assessment 67 (1994): 
265–274; and S. R. Maddi and D. M. Khoshaba, Resilience at Work: How to
Succeed No Matter What Life Throws at You (New York: AMACOM, 2005).

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  4.  See R. A. Bruce and R. F. Sinclair,  “Exploring  the Psychological Hardiness  
of  Entrepreneurs,”  Frontiers of Entrepreneurship Research  29,  no.  6  (2009): 
5;  P.  T.  Bartone,  R.  R.  Roland,  J.  J.  Picano,  and  T.  J.  Williams,  
“Psychological  Hardiness  Predicts  Success  in  US  Army  Special  Forces  
Candidates,”  International Journal of Selection and Assessment  16,  no.  1 
(2008):  78–81;  and  P. T.  Bartone,  “Resilience  Under  Military  Operational 
Stress:  Can  Leaders  Influence  Hardiness?”  Military Psychology  18  (2006): 
S141–S148.
  5.  “Too  Many  Interruptions  at  Work?”  interview  with  Gloria  Mark,  Gallup
Management Journal,  June 8, 2006, 1. Available online at http://gmj.gallup
.com/content/23146/Too-Many-Interruptions-at-Work.aspx.  See  also  G. 
Mark,  V.  Gonzalez,  and  J.  Harris,  “No Task  Left  Behind?  Examining  the 
Nature  of  Fragmented  Work,”  Proceedings of ACM CHI’05,  Portland,  OR, 
April 2005, 321–330. See also the classic study on the subject of how manag-
ers  spend  their  time:  H.  Mintzberg,  The Nature of Managerial Work  (New 
York: Prentice Hall, 1980).
  6.  T. A. Amabile and S. J. Kramer, “The Power of Small Wins,” Harvard Business
Review, May 2011, 73; see also their book The Progress Principle: Using Small
Wins to Ignite Joy, Engagement, and Creativity at Work (Boston: Harvard Busi-
ness Review Press, 2011).
  7.  Amabile and Kramer, “Power of Small Wins,” 75.
  8.  Amabile and Kramer, “Power of Small Wins,” 75.
  9.  S. Hollander, The Success of Increased Efficiency: A Study of DuPont Rayon Plants 
(Cambridge,  MA:  MIT  Press,  1965).  See  also  D.  Ulrich,  S.  Kerr,  and  R. 
Ashkenas, The GE Work-Out (New York: McGraw-Hill, 2002).
10.  H. Mintzberg, The Rise and Fall of Strategic Planning (New York: Free Press, 
1994), 134.
11.  K. M. Eisenstadt and B. N. Tabrizi, “Accelerating Adaptive Processes: Product 
Innovation in the Global Computer Industry,” Administrative Science Quar-
terly 40 (1995): 84–110.
12.  M. Maidique, “Why Products Succeed and Why Products Fail,” presentation 
to  the  Executive  Seminar  in  Corporate  Excellence,  Santa  Clara  University, 
May 29, 1985;  see also M. Maidique and B.  J. Zinger,  “The New Product 
Learning Cycle,” Research Policy 14 (1985): 299–313; G. A. Moore, Crossing
the Chasm: Marketing and Selling High-Tech Products to Mainstream Customers 
(New York: Harper Business, 1999); and C. M. Christensen, S. D. Anthony, 
and E. A. Roth, Seeing What’s Next: Using the Theories of Innovation to Predict
Industry Change  (Boston: Harvard Business School Press, 2004). See also J. 
McGregor, “How Failure Breeds Success,” Business Week, July 10, 2006, 42–
50. McGregor writes, “The best companies embrace their mistakes and learn 
from them.”
13.  T. L. O’Brien, “Are U.S. Innovators Losing Their Competitive Edge?” New
York Times, November 13, 2005, 3.
14.  M.  Jordan,  “Failure”  (Nike  commercial),  accessed  on  YouTube  March  6, 
2012, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m-EMOb3ATJ0.

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S 15.  P. J. Schoemaker and R. E. Cunther, “The Wisdom of Deliberate Mistakes,” 
Harvard Business Review 84, no. 6 (June 2006): 108–115. Harvard Business
Review  devotes  the  entire  April  2011  issue  to  a  discussion  of  failure  and 
its  role  in  business.  You  can  access  it  online  at  http://hbr.org/archive-toc 
/BR1104?conversationId=1855599.
16.  L. M. Brown and B. Z. Posner, “Exploring the Relationship Between Learning 
and Leadership,” Leadership & Organization Development Journal, May 2001, 
274–280. See also J. M. Kouzes and B. Z. Posner, The Truth About Leadership:
The No-Fads, Heart-of-the-Matter Facts You Need to Know  (San  Francisco: 
Jossey-Bass, 2010), 119–135.
17.  R. W. Eichinger, M. M. Lombardo, and D. Ulrich, 100 Things You Need to
Know: Best Practices for Managers & HR (Minneapolis, MN: Lominger, 2004), 
492.
18.  Eichinger, Lombardo, and Ulrich, 100 Things, 495.
19.  A. G. Lafley,  “I Think of Failure as  a Gift,” Harvard Business Review, April 
2011, 89.
20.  For the role of humility in leadership effectiveness, see, for example, J. Collins, 
Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap . . . and Others Don’t (New 
York: HarperBusiness, 2001), 27–30.
21.  C.  S.  Dweck,  Mindset: The New Psychology of Success  (New  York:  Random 
House, 2006), 6–7.
22.  A. Bandura and R. E. Wood, “Effects of Perceived Controllability and Per-
formance  Standards  on  Self-Regulation  of  Complex  Decision  Making,” 
Journal of Personality and Social Psychology  56  (1989):  805–814.  Also  see 
Dweck, Mindset, for a discussion of numerous research studies in these and 
other domains.
23.  A.  Carmeli,  D.  Brueller,  and  J.  E.  Dutton,  “Learning  Behaviours  in  the 
Workplace: The Role of High-Quality Interpersonal Relationships and Psy-
chological Safety,” Systems Research and Behavioral Science Systems Research 26 
(2009): 81–98.
24.  This example was provided by Jo Bell and Renee Harness.
25.  The feedback  instrument used  in this  instance was J. M. Kouzes and B. Z. 
Posner,  The Leadership Practices Inventory,  3rd  ed.  (San  Francisco:  Pfeiffer, 
2007).
26.  To read more about Pat Williams’s thoughts on  leadership and his personal 
experience as a ballplayer and sports executive, see P. Williams with J. Denney, 
Leadership Excellence: The Seven Sides of Leadership for the 21st Century 
(Uhrichsville, OH: Barbour Books, 2012).
27.  A.  L.  Duckworth,  C.  Peterson,  M.  D.  Matthews,  and  D.  R.  Kelly,  “Grit: 
Perseverance  and  Passion  for  Long-Term  Goals,”  Journal of Personality and
Social Psychology 92, no. 6 (2007): 1087–1101.
28.  M.E.P. Seligman, “Building Resilience,” Harvard Business Review, April 2011, 
101–106. For a more complete treatment of this subject, see M.E.P. Seligman, 
Flourish: A Visionary New Understanding of Happiness and Well-Being  (New 
York: Free Press, 2011).

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29.  Seligman, “Building Resilience,” 102.
30.  It  may  be  difficult  to  overcome  a  habitual  pattern  of  avoidance,  but  it  is  
possible to learn to cope assertively with stressful events through counseling 
and educational programs. For example, see Maddi and Kobasa, Hardy Execu-
tive;  D.  M.  Khoshaba  and  S.  R.  Maddi,  “Early  Experiences  in  Hardiness 
Development,”  Consulting Psychology Journal  51  (1999):  106–116;  S.  R. 
Maddi, S. Kahn, and K. L. Maddi, “The Effectiveness of Hardiness Training,” 
Consulting Psychology Journal 50 (1998): 78–86; Maddi and Khoshaba, Resil-
ience at Work; K. Reivish and A. Shatte, The Resilience Factor: 7 Keys to Finding
Your Inner Strength and Overcoming Life’s Hurdles  (New  York:  Broadway 
Books, 2003);  and J. D. Margolis  and P. G. Stoltz,  “How to Bounce Back 
from Adversity,” Harvard Business Review 88, no. 1 (January–February 2010): 
86–92.
Enable Others to Act
Chapter 8: Foster Collaboration
  1.  For detailed analyses of alliances and partnerships in the competitive market-
place,  see Y. L. Doz and G. Hamel, Alliance Advantage: The Art of Creating
Value Through Partnering  (Boston:  Harvard  Business  School  Press,  1998); 
J. K. Conlon and M. Giovagnoli, The Power of Two: How Companies of All
Sizes Can Build Networks That Generate Business Opportunities (San Francisco: 
Jossey-Bass, 1998); and W. C. Kim and R. Mauborgne, Blue Ocean Strategy 
(Boston: Harvard Business School Press, 2005). For a discussion of collabora-
tion  and  its  importance  to  innovation,  see  IBM,  Expanding the Innovation
Horizons: The Global CEO Study 2006  (Somers, NY:  IBM Global Services, 
2006). For  a discussion of  good  and bad  collaboration,  see  M. T. Hansen, 
Collaboration: How Leaders Avoid the Traps, Create Unity, and Reap Big Results 
(Boston: Harvard Business School Press, 2009).
  2.  For example, see R. F. Hurley, The Decision to Trust: How Leaders Create High-
Trust Organizations  (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2012); P. S. Shockley-Zala-
bak, S. Morreale,  and M. Hackman,  Building the High-Trust Organization:
Strategies for Supporting Five Key Dimensions of Trust  (San Francisco: Jossey-
Bass,  2010);  R.  S.  Sloyman  and  J.  D.  Ludema,  “That’s  Not  How  I  See  It: 
How Trust in the Organization, Leadership, Process, and Outcome Influence 
Individual Responses to Organizational Change,” Organizational Change and
Development 18 (2010): 233–276; S.M.R. Covey, The Speed of Trust: The One
Thing That Changes Everything (New York: Free Press, 2008); M. P. Wulandari 
and J. Burgess, “Trust and Its Relationship to the Quality of Communication 
and Satisfaction  in  a Large  Indonesian Workplace: A Case  Study,”  Interna-
tional Journal of Business and Management Studies  2,  no.  2  (2010):  49–55; 
K.  T.  Dirks,  “Trust  in  Leadership  and  Team  Performance:  Evidence  from 
NCAA Basketball,” Journal of Applied Psychology 8, no. 6 (2009): 1004–1012; 
P. J. Sweeney, V. Thompson, and H. Blanton, “Trust and Influence in Combat: 
An  Interdependence  Model,”  Journal of Applied Social Psychology  39,  no.  1 
(2009):  235–264;  N.  Gillespie  and  L.  Mann,  “How  Trustworthy  Is  Your 

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S Leader? Implications for Leadership, Team Climate, and Outcomes in R&D 
Teams,”  in  Leadership, Management, and Innovation in R&D Teams,  ed.  L. 
Mann  (New York: Praeger, 2005); K. T. Dirks  and D. L. Ferrin,  “Trust  in 
Leadership: Meta-Analytic Findings and Implications for Research and Prac-
tice,” Journal of Applied Psychology 87, no. 4 (2002): 611–628; K. T. Dirks, 
“The Effects of Interpersonal Trust on Work Group Performance,” Journal of
Applied Psychology  84,  no.  3  (1999):  445–455;  R.  B.  Shaw,  Trust in the
Balance: Building Successful Organizations on Results, Integrity, and Concern 
(San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1997); and R. M. Kramer, “Trust and Distrust 
in  Organizations:  Emerging  Perspectives,  Enduring  Questions,”  Annual
Review of Psychology 50 (1999): 569–598.
  3.  Shockley-Zalabak,  Morreale,  and  Hackman,  Building the High-Trust
Organization.
  4.  Innovation Survey (London: PricewaterhouseCoopers, 1999), 3.
  5.  See M. B. Gurtman, “Trust, Distrust, and Interpersonal Problems: A Circum-
plex Analysis,”  Journal of Personality and Social Psychology  62  (1992):  989–
1002. See also G. D. Grace and T. Schill, “Social Support and Coping Style 
Differences  in Subjects High and Low  in  Interpersonal Trust,” Psychological
Reports 59 (1986): 584–586.
  6.  W.  R.  Boss,  “Trust  and  Managerial  Problem  Solving  Revisited,”  Group &
Organization Studies 3, no. 3 (1978): 331–342.
  7.  Boss, “Trust and Managerial Problem Solving Revisited,” 338.
  8.  Boss, “Trust and Managerial Problem Solving Revisited,” 338.
  9.  Y.  Benkler,  “The  Unselfish  Gene,”  Harvard Business Review,  July–August 
2011,  77–85.  See  also  P.  J.  Zak,  “The  Neurobiology  of  Trust,”  Scientific
American, June 2008, 88–95; F. Fukuyama, Trust: The Social Virtues and the
Creation of Prosperity (New York: Free Press, 1996).
10.  See,  for  example,  Shockley-Zalabak,  Morreale,  and  Hackman,  Building the
High-Trust Organization.
11.  This example was provided by Kelly Ann McKnight.
12.  M.  Mortesen  and T.  Beyene,  “Being  There:  Firsthand  Experience  and  the 
Subsequent Role of Reflected Knowledge in Cultivating Trust in Global Col-
laboration,”  MIT  Sloan  School  Working  Paper  4735-09,  April  27,  2009. 
Available online at http://ssrn.com/abstract=1395732.
13  T. Rath, Vital Friends: The People You Can’t Afford to Live Without (New York: 
Gallup Press, 2006).
14.  D. E. Zand, “Trust and Managerial Problem Solving,” Administrative Science
Quarterly 17, no. 2 (1972): 229–239; and J. W. Driscoll, “Trust and Participa-
tion  in  Organizational  Decision  Making  as  Predictors  of  Satisfaction,” 
Academy of Management Journal 21, no. 1 (1978): 44–56.
15.  P. Lee, N. Gillespie, L. Mann, and A. Wearing, “Leadership and Trust: Their 
Effect on Knowledge Sharing and Team Performance,” Management Learning 
41, no. 4 (2010): 473–491.
16.  C. A. O’Reilly and K. H. Roberts, “Information Filtration in Organizations: 
Three  Experiments,”  Organizational Behavior and Human Performance  11 

http://ssrn.com/abstract=1395732

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(1974):  253–265;  and  Boss,  “Trust  and  Managerial  Problem  Solving 
Revisited.”
17.  The breakthrough experiment on group interdependence, and one of the most 
cited in social psychology, was conducted by Muzafer and Carolyn Sherif. It 
took place at a Boy Scouts of America camp between two rival groups of kids, 
the Rattlers and the Eagles. Conditions at the camp required that they cooper-
ate in order to get water flowing to both camps. You can read the story in M. 
Sherif, O. J. Harvey, W. R. Hood, and C. W. Sherif, The Robbers Cave Experi-
ment: Intergroup Conflict and Cooperation (Middletown, CT: Wesleyan, 1988).
18.  Another important ingredient in creating common purpose is identity. If you 
want people to collaborate, there can’t be any in-group or out-group, any “us” 
and  “them,”  or  competition  for  attention  among  members.  People  have  to 
identify  with  the  group  they  are  part  of  in  order  to  work  together.  Sports 
teams create identity with uniform colors, mascots, unique gestures, and fight 
songs.  Project  teams  do  it  with  special  names  for  product  versions,  insider 
jokes, badges, and the like. Fraternities and sororities do it with Greek letters, 
handshakes, secret words, ceremonies, and rituals.
19.  R. Axelrod,  The Evolution of Cooperation: Revised Edition  (New York: Basic 
Books, 2006). See also W. Poundstone, Prisoner’s Dilemma: John Von Neumann,
Game Theory, and the Puzzle of the Bomb (New York: Anchor, 1993).
20.  Axelrod, Evolution of Cooperation, 20, 190.
21.  R.  B.  Cialdini,  “Harnessing  the  Science  of  Persuasion,”  Harvard Business
Review, October 2001, 72–79. For a discussion of the principle of reciprocity, 
see R. B. Cialdini, Influence: Science and Practice, 4th ed. (Needham Heights, 
MA: Allyn & Bacon, 2001), 19–51;  J. K. Butler  Jr.  “Behaviors, Trust,  and 
Goal Achievement in a Win-Win Negotiating Role Play,” Group & Organiza-
tion Management 20, no. 4 (1995): 486–501; and W.E.D. Creed and R. E. 
Miles, “Trust in Organizations: A Conceptual Framework Linking Organiza-
tional Forms, Managerial Philosophies, and the Opportunity Costs of Con-
trols,”  in Trust in Organizations: Frontiers of Theory and Research, ed. R. M. 
Kramer and T. R. Tyler (Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, 1996), 16–39. See also 
G. Kohlrieser, Hostage at the Table: How Leaders Can Overcome Conflict, Influ-
ence Others, and Raise Performance (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2006).
22.  R. Putnam, Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community 
(New York: Touchstone, 2001), 134.
23.  For  a discussion of  the  competencies of  collaborative  leaders,  see H.  Ibarra 
and  M.  T.  Hansen,  “Are  You  a  Collaborative  Leader?”  Harvard Business
Review, July–August 2011, 69–74. For a variety of examples from organiza-
tions ranging from the U.S. Marine Corps to the Montreal-based Cirque du 
Soleil,  see  the  “Secrets  of  Greatness:  Teamwork!”  Fortune,  June  12,  2006, 
64–152. See also A. M. Brandenburger and B. J. Nalebuff, Co-Opetition: A
Revolution Mindset That Combines Competition and Cooperation: The Game
Theory Strategy That’s Changing the Game of Business  (New York:  Currency, 
1997); R. Wright, The Logic of Human Destiny  (New York: Vintage, 2000); 
Kim  and  Mauborgne,  Blue Ocean Strategy;  and  D.  W.  Johnson  and 

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S R. T. Johnson, Cooperation and Competition: Theory and Research (Edina, MN: 
Interaction, 1989).
24.  This  latter was  clearly  revealed  in  the 2011 NBA championships when  the 
Dallas  Mavericks  prevailed  over  the  individual  superstars  on  the  Miami  
Heat team.
25.  J. Vesterman, “From Wharton to War,” Fortune, June 12, 2006, 106.
26.  Vesterman, “From Wharton to War.”
27.  Mortesen and Beyene, “Being There.” See also A. Van de Ven, A. L. Delbecq, 
and R. J. Koenig, “Determinants of Coordination Modes Within Organiza-
tions,” American Sociological Review 41, no. 2 (1976): 322–338.
28.  Mortesen and Beyene, “Being There.” See also D. Cohen and L. Prusak, In
Good Company: How Social Capital Makes Organizations Work  (Boston: 
Harvard Business School Press, 2001), 20.
29.  D. Brooks, The Social Animal: Hidden Sources of Love, Character, and Achieve-
ment (New York: Random House, 2011).
Chapter 9: Strengthen Others
  1.  R. M. Kanter, The Change Masters: Innovation for Productivity in the American
Corporation  (New York:  Simon & Schuster,  1983).  Also  see  R. M. Kanter, 
When Giants Learn to Dance: Mastering the Challenges of Strategy, Management,
and Careers in the 1990s  (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1989); and R. M. 
Kanter, e-Volve! Succeeding in the Digital Culture of Tomorrow (Boston: Harvard 
Business School Press, 2001). For a study of how organizations create a culture 
of employee confidence, see R. M. Kanter, Confidence: How Winning Streaks
& Losing Streaks Begin and End (New York: Crown Business, 2004).
  2.  L. Wiseman, Multipliers: How the Best Leaders Make Everyone Smarter (New 
York: HarperCollins, 2010), 20.
  3.  A. Bandura, Self-Efficacy: The Exercise of Control (New York: Freeman, 1997); 
K. A. Karl, A. M. Leary-Kelly, and J. J. Martocchio, “The Impact of Feedback 
and  Self-Efficacy  on  Performance  in  Training,”  Journal of Organizational
Behavior 14, no. 4 (1993): 379–394; C. M. Shea and J. M. Howell, “Char-
ismatic Leadership and Task Feedback: A Laboratory Study of Their Effects 
on Self-Efficacy and Task Performance,” Leadership Quarterly 10, no. 3 (1999): 
375–396;  and  A.  Bandura,  “Social  Cognitive  Theory:  An  Agentic  Perspec-
tive,” Annual Review of Psychology 52 (2001): 1–26.
  4.  T.  Yaffe  and  R.  Kark,  “Leading  by  Example:  The  Case  of  Leader  OCB,” 
Journal of Applied Psychology 96, no. 4 (July 2011): 806–826.
  5.  This example was provided by Nicole Matouk.
  6.  A.  Bryant,  “Yes,  Everyone  Can  Be  Stupid  for  a  Minute,”  New York Times, 
May 7, 2011, http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/08/business/08corner.html 
?pagewanted=1&_r=1&emc=eta1.
  7.  A. Wrzeniewski  and  J.  Dutton,  “Crafting  a  Job:  Revisioning  Employees  as 
Active  Crafters  of  Their  Work,”  Academy of Management Review  26,  no.  2 
(2001): 179–201, and M. S. Christian, A. S. Garza, and J. E. Slaugher, “Work 
Engagement: A Quantitative Review and Test of Its Relations with Task and 
Conceptual Performance,” Personnel Psychology 64 (2011): 89–136.

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  8.  “Winners,” Sibson & Company 1, no. 7 (October 1991): 2.
  9.  Evolutionary  psychology  demonstrates  that  in  ecosystems,  collaboration  is 
what assists species to survive rather than become extinct; the group ends up 
eradicating bad or inefficient behavior. See R. Wright, The Moral Animal: Why
We Are the Way We Are: The New Science of Evolutionary Psychology (New York: 
Vintage, 1995). For another interesting look at the origins of social coopera-
tion, see A. Fields, Altruistically Inclined? The Behavioral Sciences, Evolutionary
Theory, and the Origins of Reciprocity  (Ann  Arbor:  University  of  Michigan 
Press, 2004).
10.  M. Csikszentmihalyi, Finding Flow: The Psychology of Engagement with Every-
day Life (New York: Basic Books, 1997), 30.
11.  M. Burchell and J. Robin, The Great Workplace: How to Build It, How to Keep
It, and Why It Matters (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2011), 66.
12.  See, for example, MICA Management Resources, “Training Impact on Cor-
porate  Competitiveness”  (Toronto:  MICA  Management  Resources,  April 
1991); America and the New Economy (Alexandria, VA: ASTD, 1990); and B. 
Sugrue and R. J. Rivera, State of the Industry 2005 (Alexandria, VA: ASTD, 
2005).
13.  N. Merchant, The New How: Creating Business Solutions Through Collaborative
Strategy (San Francisco: O’Reilly Media, 2010), 63.
14.  These are the kinds of questions that successful CEOs also think about. See 
A.  Bryant,  The Corner Office: Indispensable and Unexpected Lessons from
CEOs on How to Lead and Succeed  (New  York:  Times  Books,  2011).  For 
another look at this issue, see W. Bennis, D. Goleman, and J. O’Toole, Trans-
parency: How Leaders Create a Culture of Candor (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 
2008).
15.  Psychologists  often  refer  to  this  as  self-efficacy.  See,  for  example,  Bandura, 
Self-Efficacy; and R. M. Steers, L. W. Porter, and N. Branden, Self-Esteem at
Work: How Confident People Make Powerful Companies (San Francisco: Jossey-
Bass, 1998).
16.  R.  E.  Wood  and  A.  Bandura,  “Impact  of  Conceptions  of  Ability  on  Self-
Regulatory Mechanisms and Complex Decision Making,” Journal of Personal-
ity and Social Psychology  56  (1989):  407–415.  Managers  in  this  study who 
lost confidence in their own judgments tended to find fault with their people. 
Indeed, they were quite uncharitable about their employees, regarding them 
as  unable  to  be  motivated  and  unworthy  of  supervisory  effort;  given  the 
option, they would have fired many of them.
17.  A. Bandura and R. E. Wood, “Effects of Perceived Controllability and Per-
formance  Standards  on  Self-Regulation  of  Complex  Decision  Making,” 
Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 56 (1989): 805–814.
18.  A. M. Saks, “Longitudinal Field Investigation of the Moderating and Mediat-
ing Effects of Self-Efficacy on the Relationship Between Training and New-
comer Adjustment,” Journal of Applied Psychology 80 (1995): 211–225.
19.  See, for example, Wiseman, Multipliers; C. Dweck, Mindset: The New Psychol-
ogy of Success  (New York:  Ballantine  Books,  2007);  and  J.  Hagel  and  J.  S. 
Brown, “Do You Have a Growth Mindset?” Harvard Business School blog, 

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S posted  November  23,  2010,  http://blogs.hbr.org/bigshift/2010/11/do-you 
-have-a-growth-mindset.html.
20.  See  K.  A.  Ericsson,  M.  J.  Prietula,  and  E. T.  Cokely,  “The  Making  of  an 
Expert,” Harvard Business Review, July–August 2007, 114–121.
21.  L. M. Spencer Jr. and S. M. Spencer, Competence at Work: Models for Superior
Performance (Hoboken, NJ: Wiley, 1993). See also R. Boyatzis and A. McKee, 
Resonant Leadership  (Boston: Harvard Business School Press, 2004); M. M. 
Hughes,  L. B.  Patterson,  and  J. B. Terrell, Emotional Intelligence in Action:
Training and Coaching Activities for Leaders and Managers  (San  Francisco: 
Jossey-Bass,  2005);  V.  U.  Druskat,  G.  Mount,  and  F.  Sala  (eds.),  Linking
Emotional Intelligence and Performance at Work: Current Research Evidence with
Individuals and Groups  (Mahwah,  NJ:  Erlbaum,  2005);  and  D.  Goleman, 
Social Intelligence: The New Science of Human Relationships (New York: Bantam 
Books, 2006).
22.  P.  Leone,  “Take Your  ROI  to  Level  6,”  Training Industry Quarterly,  Spring 
2008, 14–18, http://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/trainingindustry/tiq_2008 
spring/.
23.  An interesting study of  this  involved 320 soldiers  serving  in a combat zone 
in Iraq. Researchers found that the level of trust that subordinates (soldiers) 
had  in  their  leaders  determined  the  amount  of  influence  they  willingly 
accepted. See P. Sweeny, V. Thomson, and H. Blanton, “Trust and Influence 
in Combat: An Interdependence Model,” Journal of Applied Social Psychology 
39, no. 1 (2009): 235–264.
24.  F. Hesselbein, “Bright Future,” Leader to Leader, no. 60, Spring 2011, 4.
Encourage the Heart
Chapter 10: Recognize Contributions
  1.  Hundreds of research studies have since been conducted to test this notion, 
and  they  all  clearly  demonstrate  that  people  tend  to  act  in  ways  that  are 
consistent  with  the  expectations  they  perceive.  See,  for  example,  D.  Eden, 
Pygmalion in Management: Productivity as a Self-Fulfilling Prophecy  (Lexing-
ton, MA: Lexington Books, 1990); D. Eden, “Leadership and Expectations: 
Pygmalion  Effects  and  Other  Self-Fulfilling  Prophecies  in  Organizations,” 
Leadership Quarterly 3, no. 4 (1992): 271–305; and A. Smith, L. Jussim, J. 
Eccles, M. Van Noy, S. Madon, and P. Palumbo, “Self-Fulfilling Prophecies, 
Perceptual Biases, and Accuracy at the Individual and Group Levels,” Journal
of Experimental Social Psychology 34, no. 6 (1998): 530–561.
  2.  K.  S.  Cameron,  Positive Leadership: Strategies for Extraordinary Performance 
(San Francisco: Berrett-Koehler, 2008). Fostering virtuousness, according to 
Kim,  is  about  facilitating  the best of  the human condition. He argues  that 
this  is based on an eudaemonic assumption that an  inclination exists  in all 
human systems toward goodness for its own intrinsic value.
  3.  See,  for  example,  J. E. Dutton, R. E. Quinn,  and K. S. Cameron, Positive
Organizational Scholarship: Foundations of a New Discipline  (San Francisco: 

http://blogs.hbr.org/bigshift/2010/11/do-you-have-a-growth-mindset.html

http://blogs.hbr.org/bigshift/2010/11/do-you-have-a-growth-mindset.html

http://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/trainingindustry/tiq_2008spring/

http://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/trainingindustry/tiq_2008spring/

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Berrett-Koehler, 2003); K. S. Cameron, Positive Leadership; D. Whitney and 
A.  Trosten-Bloom,  The Power of Appreciative Inquiry: A Practical Guide to
Positive Change, 2nd ed. (San Francisco: Berrett-Koehler, 2010); and M. E. 
Seligman,  Flourish: A Visionary New Understanding of Happiness and Well-
Being (New York: Free Press, 2011).
  4.  For a classic empirical  study of such situations,  see D. Eden and G. Ravid, 
“Pygmalion vs. Self-Expectancy: Effects of Instructor and Self-Expectancy on 
Trainee Performance,”  Organizational Behavior and Human Performance  30 
(1982): 351–364; and D. Eden and A. B. Shani, “Pygmalion Goes to Boot 
Camp: Expectancy, Leadership and Trainee Performance,” Journal of Applied
Psychology 67 (1982): 194–199.
  5.  But  what  happens  in  organizations  when  leaders  have  low  expectations  of 
others? And what happens when managers are constantly on the lookout for 
problems? Three things: they get a distorted view of reality; over time, produc-
tion declines; and their personal credibility hits bottom. Wandering around 
with an eye for trouble is  likely to get you just that: more trouble. There is 
other intriguing research which suggests that leaders can set others up to fail. 
This can happen when managers micromanage and control poor performers, 
weakening self-confidence and performance, which can in turn lead to living 
down to expectations rather  than  living up to them. See J.-F. Manzoni and 
J.-L. Barsoux, The Set-Up-to-Fail Syndrome: How Good Managers Cause Great
People to Fail (Boston: Harvard Business Press, 2002).
  6.  For a discussion of both the research on goal setting and its practical applica-
tions,  see  H.  G.  Halvorson,  Succeed: How We Can Reach Our Goals  (New 
York: Hudson Street Press, 2010).
  7.  For a discussion of flow, see M. Csikszentmihalyi, Finding Flow: The Psychology
of Engagement with Everyday Life (New York: Basic Books, 1997).
  8.  See,  for  example,  J. E. Sawyer, W. R. Latham, R. D. Pritchard,  and W. R. 
Bennett  Jr.,  “Analysis  of  Work  Group  Productivity  in  an  Applied  Setting: 
Application  of  a  Time  Series  Panel  Design,”  Personnel Psychology  52 
(1999): 927–967; and A. Gostick and C. Elton, Managing with Carrots: Using
Recognition to Attract and Retain the Best People  (Layton, UT: Gibbs Smith, 
2001).
  9.  This example was provided by Bilal Burak Ersan.
10.  P.  A.  McCarty,  “Effects  of  Feedback  on  the  Self-Confidence  of  Men  and 
Women,”  Academy of Management Journal  20  (1986):  840–847.  See  also 
Halvorson, Succeed.
11.  K. A. Ericsson, M. J. Prietula, and E. T. Cokely, “The Making of an Expert,” 
Harvard Business Review, July–August 2007, 114–121.
12.  For more on this topic, see Truth Nine in J. M. Kouzes and B. Z. Posner, The
Truth About Leadership: The No-Fads, Heart-of-the-Matter Facts You Need to
Know (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2010).
13.  B. Nelson, 1001 Ways to Reward Employees, 2nd ed. (New York: Workman, 
2005).

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S 14.  See,  for  example,  J.  M.  Kouzes  and  B.  Z.  Posner,  A Leader’s Legacy  (San 
Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2006), especially chap. 7, “Leaders Should Want to Be 
Liked,” 56–61.
15.  J.  A.  Ross,  “Does  Friendship  Improve  Job  Performance?”  Harvard Business
Review 54, no. 2 (March–April 1977): 8–9. See also K. A. Jehn and P. P. Shah, 
“Interpersonal  Relationships  and  Task  Performance:  An  Examination  of 
Mediating  Processes  in  Friendship  and  Acquaintance  Groups,”  Journal of
Personality and Social Psychology  72,  no.  4  (1997):  775–790.  There  is  an 
important  caveat,  however.  Friends  have  to  be  strongly  committed  to  the 
group’s goals. If not, then friends may not do better. This is precisely why we 
said earlier that it is absolutely necessary for leaders to be clear about standards 
and to create a condition of shared goals and values. When it comes to per-
formance, commitment to standards and good  relations between people go 
together.
16.  T.  Rath,  Vital Friends: The People You Cannot Afford to Live Without  (New 
York: Gallup Press, 2006).
17.  As  used  in  this  publication,  “Deloitte”  means  Deloitte  Consulting  LLP,  a 
subsidiary  of  Deloitte  LLP.  Please  see  www.deloitte.com/us/about  for  
a  detailed  description  of  the  legal  structure  of  Deloitte  LLP  and  its 
subsidiaries.
18.  This example was provided by Steve Coats.
19.  J. L. Hall, B. Z. Posner, and J. W. Harder, “Performance Appraisal Systems: 
Matching  Theory with Practice,” Group and Management Studies  14,  no. 1 
(1989): 51–69.
20.  J.  Pfeffer  and  R.  I.  Sutton,  Hard Facts, Dangerous Half-Truths, and Total
Nonsense: Profiting from Evidence-Based Management (Boston: Harvard Busi-
ness School Publishing, 2006).
21.  Eric Harvey suggests lots and lots of creative ways to recognize people in his 
handbook  180 Ways to Walk the Recognition Talk  (Dallas:  Walk  the  Talk 
Company, 2000). See also Nelson, 1001 Ways to Reward Employees; L. Yerkes, 
Fun Works: Creative Places Where People Love to Work (San Francisco: Berrett-
Koehler,  2001);  J.  W.  Umlas,  The Power of Acknowledgment  (New  York: 
International Institute for Learning, 2007); B. Kaye and S. Jordan-Evans, Love
’em or Lose ’em: Getting Good People to Stay, 4th ed. (San Francisco: Berrett-
Koehler, 2008).
22.  See,  for  example,  J.  T.  Bond,  E.  Galinsky,  and  J.  E.  Swanberg,  The 1997
National Study of the Changing Workforce  (New  York:  Families  and  Work 
Institute, 1998); F. L. Branham, Keeping the People Who Keep You in Business 
(New York: AMACOM, 2000); B. N. Pfau and I. T. Kay, The Human Capital
Edge (New York: McGraw-Hill, 2001); and K. Thomas, Intrinsic Motivation
at Work: What Really Drives Employee Engagement,  2nd  ed.  (San  Francisco: 
Berrett-Koehler, 2009).
23.  L. K. Thaler and R. Koyal, “The Power of ‘Thanks,’ ” the Power of Small blog, 
posted  January  17,  2011,  http://www.thepowerofsmallbook.com/index.php 
/pos/comments/601/.

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24.  B.  Nelson,  “The  Power  of  Rewards  and  Recognition,”  presentation  to  the 
Consortium on Executive Education, Leavey School of Business, Santa Clara 
University, September 20, 1996; A. M. Grant and F. Gino, “A Little Thanks 
Goes a Long Way: Explaining Why Gratitude Expressions Motivate Prosocial 
Behavior,” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 98, no. 6 (June 2010): 
946–955.
25.  R.  M.  Kanter,  The Changemasters: Innovation and Entrepreneurship in the
American Corporation (New York: Free Press, 1985). See also R. M. Kanter, 
SuperCorp: How Vanguard Companies Create Innovation, Profits, Growth and
Social Good (New York: Crown Books, 2009).
26.  M. Buckingham and D. O. Clifton, Now, Discover Your Strengths (New York: 
Free  Press,  2001).  You  can  go  overboard,  however.  At  a  thirteen-to-one  
ratio, productivity declines. Most people don’t have to worry about this upper 
limit;  it’s meeting the three-to-one ratio  that’s usually problematic  for most 
people.
27.  See T. Rath and D. O. Clifton, How Full Is Your Bucket? Positive Strategies for
Work and Life  (New  York:  Gallup  Press,  2004),  57.  Original  research:  M. 
Losada, “The Complex Dynamics of High Performance Teams,” Mathematical
and Computer Modeling (1999): 30.
Chapter 11: Celebrate the Values and Victories
  1.  In writing on  this  important  subject, New York Times writer David Brooks 
combines the most recent research on neuroscience with a fascinating narra-
tive  story.  See  D.  Brooks,  The Social Animal: The Hidden Sources of Love,
Character, and Achievement  (New York: Random House, 2011). Social psy-
chologist Elliot Aronson has written the most widely read and most accessible 
textbook  on  the  dynamics  of  human  behavior  in  social  settings.  See  E. 
Aronson, The Social Animal, 11th ed. (New York: Worth, 2011).
  2.  For  a  detailed  discussion  of,  and  extensive  data  on,  social  capital,  see  R. 
Putnam,  Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community 
(New York: Touchstone, 2001). For  a practical  application of  social  capital 
research to the business world, see W. Baker, Achieving Success Through Social
Capital: Tapping the Hidden Resources in Your Personal and Business Networks 
(San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2000).
  3.  Source: “List of Social Networking Websites,” Wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia
.org/wiki/List_of_social_networking_websites.
  4.  K. N. Hampton, L. S. Goulet, L. Rainie, and K. Purcell, “Social Networking 
Sites and Our Lives,” Pew Internet & American Life Project,  June 16, 2011, 
22. Available at http://pewinternet.org/Reports/2011/Technology-and-social 
-networks.aspx.
  5.  T. Deal and M. K. Key, Corporate Celebration: Play, Purpose, and Profit at Work 
(San Francisco: Berrett-Koehler, 1998), 5.
  6.  This example was provided by Alex Jukl.
  7.  D. Campbell, If I’m in Charge Here, Why Is Everybody Laughing? (Greensboro, 
NC: Center for Creative Leadership, 1984), 64.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_social_networking_websites

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S   8.  This was precisely the point that our Russian colleague Alexey Astafev made 
in the previous chapter.
  9.  This example was provided by Michael Bunting.
10.  See, for example, K. J. Fenlason and T. A. Beehr, “Social Support and Occu-
pational Stress: Effects of Talking to Others,” Journal of Organizational Behav-
ior 15, no. 2 (1994): 157–175; and J. S. Mulbert, “Social Networks, Social 
Circles,  and  Job  Satisfaction,”  Work & Occupations  18,  no.  4  (1991): 
415–430.
11.  L. L. Berry, A. Parasuraman, and V. A. Zeithaml, “Improving Service Quality 
in  America:  Lessons  Learned,”  Academy of Management Executive  8,  no.  2 
(1994): 32–45.
12.  S. Achor, The Happiness Advantage: The Seven Principles of Positive Psychology
That Fuel Success and Performance at Work (New York: Crown Books, 2010), 
176.
13.  See J. Cacioppo, Loneliness: Human Nature and the Need for Social Connection 
(New York: Norton, 2008). See also L. F. Berkman and S. L. Syme, “Social 
Networks, Host Resistance, and Mortality: A Nine-Year Follow-Up Study of 
Alameda  County  Residents,”  American Journal of Epidemiology  109,  no.  2 
(1979): 186–204; and S. Cohen, “Psychosocial Models of the Role of Social 
Support  in  the  Etiology  of  Physical  Disease,”  Health Psychology  7  (1988): 
269–297.
14.  J.  W.  Shenk,  “What  Makes  Us  Happy?”  Atlantic,  June  2009,  http://www
.theatlantic.com/magazine/print/2009/06/what-makes-us-happy/7439/.
15.  R. D. Cotton, Y. Shen, and R. Livne-Tarandach, “On Becoming Extraordi-
nary: The Content and Structure of the Developmental Networks of Major 
League Baseball Hall of Famers,” Academy of Management Journal 54, no. 1 
(2011): 15–46.
16.  T. Rath, Vital Friends: The People You Can’t Afford to Live Without (New York: 
Gallup Press, 2006), 52. See also T. Rath and J. Harter, Well Being: The Five
Essential Elements (New York: Gallup Press, 2010), 40–43, for an update on 
this research. See also R. Wagner and J. K. Harter, 12: The Elements of Great
Managing  (New York: Simon &  Schuster,  2006)  for  a  follow-up  report on 
the Gallup engagement research, including a discussion of the importance of 
having friends in the workplace.
17.  Rath, Vital Friends, 51.
18.  R. F. Baumeister and M. R. Leary, “The Need to Belong: Desire for Interper-
sonal  Attachment  as  a  Fundamental  Human  Motivation,”  Psychological
Bulletin  117  (1995):  497–529;  H.  W.  Perkins,  “Religious  Commitment, 
Yuppie Values, and Well-Being in a Post-Collegiate Life,” Review of Religious
Research 32 (1991): 244–251; D. G. Myers, “The Funds, Friends, and Faith 
of  Happy  People,”  American Psychologist  55,  no.  1  (2000):  56–67;  and  S. 
Crabtree,  “Getting  Personal  in  the  Workplace:  Are  Negative  Relationships 
Squelching  Productivity  in  Your  Company?”  Gallup Management Journal, 
June 10, 2004, available online at www.govleaders.org/gallup_article_getting 
_personal.htm.

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19.  See,  for example, Myers,  “Funds, Friends,  and Faith of Happy People”; M. 
Csikszentmihalyi,  “If  We  Are  So  Rich, Why  Aren’t  We  Happy?”  American
Psychologist 54 (1999): 821–827; D. G. Myers and E. Diener, “The Pursuit 
of Happiness,” Scientific American 274 (1996): 54–56; and D. Gilbert, Stum-
bling on Happiness (New York: Knopf, 2006).
20.  This example was provided by Alex Jukl.
21.  K. Blanchard and S. Johnson, The One-Minute Manager (New York: Morrow, 
1982). See also K. Blanchard and R. Lorber, Putting the One Minute Manager
to Work: How to Turn the 3 Secrets into Skills (New York: Morrow, 2006).
22.  G. Klein, The Sources of Power: How People Make Decisions (Cambridge, MA: 
MIT Press, 1998). For more on the importance of storytelling and decision 
making, see G. Klein, The Power of Intuition: How to Use Your Gut Feelings to
Make Better Decisions at Work  (New York: Crown Business,  2004);  and G. 
Klein,  Streetlights and Shadows: Searching for the Keys to Adaptive Decision
Making (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2009). After studying professionals in 
life-and-death  situations, Klein concludes  that “the method we found most 
powerful for eliciting knowledge is to use stories.”
23.  D. Westen, The Political Brain: The Role of Emotion in Deciding the Fate of the
Nation (New York: Public Affairs, 2008), 28.
Chapter 12: Leadership Is Everyone’s Business
  1.  This survey was first conducted for Public Allies, now a part of AmeriCorps, 
in 1998 to those eighteen to thirty-two years old. We adapted the survey and 
have administered it to a wider range of ages over the past decade.
  2.  B. Z. Posner, “A Longitudinal Study Examining Changes in Students’ Leader-
ship  Behavior,”  Journal of College Student Development  50,  no.  5  (2009): 
551–563.
  3.  K. A. Ericsson, “The Influence of Experience and Deliberate Practice on the 
Development of Superior Expert Performance,” in The Cambridge Handbook
of Expertise and Expert Performance,  ed.  K.  A.  Ericsson,  N.  Charness,  P.  J. 
Feltovich, and R. R. Hoffman (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2006), 
699.
  4.  See Ericsson, “Influence of Experience,” 692. Others have also written about 
this  metric.  See,  for  example,  G.  Colvin,  Talent Is Overrated: What Really
Separates World-Class Performers from Everybody Else  (New  York:  Portfolio, 
2008); D. Coyle, The Talent Code: Greatness Isn’t Born. It’s Grown. Here’s How 
(New York: Bantam Books, 2009);  and M. Gladwell, Outliers: The Story of
Success (New York: Little, Brown, 2008).
  5.  H.M.J. Kraemer Jr., From Values to Action: The Four Principles of Values-Based
Leadership  (San  Francisco:  Jossey-Bass,  2011),  15.  We  interviewed  him  on 
November 11, 2011. Noted leadership scholar Warren Bennis has also pointed 
out that becoming a leader requires you to know your inner self, and he calls 
that “the most difficult task any of us faces. But until you truly know yourself, 
strengths and weaknesses, know what you want to do and why you want to 
do it, you cannot succeed in any but the most superficial sense of the word.” 

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S W. Bennis, On Becoming a Leader, 4th ed. (Philadelphia: Basic Books, 2009), 
40.
  6.  Kraemer, From Values to Action, 26.
  7.  D. Balter, “The Humility Imperative: CEOs, Keep Your Arrogance in Check,” 
Inc., June 23, 2011, http://inc.com/articles/201106/the-humility-imperative
-ceos-keep-your-arrogance-in-check.html. Balter became so motivated by his 
own transformational experience that he instigated a movement called “The 
Humility  Imperative”;  see  his  Web  site  (www.humilityimperative.com) 
devoted to spreading the message about the importance of humility in leaders.
  8.  Balter, “Humility Imperative.”
  9.  For  more  on  the  importance  of  humility  in  organizational  success,  see  J. 
Collins, Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap . . . and Others
Don’t (New York: Harper Audio, 2005), 17–40. See also Kraemer, From Values
to Action,  59–76.  Another  interesting  perspective  is  F.  Kofman,  Conscious
Business: How to Build Value Through Values  (Boulder,  CO:  Sounds  True, 
2006).
10.  We  write  more  about  the  importance  of  courage  in  A Leader’s Legacy  (San 
Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2006).

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People often ask us how we’ve managed to work together for such a
long time, and one important reason is that we both recognize that
you can’t do anything great all by yourself! With this in mind, we
pay tribute to all those who have helped us over these many years
to make this book possible (from the first edition onward).
We gratefully acknowledge the millions of people around the
world who have read our books and used our materials. We hear
from individuals nearly every week about how they are applying
these ideas—not just in their workplaces but in their homes and
with their families, communities, and congregations. You give us
reason, and encouragement, to continue to do our part in liberating
the leader within each and every person, and making extraordinary
things possible.
We thank our collaborators in the research—those who partici-
pated in our classes, workshops, and seminars; who completed our
Acknowledgments

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S surveys; and who were gracious in sharing their case studies with us.
You are the heart and soul of this book. Your stories and examples
bring the numbers and qualities to life. We learned years ago that
experience is the best teacher of leadership; your histories reinforce
this axiom.
We also give a “shout-out” to all those who made previous edi-
tions of this book possible through their generous help, able assis-
tance, and gracious support: Julianne Balmain, Myra Cake, Brian
and Anne Carroll, Paul Cohen, Cedric Crocker, Kathy Dalle-Molle,
Ray Dallin, Marcella Friel, Bill Hicks, Jerry Hunt, Jan Hunter,
JoAnn Johnson, Peter Jordan, Steve Katten, Sarah Kidd, Andre and
Barbara Morkel, Trish O’Hare, Lynne Parode, Tom Peters, Debra
Scates, Natalie Sibert, Laura Simonds, Tracey Taylor, Janice Van
Collie, Francessa Webb, Terri Armstrong Welch, and Barbara
Wheeler.
Hats off to the terrific team at Jossey-Bass/Pfeiffer/Wiley. You
have all been first-rate in your support and encouragement—prod-
ding, nudging, and challenging us to think deeply and address a
broad set of issues, circumstances, and audiences. This edition has
benefited, in particular, from the overall craftsmanship and gentle
guidance of Byron Schneider, senior development editor, and Karen
Murphy, senior editor. We especially want to thank our developmen-
tal editor, Leslie Stephen, who brought clarity and focus to our
writing, challenged our thinking, and willingly broke ties when we
got ourselves bogged down. Others at Jossey-Bass/Wiley who helped
us bring this book into and through production and onto book-
shelves who deserve special recognition include Mary Garrett, senior
production editor; Michele D. Jones, copyeditor; John Maas,
senior editorial assistant; Carolyn Carlstroem, associate marketing
director; and Amy Packard, publicity manager. Special notes of
thanks for their continuing support, encouragement, sense of humor,

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and leadership go out to Lisa Shannon, associate publisher, and
Marisa Kelly, associate editor.
We dedicated this twenty-fifth anniversary edition to our
spouses, Tae Moon Kouzes and Jackie Schmidt-Posner, and we add
a final note of appreciation for their ongoing patience, understand-
ing, wise counsel, and love. Many thanks for sticking with us through
this project and so many other adventures (and those still to come!).

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Jim Kouzes and Barry Posner have been working together for more
than thirty years, studying leaders, researching leadership, conduct-
ing leadership development seminars, and serving as leaders them-
selves in various capacities. They are coauthors of the award-winning,
best-selling book The Leadership Challenge. Since its first edition in
1987, The Leadership Challenge has sold more than two million
copies worldwide and is available in more than twenty-two lan-
guages. It has won numerous awards, including the Critics’ Choice
Award from the nation’s book review editors and the James A. Ham-
ilton Hospital Administrators’ Book of the Year Award, and was
selected as one of the top ten books on leadership in Covert and
Sattersten’s The 100 Best Business Books of All Time.
Jim and Barry have coauthored more than a dozen other award-
winning leadership books, including Credibility: How Leaders Gain
and Lose It, Why People Demand It; The Truth About Leadership: The
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S No-Fads, Heart-of-the-Matter Facts You Need to Know; A Leader’s
Legacy; Encouraging the Heart: A Leader’s Guide to Rewarding and
Recognizing Others; The Student Leadership Challenge; and The Aca-
demic Administrator’s Guide to Exemplary Leadership. They also devel-
oped the highly acclaimed Leadership Practices Inventory (LPI), a
360-degree questionnaire for assessing leadership behavior, which is
one of the most widely used leadership assessment instruments in
the world, along with The Student LPI. More than five hundred
doctoral dissertations and academic papers have been based on their
The Five Practices of Exemplary Leadership model.
Among the honors and awards that Jim and Barry have received
is the American Society for Training and Development’s highest
award for their Distinguished Contribution to Workplace Learning
and Performance. They have been named Management/Leadership
Educators of the Year by the International Management Council;
ranked by Leadership Excellence magazine in the top twenty on its list
of the Top 100 Thought Leaders; named among the 50 Top Coaches
in the nation (according to Coaching for Leadership); and listed
among HR Magazine’s Most Influential International Thinkers.
Jim and Barry are frequent keynote speakers, and each has con-
ducted leadership development programs for hundreds of organiza-
tions, including Alberta Health Services, Apple, Applied Materials,
ARCO, AT&T, Australia Institute of Management, Australia Post,
Bank of America, Bose, Charles Schwab, Chevron, Cisco Systems,
Clorox, Community Leadership Association, Conference Board of
Canada, Consumers Energy, Deloitte Touche, Dorothy Wylie
Nursing and Health Leaders Institute, Dow Chemical, Egon Zehnder
International, Federal Express, Genentech, Google, Gymboree, HP,
IBM, Jobs DR-Singapore, Johnson & Johnson, Kaiser Foundation
Health Plans and Hospitals, Intel, Itau Unibanco, L. L. Bean, Law-
rence Livermore National Labs, Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital,
Merck, Motorola, NetApp, Northrop Grumman, Novartis, Oakwood

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Temporary Housing, Oracle, Petronas, Roche Bioscience, Siemens,
3M, Toyota, United Way, USAA, Verizon, VISA, the Walt Disney
Company, and Westpac. They have lectured at over sixty college and
university campuses.
Jim Kouzes is the Dean’s Executive Fellow of Leadership, Leavey
School of Business at Santa Clara University, and lectures on leader-
ship around the world to corporations, governments, and nonprofits.
He is a highly regarded leadership scholar and an experienced execu-
tive; the Wall Street Journal cited him as one of the twelve best
executive educators in the United States. In 2010, Jim received
the Thought Leadership Award from the Instructional Systems
Association, the most prestigious award given by the trade associa-
tion of training and development industry providers. He was listed
as one of HR Magazine’s Most Influential International Thinkers for
2010 and 2011, named one of the 2010 and 2011 Top 100 Thought
Leaders in Trustworthy Business Behavior by Trust Across America,
and ranked by Leadership Excellence magazine as number sixteen
on its list of the Top 100 Thought Leaders. In 2006, Jim was pre-
sented with the Golden Gavel, the highest honor awarded by Toast-
masters International. Jim served as president, CEO, and chairman
of the Tom Peters Company from 1988 through 1999, and prior to
that led the Executive Development Center at Santa Clara University
(1981–1987). Jim founded the Joint Center for Human Services
Development at San Jose State University (1972–1980) and was
on the staff of the School of Social Work, University of Texas. His
career in training and development began in 1969 when he con-
ducted seminars for Community Action Agency staff and volunteers
in the war on poverty. Following graduation from Michigan State
University (BA degree with honors in political science), he served as
a Peace Corps volunteer (1967–1969). Jim can be reached at jim@
kouzes.com.

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mailto:jim@kouzes.com

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A
B
O
U
T
T
H
E
A
U
T
H
O
R
S Barry Posner is Accolti Professor of Leadership at the Leavey School
of Business, Santa Clara University, where he served as dean of the
school for twelve years (1997–2009). He has been a distinguished
visiting professor at Hong Kong University of Science and Technol-
ogy, Sabanci University (Istanbul), and the University of Western
Australia. At Santa Clara he has received the President’s Distin-
guished Faculty Award, the School’s Extraordinary Faculty Award,
and several other teaching and academic honors. An internationally
renowned scholar and educator, Barry is author or coauthor of more
than a hundred research and practitioner-focused articles. He cur-
rently serves on the editorial review boards for Leadership and
Organizational Development and the International Journal of
Servant-Leadership. In 2011, he received the Outstanding Scholar
Award for Career Achievement from the Journal of Management
Inquiry.
Barry received his BA with honors in political science from the
University of California, Santa Barbara; his MA in public adminis-
tration from The Ohio State University; and his PhD in organiza-
tional behavior and administrative theory from the University of
Massachusetts, Amherst. Having consulted with a wide variety
of public and private sector organizations around the globe, Barry
also works at a strategic level with a number of community-based
and professional organizations, currently sitting on the board of
directors of EMQ FamiliesFirst. He has served previously on the
boards of the American Institute of Architects (AIA), Big Brothers/
Big Sisters of Santa Clara County, Center for Excellence in Non-
profits, Junior Achievement of Silicon Valley and Monterey Bay,
Public Allies, San Jose Repertory Theater, Sigma Phi Epsilon Frater-
nity, and both publicly traded and start-up companies. Barry can be
reached at bposner@scu.edu.

mailto:bposner@scu.edu

383
Index
A
Aboitiz, Ana, 252–254
Accountability, fostering, 252–255,
367n9
Achor, Shawn, 311
Actions: aligned with shared values,
17, 95–97; breaking problems
down into small, 195–197; to
build trust, 22–23, 222–228; to
celebrate values and victories,
326–328; to clarify values,
68–69; of credible leaders, 39–40,
74; to enlist others, 152–153; to
envision the future, 125–126; to
experiment and take risks,
209–211; to foster collaboration,
238–240; importance of leader’s,
25–26; influence on workplace
engagement and commitment,
25–26, 348n9; making others
feel powerless/powerful, 244–247;
to recognize contributions,
297–299; to search for
opportunities, 182–183; to set
example, 95–97; to strengthen
others, 268–269; values as guide
for, 48–51
Affirming shared values, 57–68; by
clarifying common values, 57–60;
necessity of, 17; through consensus
on values, 60–64; through dialogue
about values, 64–68
Aggarwal, Gautam, 109
Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland
(Carroll), 280
Allen, Tom, 175
Amabile, Teresa, 198
Animating vision, 139–151; capability
for, 139–141; communication for,
145–146, 150–151; expressing
emotions for, 147–150; images of
future for, 143–145; language for,
141–143
Anwar, Alex, 43–44
Appealing to common ideals,
130–139; by aligning dreams,
136–139; by connecting to what’s
meaningful, 131–134; with pride

384
IN
D
E
X in uniqueness, 134–136, 356nn5–
6; vision and, 130–131
Appreciation, showing: with
community spirit, 24; to make
people feel powerful, 246;
recognizing contributions by,
23–24, 298–299; by saying thank
you, 287–288, 294–297; through
personal involvement, 287–291,
316, 317, 319
Aruba Networks, 249
Ashkenzai, Ari, 145–146
Associating ability, 178
Astafev, Alexey, 286–287
Attention: passion and, 113; values
indicated by use of, 76–78
Attitudes: of adventure toward every
job, 179–182; impact of leadership
philosophy clarity on, 47–48;
impact of shared values on, 60;
personal values and, 55–57; of
psychological hardiness, 194–195,
360n3
Axelrod, Robert, 232–233
B
Bagheri, Samieh, 224–225
Balter, Dave, 340–341, 374n7
Barkhuff, Stephen, 314
Barsi, Joe, 157–158
Behavior. See Actions
Bennett, Don, 189–190, 192
Bennhold, Florian, 234
Bennis, Warren, 373n5
Berns, Gregory, 173
Bhope, Sushma, 21
Binger, Jane, 292
Birgbauer, Peter, 319
Blanton, Buddy, 116–117
Blum, Arlene, 170–171
Boyer, David, 151
Brocato, Justin, 322–323, 324, 326
Brunello, Mark, 77–78
Burchell, Michael, 133, 258, 356n6
C
Campbell, David, 307
Capozzi, Marie, 173
Care, showing, 318–321
Carmody, Cora, 215–218
Carroll, Lewis, 280
Castagna, Heidi, 174
Celebrating values and victories,
301–328; actions for, 326–328; by
creating spirit of community,
305–315; example of impact of,
302–304; by getting involved,
315–326
Celebrations: to capitalize on human
need to connect, 305–307;
importance of, 305–307; public,
307–309; scheduling, 12–13,
323–326; of successes and
contributions of others, 23–24; as
universal, 301–302
Challenge: change linked to, 19–20,
159–161; as element of
psychological hardiness, 194, 195;
employees’ preference for leaders
who seek, 168; motivation to deal
with, 169–172, 359n8; preparing
employees for, 168–169;
relationship between skill,
performance, and, 256–257
Challenging the process (practice 3),
19–21, 29, 156. See also
Experimenting and taking risks;
Searching for opportunities
Chan, Joanne, 106–107
Chan, Maurice, 285–286

385
IN
D
E
X
Change: challenge linked to, 19–20,
159–161; made through small
wins, 195–199; through
encouraging initiative in others,
166–169; vision in times of rapid,
122–124; as work of leaders, 1–2,
158–159, 209
Characteristics of Admired Leaders
survey, 33–35, 36–38
Chen, Lina, 134–135
Chitnis, Abhijit, 89–90, 265
Choices: linked to values, 49–50;
strengthening others by providing,
247–249
Christensen, Clayton, 178
Chu, Wilson, 237
Clapham, Ward, 185–187
Clarifying values, 43–69; actions for,
68–69; by affirming shared values,
57–68; example of, 43–44; by
finding your voice, 45–57;
necessity of, 16–17
Clark, Sonia, 292
Coaching: to develop competence
and confidence, 257–258,
264–267; to learn leadership,
204–205, 335; respect evident in,
224–225
Collaboration: accountability with,
254, 367n9; defined, 347n4;
fostering, 21–22, 215–240; need
for, 219
Commitment: as element of
psychological hardiness, 194–195;
impact of shared values on, 60;
influence of leader’s actions on,
25–26, 348n9; personal values and,
55–57; shared vision worthy of,
18–19, 120–122. See also Ten
Commitments of Exemplary
Leadership
Communication: to animate vision,
139–151; improved by facilitating
relationships, 228–230; of leader’s
values, 43–44; promoting external
and internal, 175–177; through
leader’s actions, 316. See also
Storytelling
Community building, 305–315;
human need for connection and,
305–307; by investing in fun,
313–315; by providing social
support, 309–312; by publicly
celebrating accomplishments,
307–309
Compeán, Lorena, 22
Competence: as characteristic of
admired leaders, 34, 35;
demonstrated by sharing
knowledge and information,
226–228; developing, 255–267;
structuring work to build, 261
Confidence: developing, 255–267;
impact on performance, 262–264,
367nn15–16
Conley, Chip, 313–314
Constituents: attitudes of, 47–48, 60;
common values of, 120, 354n18,
355nn19–20; expectations of
leaders, 33–36; friendships with
leaders, 287–291, 370n15
Control: as element of psychological
hardiness, 194, 195; feeling of
being in, 246, 250, 254; giving up,
222, 243, 266, 279
Cooperation. See Collaboration
Corporate Celebration (Deal and Key),
324, 325
Credibility: actions of leaders with,
39–40, 74; as foundation of
leadership, 37–39, 349n18; source,
36–37, 349n16

386
IN
D
E
X Critical incidents, 88–91
Csikszentmihalyi, Mihaly, 256, 257
D
DaVita, 79–80
Day, Guy, 273–275
Deal, Terence, 324, 325
Decision making: giving employees
power in, 242, 250–252; by groups
of friends vs. acquaintances, 289;
intuitive, 105–106, 352n3; as
latent vs. acquirable skill, 263;
sharing information about, 260
Deloitte, 289–290, 370n17
Denning, Steve, 91
Developing competence and
confidence, 255–267; by fostering
self-confidence, 262–264; need for,
255–258; by organizing work,
261–262; by sharing information.,
259–261; through coaching,
264–267; training for, 258–259
DeVry, 302–304
di Bari, Paul, 50–51
Diemer, Ryan, 20
Dirking, Jennifer, 23–24
Disney, Walt, 206
Drucker, Peter, 266
Duckworth, Angela, 207
DuPont, 198
Durrani, Yamin, 31–32
Dweck, Carol, 202–203
DWYSYWD (Do What You Say You
Will Do), 40, 74
Dye, Renee, 173
Dyer, Jeffrey, 178
E
Edelman, Richard, 9
Eichinger, Bob, 202
Einstein, Albert, 112, 353n9
Emotions: expressing, 129, 147–150;
positive, 146; recognition to
replenish, 275, 287
Employees. See Constituents
Enabling others to act (practice 4),
21–23, 29, 214. See also Fostering
collaboration; Strengthening others
Encouraging the heart (practice 5),
23–24, 29, 272. See also
Celebrating values and victories;
Recognizing contributions
Engagement: impact of leadership
philosophy clarity on, 47–48;
influence of leader’s actions on,
25–26, 348n9; personal values and,
55–57; when work matters, 133
Enlisting others, 127–153; actions for,
152–153; by animating vision,
139–151; by appealing to common
ideals, 130–139; example of impact
of, 127–129
Enthusiasm, 141, 147, 315
Envisioning the future, 101–126;
actions for, 125–126; by finding
common purpose, 116–124; by
imagining possibilities, 104–115;
importance of, 101–103
Ericsson, K. Anders, 335–336
Expectations: constituents’, of leaders,
33–36; living up to, 276–279,
368n1, 369n5
Expecting the best, 276–285; by
clarifying goals and rules, 280–281;
by giving regular feedback,
282–285; impact of, 276–277,
368nn1–2; by showing that you
believe, 277–279
Experimenting and taking risks,
185–211; actions for, 209–211;
example of results of, 185–187; by
generating small wins, 189–199; by

387
IN
D
E
X
learning from experience, 199–209;
necessity of, 20, 188
F
Facilitating relationships, 228–238; by
developing common goals,
230–232; example of impact of,
228–230; with face-to-face
interactions, 236–238; with joint
projects, 234–236; with reciprocity,
232–234
Failure, learning from, 20–21,
199–201, 202, 360n12
Fakharzadeh, Masood, 223
Family: role models in, 330–331; time
out of office tending to, 11
Feedback: on creating shared vision,
116–117; impact on motivation,
282; as necessary for learning,
283–284; seeking, 84–87;
self-reflection as, 351n12; tips for
receiving, 86; tips on giving,
284–285
Fernandez, Ed, 138–139
Finding common purpose, 116–124;
in cause worthy of commitment,
120–122; importance of, 116–117;
by listening to others, 117–119;
in times of rapid change,
122–124
Finding your voice, 45–57; by
clarifying values, 55–57; by
clarifying your leadership
philosophy, 45–48; by letting
values guide your actions, 48–51;
by stating values in your own
words, 51–54
Five Practices of Exemplary
Leadership: challenging the process,
19–21, 29, 156; and constituents’
expectations of leaders, 35–36;
enabling others to act, 21–23, 29,
214; encouraging the heart, 23–24,
29, 272; history of, 3, 15–16;
impact of engaging in, 25–28;
inspiring shared vision, 17–19, 29,
100; listed, 29; modeling the way,
16–17, 29, 42. See also Leadership
Practices Inventory (LPI)
Flow experiences, 256–257, 281
Followers. See Constituents
Foo, Ian, 295
Forward-looking approach, 34, 35. See
also Envisioning the future
Fostering collaboration, 21–22,
215–240; actions for, 238–240; by
creating climate of trust, 219–228;
by facilitating relationships,
228–238; with small discussion
groups, 215–218
Fradenburg, Joshua, 47, 82–83
Fredrickson, Barbara, 146
Friendships: impact on decision
making, 289; between leaders and
constituents, 287–291, 370n15;
nonjudgmental listening and
compassion in, 225–226; of social
networking site users, 305
Fun, 313–315, 317–318
Future: creating images of, 143–145,
357n15; envisioning, 101–126;
leaders’ focus on, 104–105,
112–113; prospecting, 110–113,
353nn9–10; reflecting on past and,
106–108, 353n6
G
Gad, Sachin, 280
Garvanian, Kelli, 204–205
Geary, James, 142
Gest, Darren, 289–290
Gilbert, Daniel, 104

388
IN
D
E
X Goals: clarifying, 281; common,
230–232, 365nn17–18; impact on
motivation, 282. See also Purpose
Golden Rule of Leadership, 78
Great Places to Work Institute, 356n4
Gregersen, Hal, 178
Grit: defined, 207; developing,
208–209; showing, 207–208
H
Hall, Doug, 356n5
Hall, Hilary, 58–59
Halpren, Belle Linda, 147
Halvorson, Dave, 16
Hamburger, Daniel, 302
Hamel, Gary, 351n6, 353n7
Harbin, Casey, 351n12
Harvey, Kyle, 123–124
Hassin, Mark, 23
Haun, Tim, 247–248
Hayashi, Alden M., 352n3
Herrin, Jessica, 23
Hesselbein, Frances, 266
Honesty, 34, 35
Howe, Amy, 173
Hughson, Bill, 304
Huguenard, Yukari, 332
Hull, Karen Slakey, 192–194
Humility, 339–342, 374n7
I
Ideals. See Appealing to common
ideals
Ideas: communication as source of,
175–177; gathering, 181–182;
looking for good, 177–179; sources
of, 172–175
Illinois Bell Telephone, 360n3
Imagination, 112, 353n9
Imagining possibilities, 104–115; as
ability of leaders, 104–106; by
feeling passion, 113–115; by
paying attention to present,
108–110, 353n7; by prospecting
the future, 110–113, 353nn9–10;
by reflecting on past, 106–108,
353n6
Incentives. See Rewards
Information, sharing, 226–228,
259–261
Initiative, 159–172; by being
proactive, 162–166; challenge-
change link and, 159–161; by
challenging with purpose,
169–172; encouraging others to
take, 166–169
Innovation: associating as skill for,
178; driven by constituents,
166–167, 179; mistakes as part of
process of, 188, 200, 201; showing
appreciation as increasing, 295;
sources of ideas for, 172–175, 177,
181; trust as promoting, 220
Inspiration, 34, 35
Inspiring shared vision (practice 2),
17–19, 29, 100. See also Enlisting
others; Envisioning the future
Interactions, face-to-face vs. virtual,
236–238
J
Jacobs, Joe, 215
Job structure: to build competence and
ownership, 261–262; for joint
efforts, 234–236; to offer latitude,
250–252
Joon Chin Fum-Ko, 14
Jordan, Michael, 200–201
Jukl, Alex, 191

389
IN
D
E
X
K
Kane, Phillip, 92–93
Kanter, Rosabeth Moss, 160
Kaplan, Marc, 289
Kark, Ronit, 75
Katz, Ralph, 175
Key, M. K., 324, 325
Kim, David, 16
King, Martin Luther Jr., “I Have a
Dream” speech, 136–138,
139–140, 356nn8–9
Klotzbach, Darrell, 111, 226–227
Knowledge, sharing, 226–228
Kohenak, Marcie, 12
Kouzes-Posner First Law of Leadership,
38
Kouzes-Posner Second Law of
Leadership, 40
Kozlovsky, Patti, 278–279
Kraemer, Harry Jr., 337–338, 339
Kramer, Steven, 198
Krishnamurthy, Vittal, 18
Kwan, Alice, 290
L
Lafley, A. G., 202
Lai, Olivia, 296–297
Language: animating vision with
symbolic, 141–143; values reflected
in, 79–81, 351n6
Law, Charles, 65–66
Leaders: characteristics of admired,
33–35, 36–38; constituents’
expectations of, 33–36; defined,
35, 349n15; friendships with
constituents, 287–291, 370n15;
talents of others brought out by,
333–334
Leadership: books on, 356n7; case
studies of exemplary, 347n1,
348n10; credibility as foundation
of, 37–39, 349n18; as learnable,
203, 334–336; as relationship,
30–32; as responsibility of everyone
in organization, 14, 16, 329, 331;
role models for, 330–331, 373n1.
See also Five Practices of Exemplary
Leadership
Leadership development, 329–345;
everyday opportunities for,
342–344; by observing leader role
models, 330–331, 373n1; as
possible at all organization levels,
330, 332–334; as self-development,
7; “staying in love” necessary for,
344–345; through humility,
339–342, 374n7; through practice,
334–336; through self-reflection,
337–339, 373n5
Leadership philosophy: impact of
clarity of, 47–48; importance of
knowing your, 45–47
Leadership practices. See Five Practices
of Exemplary Leadership
Leadership Practices Inventory (LPI),
4, 25, 85, 351n11
Learning: active engagement in,
201–202; feedback as necessary for,
283–284; leaders’ passion for,
334–336; mindset for, 202–203
Learning agility, 202
Learning from experience, 199–209;
by being active learner, 201–203;
by creating climate for learning,
203–205; of failures, 20–21,
199–201, 202, 361n12; by
strengthening resilience, 206–209,
363n30
Lee, Seang Wee, 84
Levine, Andrew, 52–54
Limaye, Raj, 262

390
IN
D
E
X Listening: to build trust, 224, 225; to
find common purpose, 117–119;
when receiving feedback, 86
Littlejohn, R. E., 206–207
Living shared values, 75–87; by asking
questions, 81–84; importance of,
75–76; language for, 79–81,
351n6; by seeking feedback,
84–87; by use of time and
attention, 76–78
Ljujic, Sinisa, 224–225
Lombardo, Mike, 202
Long, Erika, 64–65, 259, 260
LoSavio, Emily, 150–151
Lubar, Kathy, 147
Lui, Jade, 66–67, 101–103, 273–275
M
MacIntyre, Janet (McTavish), 141–142
Majeti, Jiangwan, 17
Marsh, Tyson, 231–232
Matinpour, Bobby, 31–32
Matouk, Nicole, 61–63
McCullough, David, 250–251
McGaugh, James, 147, 148
Mehta, Meghana, 287–288
Mendicino, Lori, 303
Merchant, Nilofer, 260
Mindset, growth vs. fixed, 202–203
Mintzberg, Henry, 121
Mistakes, learning from, 20–21,
199–201, 202, 361n12
Modeling the way (practice 1), 16–17,
29, 42. See also Clarifying values;
Setting example; Teaching
modeling of values
Mohan, Arvind, 161–162
Money: as reward, 285–286, 291–292,
293, 355n20; work as source of,
120, 171–172
Mork, Casey, 46–47, 241–243
Moses, Vivien, 78
Motivation: to deal with challenge,
169–172, 359n8; extrinsic vs.
intrinsic, 114; impact of goals and
feedback on, 282
Mundra, Varun, 165–166
Munger, Charlie, 353n6
N
National Baseball Hall of Fame, 311
Nelson, Bob, 287
Nguyen, Tiffany, 195–196
Nikiforov, Sergey, 343
Nuñez, Cristian, 228–230
O
O’Donnell, Larry, 180–181
Oldenburg, Pat, 162–164
1001 Ways to Reward Employees
(Nelson), 287
Organizations: clarity of values of,
55–56; values reinforced by
systems and processes of,
93–95
Outsight, 172–182; defined, 172;
exercising, 172–182; looking for
good ideas as, 177–179; looking
outside your experience as,
172–175; promoting
communication as, 175–177;
treating job as adventure as,
179–182
Özkara, Harun, 283
P
Pacas, Jan, 308–309
Padiyar, Sudeep, 176–177

391
IN
D
E
X
Passion: celebrations to generate, 305,
314–315; communicating with,
138, 140–141, 151; importance in
enlisting others, 127–129, 131;
need to feel, 113–115
Patel, Neera, 266–267
Pearson, Rob, 19–20
Pellegrino, Cheryl, 11
Performance: appreciative comments
to maximize, 295, 371n26;
meeting expectations, 276–279,
368n1, 369n5; money as
reward for, 285–286, 291–292,
293, 355n20; relationship
between skill, challenge, and,
256–257; self-confidence’s
impact on, 262–264,
367nn15–16
Personal involvement, 315–326;
impact of, 315–318; by showing
you care, 318–321; through
celebrations, 323–326; through
storytelling, 321–323
Personalizing recognition, 285–297;
with creative incentives, 291–294;
by getting close to people,
287–291; one-size-fits-all incentives
vs., 285–287; by saying thank you,
294–297
Peters, Tom, 360n1
Powell, Colin, 335
Power: actions making others feel
powerless/powerful, 244–247; to
make decisions, 242, 250–252;
paradox of, 244; sharing, to
strengthen others, 242
Prajapat, Rajan, 18–19
Pride: avoiding excessive, 339–342,
374n7; in uniqueness, 134–136,
356nn5–6
Prisoner’s Dilemma study, 232–233
Proactivity, 162–166
Problems, broken down into small
actions, 195–197
Procter & Gamble (P&G), 177
Progress, through small wins,
197–199
Psychological hardiness, 194–195,
360n3
Purpose: challenging with, 169–172;
finding common, 116–124;
importance of common, 230–232,
365nn17–18. See also Goals
Putnam, Robert, 234
Pygmalion effect, 276
Q
Questions: coaching by asking,
266–267; to prompt reflection on
values, 81–84; when receiving
feedback, 86
R
RCMP leadership approach
(Richmond, B.C.), 185–187
Reciprocity, 232–234
Recognizing contributions, 273–299;
actions for, 297–299; example of
impact of, 273–275; by expecting
the best, 276–285; goals as context
for, 281; by personalizing
recognition, 285–297
Reflection: leadership development
through, 337–339, 373n5; learning
agility and, 202; on past, 106–108,
353n6; as source of feedback,
351n12
Relationships: close, between leaders
and constituents, 287–291,
370n15; facilitating, 228–238;

392
IN
D
E
X leadership as, 30–32; listening and
compassion in, 224–226;
supportive, 309–312
Research methodology: demographic
questions, 25, 348n7; further
information on, 6, 347n2;
Leadership Practices Inventory
(LPI), 4, 25, 85, 351n11;
statements about leaders and
workplaces, 25, 348n8
Resilience: defined, 207; examples of,
206–207; strengthening, 208–209,
363n30
Responsibility: accountability and,
252–254; for leadership in
organization, 14, 16, 329,
331; level of trust and, 266,
368n23; sharing, for vision,
116–117
Rewards: appreciative comments as,
295, 371n26; creative, to
personalize recognition, 291–294;
intrinsic, 293; money as, 285–286,
291–292, 293, 355n20; for team
efforts, 234–236
Rhoades, Ann, 348n9
Richarz, Kurt, 306, 319–320
Rickerson, Wilson, 234
Risk taking. See Experimenting and
taking risks
Robin, Jennifer, 133, 258, 356n6
Rodriguez, Bob, 353n6
Rodriguez, Javier, 80
Rokeach, Milton, 48
Role models, for leadership,
330–331, 373n1. See also
Setting example
Ronzi, Pierfrancesco, 20–21
Roy, Rupessh, 19
Rupnow, Derek, 22–23
Rzepa, Andrew, 114–115
S
Sarno, Salvatore, 127–128
Searching for opportunities,
157–183; actions for, 182–183;
by exercising outsight, 172–182;
meeting challenges and,
157–159; by seizing initiative,
159–172
Sedlock, Julie, 56–57
Self-confidence: developing, 255–267;
fostering, 262–264; impact on
performance, 262–264,
367nn15–16
Self-determination, enhancing,
244–255; and actions making
others feel powerless/powerful,
244–247; by fostering
accountability, 252–255,
367n9; by providing choices,
247–249; by structuring
jobs to offer latitude,
250–252
Seligman, Martin, 208
Setting example, 71–97; actions for,
95–97; example of impact of,
71–74; by living shared values,
75–87; by modeling teaching of
values, 87–95
Shared values: affirming, 57–68;
aligning actions with, 17,
95–97; impact on commitment
and attitude, 60; importance of,
57–60; living, 75–87
Shared vision: finding, 116–124;
inspiring, 17–19, 29, 100
Sharing information: to create climate
of trust, 226–228; to develop
competence and confidence,
259–261
Sharma, Pranav, 52–54
Sherif, Carolyn, 365n17

393
IN
D
E
X
Sherif, Muzafer, 365n17
Shevelyov, Sonja, 120–121
Shosholoza, 127–129, 355n1
Siegel, Barby, 9–13
Simons, Tony, 76
Skarke, Steve, 71–74
Small wins, 189–199; from breaking
down big problems, 195–197; to
build psychological hardiness,
192–195; defined, 190; impact of
focusing on, 189–192; origin of
concept of, 360n1; progress
through, 197–199
Social networking sites, 305
Social support, 309–312
Soundaranathan, Rakesh, 257–258
Source credibility, 36–37, 349n16
Spiegelman, Alan, 16–17
Stanford, John H., 344–345
Storytelling: symbolic language for,
141–143; to teach modeling of
values, 91–93; as way of getting
personally involved, 321–323,
373n22
Stout, James, 277
Strengthening others, 241–269;
actions for, 268–269; by
developing competence and
confidence, 255–267; by
enhancing self-determination,
244–255; example of,
241–243
Stress: decreased by shared values, 60,
61; psychological hardiness toward,
194–195, 360n3; resilience when
under, 146, 206–209; social
support’s benefit when handling,
306, 311
Success: bred by failure, 200–201,
202, 360n12; obtained through
small wins, 189–199; relationships
as key to, 32; staying in love as
secret to, 344–345
Sullivan, Nancy, 131–133
Sullivan and Cromwell, 294–295
T
Tam, Wayne, 314
Taute, Beth, 316–318
Teaching modeling of values, 87–95;
by confronting critical incidents,
88–91; importance of, 87–88; with
organizational systems, 93–95; by
telling stories, 91–93
Ten Commitments of Exemplary
Leadership, 28, 29. See also specific
commitments
Thank you: as personalized
recognition, 287–288, 294–297;
when receiving feedback, 86
Thiry, Kent, 80
Tierney, Paul, 225
Time, values indicated by use of,
76–78
Training: coaching paired with,
264–265; to develop
competence and confidence,
258–259; as long-term
investment, 168
Trust: impact in workplace, 219–222;
responsibility and, 266, 368n23;
virtual, 237–238
Trust building, 219–228; by being first
to trust, 222–223; by focusing on
needs of others, 22–23; by
investing in trust, 219–222; by
sharing knowledge and
information, 226–228; by
showing concern for others,
223–226
Trustmark Companies, 63

394
IN
D
E
X U
Ulrich, Dave, 202
Undercover Boss, 180, 360n25
V
Vacation policy, 249
Vaillant, George, 311
Values: common, of workers, 120,
354n18, 355nn19–20;
communicated by leader, 43–44;
defined, 48; as guide for actions,
48–51; how time spent as indicator
of, 76–78; language as reflecting,
79–81, 351n6; means and ends
classification of, 48; organizational
systems to reinforce, 93–95;
personal, and commitment, 55–57;
questions for reflecting on, 81–84;
stated in your own words, 51–54;
teaching modeling of, 87–95. See
also Celebrating values and
victories; Clarifying values; Shared
values
Vesterman, Jim, 235–236
Virtuousness, 277, 368n2
Vision: animating, 139–151; and
appealing to ideals, 130–131; as
ends value, 48–49; finding shared,
116–124; inspiring shared, 17–19,
29, 100; origin of, 105–106,
352n3
Vitale, Jessica, 12
Voice. See Finding your voice
Vy, MT, 308
W
Walker, Taryn, 18
Walsh, Alison, 10–11
Walsh, Bill, 353n10
Wang, Caroline, 26
Wang, John, 166–167
Wang, Justina, 197
Web site, leadership challenge, 6,
347n2, 351n11
Weick, Karl, 190
West, James E., 200
Westen, Drew, 321–322
Wiencke, Judith, 319
Williams, Pat, 206–207
Wilson, Donna, 291–292
Winkel, Katherine, 19
Winkler, Heidi, 22
Wiseman, Liz, 246–247
Wong, Bert, 93–95
Wong, Jacqueline, 118–119,
293—294
Workplaces: great, 133, 258–259,
356nn4, 6; impact of trust
in, 219–222. See also Job
structure
Y
Yaffe, Tal, 75
Yang, Geoff, 122
Z
Zeno Group, 9–13
Zor, Ferhat, 310

If you are looking for opportunities to make a difference in your
world or tools to keep your community inspired, we can help.
Whether you would like to read more works by Jim Kouzes and
Barry Posner, gather feedback on your own leadership style, or
implement a leadership development program within your organiza-
tion, we offer abundant resources for The Leadership Challenge to
help you begin or continue your leadership journey. These include
• Books—Jim and Barry’s bestselling, award-winning books
include The Truth About Leadership, Credibility, A Leader’s Legacy,
Encouraging the Heart, The Student Leadership Challenge, and The
Academic Administrator’s Guide to Exemplary Leadership.
• Workbooks—The Leadership Challenge Workbook, The Encour-
aging the Heart Workbook, and Strengthening Credibility help you
put TLC’s teachings into practice. These interactive tools are
designed to apply Jim and Barry’s framework to productively
resolving the problems and situations you face.
• Assessments—The Leadership Practices Inventory—LPI is the
360-degree assessment instrument designed by Jim and Barry
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LPI is also available for high school and undergraduate students.
In addition, The Encouragement Index is now available as a
stand-alone product.
• Digital Offerings—The Leadership Challenge DVD (Revised)
is an approximately 90-minute film in which Jim and Barry
introduce The Five Practices of Exemplary Leadership® to
MORE ON THE LEADERSHIP
CHALLENGE . . .

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viewers through commentary and case studies. It includes a
guide for screening and discussion. The Leadership Challenge
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lent solution. The Challenge Continues offers in-person and
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The Leadership Challenge
Contents
INTRODUCTION: Making Extraordinary Things Happen in Organizations
THE LEADERSHIP CHALLENGE
A FIELD GUIDE FOR LEADERS
CHAPTER 1: When Leaders Are at Their Best
THE FIVE PRACTICES OF EXEMPLARY LEADERSHIP
LEADERSHIP IS A RELATIONSHIP
PUTTING IT ALL TOGETHER: CREDIBILITY IS THE FOUNDATION
PRACTICE 1: MODEL THE WAY
CHAPTER 2: Clarify Values
FIND YOUR VOICE
AFFIRM SHARED VALUES
CHAPTER 3: Set the Example
LIVE THE SHARED VALUES
TEACH OTHERS TO MODEL THE VALUES

PRACTICE 2: INSPIRE A SHARED VISION
CHAPTER 4: Envision the Future
IMAGINE THE POSSIBILITIES
FIND A COMMON PURPOSE
CHAPTER 5: Enlist Others
APPEAL TO COMMON IDEALS
ANIMATE THE VISION

PRACTICE 3: CHALLENGE THE PROCESS
CHAPTER 6: Search for Opportunities
SEIZE THE INITIATIVE
EXERCISE OUTSIGHT
CHAPTER 7: Experiment and Take Risks
GENERATE SMALL WINS
LEARN FROM EXPERIENCE

PRACTICE 4: ENABLE OTHERS TO ACT
CHAPTER 8: Foster Collaboration
CREATE A CLIMATE OF TRUST
FACILITATE RELATIONSHIPS
CHAPTER 9: Strengthen Others
ENHANCE SELF-DETERMINATION
DEVELOP COMPETENCE AND CONFIDENCE

PRACTICE 5: ENCOURAGE THE HEART
CHAPTER 10: Recognize Contributions
EXPECT THE BEST
PERSONALIZE RECOGNITION
CHAPTER 11: Celebrate the Values and Victories
CREATE A SPIRIT OF COMMUNITY
GET PERSONALLY INVOLVED
CHAPTER 12: Leadership Is Everyone’s Business
LOOK TO LEADERS EVERYWHERE
KNOW HOW IMPORTANT YOU ARE
PRACTICE
REFLECT
REMAIN HUMBLE AND HUMAN
SEIZE THE MOMENT
REMEMBER THE SECRET TO SUCCESS IN LIFE

Notes
Acknowledgments
About the Authors
Index
MORE ON THE LEADERSHIP CHALLENGE . . .

Running head:

COMPREHENSIVE LEARNING ASSIGNMENT 2

1

PAGE

4

COMPREHENSIVE LEARNING ASSIGNMENT 2

Comprehensive Learning Assignment 2

(Introduction to the importance of Leadership in an organization. State what you are going to cover in the essay. Include a thesis statement)

Leadership Concept 1: The Five Practice of Exemplary Leadership

(Name and describe this leadership concept. Cite sources used)

Personal experience with this leadership concept

Leadership Concept 2: Leadership Styles/Transformational Leadership

You could choose to write about the overall leadership styles or specifically on transformational leadership

(Name and describe this leadership concept. Cite sources used)

Personal experience with this leadership concept

Leadership Concept 3: Traits Theory (or Great man or behavioral theory, you could choose)

(Name and describe this leadership concept. Cite sources used)

Personal experience with this leadership concept

Leadership Concept 4: Kotter’s 8 step change model

(Name and describe this leadership concept. Cite sources used)

Personal experience with this leadership concept

Personal Leadership Plan

(State 3-4 leadership qualities you wish to develop. How/why did you choose these? Develop a Leadership Plan for yourself. Describe the key elements of it. You can provide goals and a timetable, if you wish)

1. Delegating

2. Conflict Management

3. Negotiation

4. Decisiveness

You could also refer on my discussion questions for my leadership experience.

Conclusion

(your final thoughts about effective leadership and the need for a personal leadership action plan)

References