their less successful compatriots primarily because they learn
more from all their experiences, and that they learn early in their
careers to be comfortable with ambiguity.
In 1817, poet John Keats wrote in a letter to his brothers that
the basis for real achievement was “negative capability... when a
man is capable of being in uncertainties, mysteries, doubts, with-
out any irritable reaching after fact and reason.” There’s probably
no better definition of a contemporary leader than that.
John Gardner, the late founder of Common Cause and a for-
mer Health, Education, and Welfare secretary, listed creeping
crises, the size and complexity of organizations and institutions,
specialization, the current anti-leader climate, and the general
and specific rigors of public life as the principal obstacles to
leadership.
Norman Lear, too, sees obstacles as an integral part of lead-
ership. “To be an effective leader, you not only have to get the
group of followers on the right path, but you must be able to
convince them that whatever obstacle stands in the way ahead,
whether it’s a tree or a building that blocks the view, you’re go-
ing to get around it. You’re not going to be put off by the appar-
ent barriers to your goal. All journeys are filled with potholes
and mines, but the only way we can move beyond them is to ap-
proach them, and recognize them for what they are. You have to
see that it’s only a tree, or whatever, and it’s not insurmountable.
Everywhere you trip is where the treasure lies.”
Everywhere you trip is where the treasure lies. That’s learning
from surprise, as well as adversity. Virtually every leader I
talked with would agree.
A number of them learned valuable lessons from difficult
bosses—some even from bad bosses. The difference between
the two is that bad bosses teach you what not to do. The diffi-
On Becoming a Leader