0465014088_fm.qxd:0738208175_fm.qxd 12/2/08 2:52 PM Page i More praise for On Becoming a Leader “Warren Bennis—master practitioner, researcher, and theoretician all in one—has managed to create a practical primer for leaders without sacrificing an iota of necessary subtlety and complexity. No topic is more important; no more able and caring person has attacked it.” —Tom Peters “The lessons here are crisp and persuasive.” —Fortune “This is Warren Bennis’s most important book.” —Peter Drucker “A joy to read...studded with gems of insight.” —Dallas Times-Herald “Bennis identifies the key ingredients of leadership success and offers a game plan for cultivating those qualities.” —Success “Clearly Bennis’s best work in a long line of impressive, significant contributions.” —Business Forum “Totally intriguing, thought-stretching insights into the clockworks of leaders. Bennis has masterfully peeled the onion to reveal the heartseed of leadership. Read it and reap.” —Harvey B. McKay “Warren Bennis gets to the heart of leadership, to the essence of integrity, authenticity, and vision that can never be pinned down to a manipulative formula. This book can help any of us select the new leaders we so urgently need.” —Betty Friedan “Warren Bennis’s insight and his gift with words make these lessons, from some of America’s most interesting leaders, compelling reading for every executive.” —Charles Handy 0465014088_fm.qxd:0738208175_fm.qxd 12/2/08 2:52 PM Page ii This page intentionally left blank 0465014088_fm.qxd:0738208175_fm.qxd 12/2/08 2:52 PM Page iii On Becoming a Leader 0465014088_fm.qxd:0738208175_fm.qxd 12/22/08 1:52 PM Page iv Also by Warren Bennis Beyond Leadership (co-author) Beyond Bureaucracy Co-Leaders (co-author) Douglas McGregor on Management (co-author) Geeks and Geezers (co-author) Judgment (co-author) Leaders: Strategies for Taking Charge (co-author) Leaders on Leadership (editor) Learning to Lead (co-author) Managing People Is Like Herding Cats Managing the Dream Old Dogs, New Tricks Organizing Genius (co-author) Reinventing Leadership (co-author) The Temporary Society (co-author) Transparency (co-author) The 21st Century Organization (co-author) The Unreality Industry (co-author) Why Leaders Can’t Lead 0465014088_fm.qxd:0738208175_fm.qxd 12/2/08 2:52 PM Page v On Becoming a Leader Warren Bennis A MEMBER OF THE PERSEUS BOOKS GROUP NEW YORK 0465014088_fm.qxd:0738208175_fm.qxd 12/2/08 2:52 PM Page vi The poem “Six Significant Landscapes,” by Wallace Stevens, is taken from The Collected Poems of Wallace Stevens and is used by permission of the publisher, Alfred A. Knopf, Inc. Many of the designations used by manufacturers and sellers to distinguish their products are claimed as trademarks. Where those designations appear in this book, and where Basic Books was aware of a trademark claim, the designations have been printed in initial capital letters. Copyright © 2009 by Warren Bennis Inc. First Edition Copyright © 1989 by Warren Bennis Inc. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher. Printed in the United States of America. Library of Congress Control Number: 2003100205 ISBN: 978-0-465-01408-8; 0–7382–0817–5 Basic Books is a member of the Perseus Books Group. Find us on the World Wide Web at www.basicbooks.com. Books published by Basic Books are available at special discounts for bulk purchases in the U.S. by corporations, institutions, and other organizations. For more information, please contact the Special Markets Department at the Perseus Books Group, 2300 Chestnut Street, Suite 200, Philadelphia, PA 19103, or call (800) 810-4145, ext. 5000, or e-mail [email protected]. Text design by Lisa Kreinbrink Set in 11-point Janson Text by the Perseus Books Group 12345678910 0465014088_fm.qxd:0738208175_fm.qxd 1/9/09 1:16 PM Page vii To David Cannom, MD, David Gergen, and Stephen Sample for their unsparing efforts to make our world healthier and saner. 0465014088_fm.qxd:0738208175_fm.qxd 12/2/08 2:52 PM Page viii This page intentionally left blank 0465014088_fm.qxd:0738208175_fm.qxd 12/2/08 2:52 PM Page ix Contents Acknowledgments xi Introduction to the Revised Edition, 2003 xiii Introduction to the Original Edition, 1989 xxix 1 Mastering the Context 1 2 Understanding the Basics 33 3 Knowing Yourself 49 4 Knowing the World 67 5 Operating on Instinct 95 6 Deploying Yourself: Strike Hard, Try Everything 107 7 Moving Through Chaos 135 8 Getting People on Your Side 147 9 Organizations Can Help—or Hinder 165 10 Forging the Future 185 Epilogue to the Twentieth-Anniversary Edition 199 Biographies 227 References 241 Index 245 0465014088_fm.qxd:0738208175_fm.qxd 12/2/08 2:52 PM Page x This page intentionally left blank 0465014088_fm.qxd:0738208175_fm.qxd 12/2/08 2:52 PM Page xi Acknowledgments Although mine is the only name on this book, it has been a col- laboration, as all books are. I discovered long ago that the way I learn most effectively is in conversation with other people. It is in the playful, exhilarating, joyous thrashing out of ideas with brilliant colleagues that my own ideas are brought to life, re- fined and vetted. In previous editions of On Becoming a Leader, I tried to acknowledge all the people who originally helped to shape this book, and I remain enormously grateful to all those original collaborators and other colleagues and friends who so generously shared their counsel, expertise, and time. For this twenty-first-century edition, collaborators deserve special mention. First is my assistant at the University of South- ern California, Marie Christian. Tirelessly, and with great tact and intelligence, Marie keeps my professional life in order. In ways great and small, she frees me to think and write, for which I am grateful on a daily basis. Next is Nick Philipson, my editor at Perseus Books. In preparing the 2003 edition of On Becoming a Leader, Nick did far more than an editor is expected to do. He xi 0465014088_fm.qxd:0738208175_fm.qxd 1/9/09 1:16 PM Page xii Acknowledgments began by re-reading the book with an affectionate but critical eye, noting the places where it continued to speak to today’s re- ality and, even more important, identifying those passages that were no longer resonant. He gave me a map for revising the book that made the task far less daunting. And, throughout the process, he was a friend and colleague of the best sort, offering sharp insights as well as praise, alert for errors but protective of my voice and ideas, and both involved in the work and unobtru- sive. In short, he was a joy to work with. For the anniversary edition, Eric Paul Biederman contributed valuable insight, able editing, and a critical eye. Finally, I must thank my longtime friend and collaborator Patricia Ward Biederman. Pat and I have the kind of working relationship people dream about. For decades now, she has stimulated my ideas and helped them soar. Each time we work together, I am reminded that the best col- laborations are those in which there is much thought, much passion, and much laughter. xii 0465014088_fm.qxd:0738208175_fm.qxd 12/2/08 2:52 PM Page xiii Introduction to the Revised Edition, 2003 The introduction is a snapshot of the world as it was when a book was written. When I wrote the original introduction to On Becoming a Leader, just before its publication in 1989, the world was on the brink of extraordinary change. Although few of us could have predicted it, the Berlin Wall would fall in November, to the joyous clamor of rock music, effectively end- ing the partition of Germany that dated back to the end of World War II. But when the book came out earlier in the year, Germany was still divided, the Soviet Union was intact, and another, older George Bush was president of the United States. Not far from Berlin was the relatively peaceful, unified nation of Yugoslavia. The man who would later be hailed as the George Washington of Africa, Nelson Mandela, remained a prisoner of apartheid in a South African jail. The only people familiar with the Internet were 400 users at a handful of univer- sities and government agencies, and even those visionaries were unaware how utterly it would transform everything from the global economy to the way terrorists do their awful business. In xiii 0465014088_fm.qxd:0738208175_fm.qxd 12/2/08 2:52 PM Page xiv On Becoming a Leader 1989, Americans had cordless phones and VCRs, but the cell phone and the DVD existed only in the human imagination. Fast forward thirteen years to 2002. As I write this in Cam- bridge, Massachusetts, much of the world is consumed with the question of whether the United States will go to war with Iraq. Former President Jimmy Carter recently won the Nobel Peace Prize, and, days later, North Korea revealed that it has nuclear weapons after all. The possibility of nuclear catastrophe looms over the planet as it has not done since the early 1960s, at the height of the Cold War, when every American school child knew to duck and cover in case of a Soviet attack. When I wrote that original introduction, the United States was still recovering from the stock market crash of October 1987. Since then, the nation has undergone a period of unprecedented prosperity— only to become mired, in the last year or two, in the most painful recession most people under 50 have ever seen.