living a long life and dying early often came down to the ability
of some older males to recruit younger, stronger males to pro-
tect them. Mentoring is much more than a career strategy. It is
a reciprocal dance that benefits both parties.
In talking to successful geezers, I am always dazzled by their
adaptive capacity. I am surer now than ever that the process of
becoming a leader is the same process that makes a person a
healthy, fully integrated human being. And it is the same
process that allows one to age successfully. When I think of
adaptive capacity I think of such serial leaders as Arthur Levitt,
Jr., former head of the Securities and Exchange Commission.
Arthur’s adaptive capacity has allowed him to reinvent himself
time after time. As I write this, he has a book about Wall Street
and corporate America on the best-seller list, and he is much
sought after as a critic of the way America has done business in
recent years. Time has only made him a more distinguished
leader and burnished his remarkable ability to adapt and grow.
Timeless leadership is always about character, and it is always
about authenticity. Let me underscore the observation made by
pioneering psychologist William James about authenticity. “I
have often thought,” he wrote, “that the best way to define a
man’s character is to seek out the particular mental or moral at-
titude in which, when it came upon him, he felt himself most
deeply and intensively active and alive. At such moments, there
is a voice inside which speaks and says, ‘This is the real me.’”
In 1989 I urged you to discover and cultivate that authentic
self, the part of you that is most alive, the part that is most you.
Now, as then, finding and nurturing that authentic self is the
one sure way of becoming a leader.On Becoming a Leaderxxviii0465014088_fm.qxd:0738208175_fm.qxd 12/2/08 2:52 PM Page xxviii