G
rowth from a small start-up
to a large multinational
company cannot be
achieved without leaders who are
passionate about their business
and who are inspirational to their
staff. Leading a business is, at its
core, about harnessing the power
of people.
One popular business aphorism
claims that “there are no business
problems, only people problems.”
Managing people is not easy; every
organization is a collection of
individuals, each with their own
philosophies, vulnerabilities,
drives, strengths, and weaknesses.
Effective leadership embraces
these differences and creates a
culture in which people can make
the most of their talent. In other
words, leadership is about creating
capacity in others. It is about
imagining the future, determining
strategic direction, and aligning
the organization and its people to
a particular vision.Leaders and managers
The very best leaders, as Steve
Jobs said, “put a dent in the
universe.” These leaders are not
bound by convention; they are able
to think outside the box, embracing
one-of-a-kind ideas that disrupt the
status quo in their favor. In today’s
hypercompetitive markets, the
leaders we celebrate do not only
outthink, outsmart, and outcompete
their rivals, they disrupt entire
industries. They change the game.
Rarely, though, do leaders
achieve greatness alone. Leaders
rely on managers. While leadership
is about vision, management is
about process, planning, budgeting,
structuring, and staffing—tasks
that help an organization to keep
doing what it does. In The
Manager’s Job (1975), Henry
Mintzberg identified three broad
management roles: informational
(managing by information);
interpersonal (managing through
people); and decisional (managing
through action). Importantly,Mintzberg noted that none of these
roles is exclusive or privileged.
Leading well often involves shifting
seamlessly between leadership and
management, and knowing when,
contextually, each role is most
appropriate to adopt.
Creating the organizational
capacity for continued success also
means putting together teams and
managing talent. An effective team
is a powerful thing. Individuals
perform better in teams; they are
more productive and more
innovative. Teams can also be self-
managing; individuals support
each other and strive not to let the
team down. Effective teams require
less supervision and less direction
than individuals, and performance
is guided by group norms, not by
one individual’s expectations.
It is not surprising, then, that
great organizations recognize the
value of teams. Google, for example,
designs workstations so that staff
can easily collaborate. “Hangout
spaces” are adorned with funky
furniture and supplied with food to
allow teams to work and socialize.
Leaders at Google want employees
to interact; they recognize that by
encouraging teamwork, employees
enjoy greater job satisfaction and
creativity, and as a result,
innovation rises. To the benefit of66 INTRODUCTION
Good leadership consists
of showing average people
how to do the work of
superior people.
J. D. Rockefeller
US industrialist (1839 –1937)