The leader does it better and better and better, but is never
satisfied. Aeschylus said that wisdom is gained through pain
and reflection. The leader knows better than anyone that the
fundamental problems of life are insoluble, but persists anyway,
and continues to learn.
Leaders learn by leading, and they learn best by leading in
the face of obstacles. As weather shapes mountains, so prob-
lems make leaders. Difficult bosses, lack of vision and virtue in
the executive suite, circumstances beyond their control, and
their own mistakes have been the leaders’ basic curriculum.
Korn/Ferry International co-founder Richard Ferry belongs
to what might be called the throw-them-into-the-water-and-
they’ll-learn-to-swim school: “You can’t really create leaders.
How do you teach people to make decisions, for example? All
you can do is develop the talents people have. I’m a great be-
liever in trial by fire, on-the-job experience. Put them out there
in the plants, put them in the markets, send them to Japan and
Europe. Train them on the job.”
Jim Burke and Horace Deets were succinct. Burke said, “The
more experience and the more tests you survive, the more apt you
are to be a good leader.” Deets, speaking of his job as executive
director of the American Association of Retired Persons, said,
“It’s a tough job and, I would wager, can only be learned by expe-
rience. You can’t learn it by reading up on it, you’ve got to do it.
The only real laboratory is the laboratory of leadership itself.”
When I talked with her, Barbara Corday was working her
way through a difficult lesson: “When Tri-Star and Columbia
merged, they woke up the next day with two presidents of their
two television divisions, and so one of us had to go. It turned
out to be me. It’s been three months—the longest period of
time I’ve gone without working for twenty-five years. It’s been
On Becoming a Leader