industry or profession or to a narrower but deeper slice of life and
work: a single firm, a local agency, or a neighborhood.He might have added a classroom to that list. Whatever
your leadership experience, it’s a good place to start.
In fact, the process of becoming a leader is much the same as
the process of becoming an integrated human being. For the
leader, as for any integrated person, life itself is the career. Dis-
cussing the process in terms of “leaders” is merely a way of
making it concrete.
Braque, the French painter, once said, “The only thing that
matters in art can’t be explained.” The same might be said of
leadership. But leadership, like art, can be demonstrated. And I
am still as fascinated by observing and listening to some of this
country’s most distinguished leaders as I was when I started
studying leadership decades ago. Like everyone else, these par-
ticular men and women are the sum of all their experiences.
Unlike most people, however, each of them amounts to more
than the sum, because they have made more of their experi-
ences. These are originals, not copies.
My paradigm, then, is leaders, not theories about leaders, and
leaders functioning in the real world, rather than in some artifi-
cial setting. I deliberately chose people who are not only accom-
plished, but multitalented: a writer who’s a CEO, a scientist who
heads a foundation, a lawyer who served in the cabinet, a young
man who’s on his third career. They are all people whose lives
have made a difference—thoughtful, articulate, and reflective.
Because I would argue that our culture is currently domi-
nated and shaped by business, almost a third of this group of
leaders are in business. (To those of you who would argue that
it is shaped by the media I would answer—as legendary tele -On Becoming a Leaderxxxii0465014088_fm.qxd:0738208175_fm.qxd 12/2/08 2:52 PM Page xxxii