cupola lacks professional integrity, as does any person who
trims his or her principles—or even ideas—to please. Like
Lillian Hellman, the leader cannot cut his or her con-
science to fit this year’s fashions.
Maturity is important to a leader because leading is not
simply showing the way or issuing orders. Every leader
needs to have experienced and grown through following—
learning to be dedicated, observant, capable of working
with and learning from others, never servile, always truth-
ful. Having located these qualities in themselves, leaders
can encourage them in others.- Integrity is the basis of trust, which is not as much an ingre-
dient of leadership as it is a product. It is the one quality
that cannot be acquired, but must be earned. It is given by
co-workers and followers, and without it, the leader can’t
function. I’ll talk about trust in greater detail in chapter
eight, “Getting People on Your Side.” - Two more basic ingredients of leadership are curiosityand
daring. Leaders wonder about everything, want to learn as
much as they can, are willing to take risks, experiment, try
new things. They do not worry about failure, but embrace
errors, knowing they will learn from them. Learning from
adversity is another theme that comes up again and again
in this book, often with different spins. In fact, that could
be said of each of the basic ingredients.
Even though I talk about basic ingredients, I’m not talking
about traits that you’re born with and can’t change. As countless
deposed kings and hapless heirs to great fortunes can attest, true
leaders are not born, but made, and usually self-made. Leaders
invent themselves. They are not, by the way, made in a single
Understanding the Basics