8. CONCLUSION
In a traditional adventure story, the hero returns to take up
his life again, but it is a different life, because he is a differ-
ent person; his adventure has changed him. Life is not so
neatly parcelled out as in stories and the end of one story is
the beginning of the next. There is no point at which you
can sit back metaphorically on your laurels and think,
‘That’s it. I’m a leader. Now I can relax.’
Leadership is often presented as a package – do all these
things and you will become a leader. The package is attrac-
tive from the outside, but I hope we have got beyond the
wrapping to what being a leader means to you, so you can de-
velop your own style of leadership and be a leader in your
own way, a way that fits with your own ethical and moral
sense. Being a leader starts with being yourself.
I think of leadership as a general set of skills, values and
a way of being that you can apply anywhere, in family life, in
work, whatever you do. Although much of this book has
concentrated on leadership in business, because this is a
particularly important application, I have aimed to put
some of the skills of business leadership into a wider context
because I do not believe you can separate the business
leader from the person. The way to transform a company
begins with transforming yourself and becoming a leader is
one way to transform yourself. I also believe that for every
obstacle we meet in the outside world and every problem we
solve there we have to overcome an inner obstacle and solve
an inner problem.
A leader’s vision takes them into the future and the future
is an adventure. The very word ‘adventure’ means ‘going