The Goldman Sachs Leadership PrinciplesOne early challenge in developing content for the Pine Street lead-
ership programs was the lack of definition of outstanding leadership
or even a shared language to discuss elements of leadership. Due to
its reliance on the apprenticeship system, the firm had held few for-
mal leadership programs, and although Goldman Sachs had a set
of business principles that were a cornerstone of its culture, these
principles lacked actionable guidelines for what leaders should
actually do. Due to the consensus-oriented culture of Goldman
Sachs, the methodology for developing the Goldman Sachs Lead-
ership Principles was a highly participative one. More than 90 per-
cent of the firm’s managing directors participated in discussions, led
by senior leaders of the firm, of successive drafts of the principles.
The process took more than a year but produced a document
that reflected the input of virtually all of the firm’s leaders (see
Exhibit 29.2).
A decision was made quite early that consistent with the idea
that every university has a research capability, so should Pine
Street. The goal was not to produce research for scholarly journals
but rather to generate useful, immediately applicable data that
could be brought to bear on important organizational issues. The
first effort in this regard was to seek to identify the experiences that
were most important in preparing Goldman Sachs professionals for
high-level leadership positions. The model for this effort was the
“Session C” approach of GE, which systematically moves its
promising executives through a series of managerial positions that
serve to both assess and prepare them for positions of increasing
responsibility. Among the frequent “career stops” within GE are
the following:
- Leading both a short- and a long-cycle business
- Working in a consumer business and also in a defense industry
- Managing a start-up business and one that’s well established
- Taking on a leadership role outside one’s home country
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