COACHING FORLEADERSHIPDEVELOPMENT 133
their personal lives. Because real leadership resides in the intersection of the
three realms, I push executives, especially those who have been most out-
wardly successful, to see the possibility of their contribution and efficacy
coming simultaneously from their competence (what they are really good at),
their passion (what they love doing), and the world’s greatest needs (their
potentially most significant contributions). See Figure 6.2 for a graphic rep-
resentation of these three realms.
Earlier this year, I presented the overlapping realms of significant leader-
ship to executives at the University of South Africa’s Business Leadership
Institute, the University where Nelson Mandela received his degree. Man-
agers from throughout southern Africa travel to the Institute twice a year.
With years of experience and an average age between 35 to 40, they include
the full range of twenty-first-century managers—male and female, black and
white, African, Asian, and European descent—a diversity unheard of in
most twentieth-century groups of similar leaders. The questions “ What am I
good at?” “ What am I passionate about?” and “ What’s the world’s greatest
need?” were hugely important to these executives because current African
business and societal challenges are so large. No one in the room could escape
FIGURE6.2 Significant Leadership: Supporting Leaders’ Most Important
Contributions
Greatest
CompetenceGreatest
PassionWorld’s
Greatest NeedSignificant
Leadership