On Becoming A Leader Paperback – March 3, 2009

I chose to read this book "On becoming a leader" because I wanted to understand the leadership qualities that are often called to have the leaders and entrepreneurs of different innovative businesses, companies, corporations, institutions, organizations and nations. On the foremost of the book content Bennis characterizes leaders by guiding vision, ability to inspire others and ability to bring integrity, which he calls the most important character, to lead effectively the organizations. He defines leaders as people who are interested and capable to express themselves fully, meaning "they know who they are, what their strengths and weaknesses are, and how to fully deploy their strengths and compensate for their weaknesses. They also know what they want, why they want it, and how to communicate what they want to others, in order to gain their cooperation and support. Finally, they know how to achieve their goals. The key to full-self-understanding one's self and the world, and the key to understanding is learning one's own life and experience". Great leaders always listen to followers who speak the truth; they are always undertaking creative collaboration with their followers.Bennis anticipates "on becoming a leader" emphasizing that a leader must understand the situations he is in which he calls "mastering the context" and be able to change it instead of being a prisoner of it or habits. With two role models including the successful leader Norman Lear and the failing leader Ed, Bennis explains the process of mastering the context. It includes expressing oneself, listening to inner invoice, learning from the right mentors, and giving oneself over to a guiding vision. Lear mastered the context and utilized it but Ed failed because of he lacked "vision and character".Leaders share common ingredients of leadership including guiding vision; passion which built the ability to inspire others, knowing yourself, candor, maturity, Integrity and trust, curiosity and daring. He also argues that true leaders are made not born and usually self-invented. Developing character and vision is how leaders invent themselves. It requires "full deployment, engagement, hone and sharpen all of one's gifts, and ensure that one be an original, not a copy".He identifies the differences between leaders and managers as the differences between mastering the context and surrendering to it. Those include "The manager administers; the leader innovates. The manager is a copy; the leader is an original; the manager maintains; the leader develops". The leaders learn from education but managers learn from training. Education is different from training as respective difference between understanding and memorizing, ideas and facts, long- term and short term, active and passive, broad and narrow, change and stability, process and content, etch. Leaders use whole brain- left and right brain as opposed to managers who use only left brain. He then identifies leaders as people who know how to find problems and think non-traditionally. Leaders work with nothing than themselves reflecting the life paradoxes that "good leaders rise to the top in spite of their weakness, while bad leaders rise because of their weakness". For leaders it is true that "we are our own raw material. Only when we know what we are made of and what we want to make of it can we begin our lives-and we must do it despite an unwitting conspiracy of people and events against us."Bennis argues and describes how self-knowledge is a very important process for self-invention. Knowing yourself means "separating from who you are and who you want to be from what the world thinks you are and wants you to be". He argues that this process can start at any stage in life, reflecting on your own experiences and testing yourself and if you don't like who you have been and what you have been doing you seek to change because if you go on what you have always been doing you'll get the same things you have been getting which may be less than what you want. All leaders agree on four lessons to become yourself: 1) be your own teacher.2) Keep in mind you can learn anything you want to learn; one of the leadership ingredients is the passion for life promises which in turn needs full deployment, which in turn is another definition of learning. "You are not afraid of failure". 3) Accept responsibility and blame no one. 4) True understanding comes from reflecting on one's experience; "not until we see the past and understand it-can we successfully navigate the future"; "we must free ourselves from the habit". In summary, "You make your own life by understanding it".Bennis describes the modes of learning the world for leaders: innovative learning, broadening experience by travel, learning from friends and mentors, and learning from adversity such as study, travel, people, work, play and reflection. He underscores maintenance/shock learning that tend develop managers rather than leaders as opposed to innovative learning to develop leaders.For leaders to be more effective they must trust "the blessed impulses" that lead to their vision, by following "the inner voice" which is from whole brain thinking. Bennis discusses with other corporate leaders the right-brain characteristics of leaders: encouraging diversity of opinion, figuring out how diverse people and elements work together; imagination and perseverance, steadfastness of purpose, ability to trust ideas once you have them, even though they may break certain rules. They also describes the importance of luck and how it comes out: "luck is a combination of preparation and opportunity", "The general advice I would have for people about leadership is to find out what is truest in yourself and stick to it".The process of deploying yourself is explained. "Strike hard, try everything, do everything, render everything, and become the person you are capable of being". In this process the procedure of reflection and resolution come first. Leaders reflects the past experiences including mistakes, triumphs, current feelings and process all of them to come up with useful resolution of the conflicts inheriting from reflection. This procedure leads to perspectives and in turn to taking a point of view. Then this leads to taking tests and measures including to best express yourself but avoiding to prove yourself. The tests and measures lead to the desire to achieve and then in turn to the mastery. Mastery implies competence and ability to articulate. The mastery leads to strategic thinking. This includes knowing where you are going to end up, figuring out the ways, elaborating, revising and mapping the ways, concluding possible pitfalls, traps and rewards, and examining the map and setting out to move. In this procedure there are risks but "unless you are willing to take risks, you will suffer paralyzing inhibitions, and you will never do what you are capable of doing. Mistakes-missteps-are necessary for actualizing your vision, and necessary steps towards success." After this come synthesis of full self-expression which is leadership.Leaders are innovators; they do new things that have not been done before. Leaders do not think about of failing of what they are doing instead they do it and that how they succeed.Bennis argues that leading by getting people on your side doesn't necessarily need charisma. He explains the way it works to some leaders who do not have charismatic character. They use inspiration through empathy, trust, census leadership, and voice. Leaders should be in a very good balance of competence, knowledge, and virtue to do so otherwise they are either ideologues, or demagogues, or technocrats. Leaders have to build "values, commitment, and conviction in organizations". Integrity is the basis of trust. He also points out that the new model of leadership consists of "ideas and information intensive". Through this model leaders use their voice to bring a change. Using honesty helps to bring people on your side. Creating many units and decentralization helps people to learn leading and getting things done. Leaders should embrace change in their organizations so that are able to control it.Finally, the author discusses the importance of organizations to develop leaders. For organizations to do so they should embrace change and hence they should be aware of the major forces that govern the world: technology, global interdependence, demographics and values. They should offer opportunities to "all would-be leaders early in their careers" to empower them. They should serve as mentors. Organizations must find and provide for the growth and development of their members.The author ends up by describing who leaders of the future should be. "The leaders of the future will be those who take the next step to change the culture". The common things of leaders of tomorrow are: "broad education", "boundless curiosity", "boundless enthusiasm", "contagious optimism", "belief in people and teamwork", "willingness to take risks", "devotion to long term rather than short term profit", "commitment to excellence", "adaptive capacity", "empathy and authenticity".This is a must read book. The book is really readable and inspiring. The explanations are followed by tangible examples and case studies of different leaders. As someone who wants to become an entrepreneur by reading it I come to the understanding of not only how I can self-invent into a leader and be able to lead effectively my businesses but also the best qualities our leaders should have to be called the good leaders.

As the tile indicates, this is a book on leadership development - "the hows: how people become leaders, how they lead, and how organizations encourage or stifle potential leaders." The premise upon which this book is based is best put by Warren himself - "...leaders are people who are able to express themselves fully. By this I mean that they know who they are, what their strengths and weaknesses are, and how to fully deploy their strengths and compensate for their weaknesses. They also know what they want, why they want it, and how to communicate what they want to others, in order to gain their cooperation and support. Finally, they know how to achieve their goals. The key to full self-expression is understanding one's self and the world, and the key to understanding is learning - from one's own life and experience."The book then goes on to further elaborate on each of the areas highlighted above. The key differentiator between this and other leadership books is that this one promotes unleashing leadership from within, rather than describe what a person should strive to be. To me, this is the only way to develop sustainable authentic leaders. Another area of focus is that of experience. Warren stresses the importance of experience as the primary and ultimate development vehicle for leaders. Education is all its forms is important - but does not substitute the need for experience whether successes or failures. The book brings to life all of the aspects discussed through the stories of many successful leaders from a variety of sectors.A must read in the area of leadership and personal development!Below are some excerpts I found particularly insightful:1- "Becoming a leader isn't easy, just as becoming a doctor or a poet isn't easy, and anyone who claims otherwise is fooling himself. But learning to lead is a lot easier than most of us think it is, because each of us contains the capacity for leadership. In fact, almost every one of us can point to some leadership experience."2- "There are three basic reasons why leaders are important. First, they are responsible for the effectiveness of organizations...Second, the change and upheaval of the past years has left us with no place to hide...Third, there is a pervasive, national concern about the integrity of our institutions."3- "There are four steps in the process behind Norman Lear's success in mastering the context: (1) becoming self-expressive; (2) listening to the inner voice; (3) learning from the right mentors; and (4) giving oneself over to a guiding vision."4- "If most of us like Ed, are creatures of our context, prisoners of the habits, practices, and rules that make us ineffectual, it is from the Norman Lears, the people who not only challenge and conquer the context but who change it in fundamental ways, that we must learn. The first step toward change is to refuse to be deployed by others and to choose to deploy yourself. Thus the process begins."5- "Leaders come in every size, shape, and disposition...Nevertheless, they all seem to share some, if not all, of the following ingredients: The first basic ingredient of leadership is a guiding vision...the second basic ingredient of leadership is passion...The next basic ingredient of leadership is integrity...Two more basic ingredients of leadership are curiosity and daring."6- "All the leaders I talked with agreed that no one can teach you how to become yourself, to take charge, to express yourself, except you. But there are some things that others have done that are useful to think about in the process. I've organized them as the four lessons of self-knowledge. They are -One: You are your own best teacher. - Two: Accept responsibility. Blame no one. - Three: You can learn anything you want to learn. - Four: True understanding comes from reflecting on your experience."7- "Self-awareness= self-knowledge = self-possession = self-control = self-expression. You make your life your own by understanding it."8- "So innovative learning must replace maintenance/shock learning. The principle components of innovative learning are: -Anticipation: being active and imaginative rather than passive and habitual - Learning by listening to others - Participation: shaping events, rather than being shaped by them"9- "Leaders, then, learn from their experiences. Learning from experience means - looking back at your childhood and adolescence and using what happened to you then to enable you to make things happen now, so that you become the master of your own life rather than its servant. - consciously seeking the kings of experiences in the present that will improve and enlarge you. - taking risks as a matter of course, with the knowledge that failure is as vital as it is inevitable. - Seeing the future - yours and the world's - as an opportunity to do al those things you have not done and those things that need to be done, rather than as a trial or a test."10- "No leader sets out to be a leader. People set out to live their lives, expressing themselves fully. When that expression is of value, they become leaders."11- "...Having measured the differences between what you want and what you're able to do, and between what drives you and what satisfies you, and between what your values are and what the organization's values are - are you able and willing to overcome those differences?"12- "Entrepreneur Larry Wilson defined the difference between desire and drive as the difference between expressing yourself and providing yourself."13- "The means of expression are the steps to the leadership: 1- Reflection leading to resolution 2- Resolution leading to perspective 3- Perspective leading to point of view 4- Point of view leading to test and measures 5- Tests and measures leading to desire 6- Desire lending to mastery 7- Mastery leading to strategic thinking 8- Strategic thinking leading to full self-expression 9- The synthesis of full self-expression = leadership"14- "There is magic in experience, as well as wisdom. And more magic in stress, challenge, and adversity, and more wisdom. And the letters JOB after one's name mean infinitely more to the wise than all rhe BAS, MBAS, and PHDS."15- "There are four ingredients leaders have to generate and sustain trust: 1- Constancy. 2- Congruity. 3- Reliability. 4- Integrity."16- "...When they asked top executives what advice they would give to younger executives, there were three basic themes: 1- Take advantage of every opportunity. 2- Aggressively search for meaning. 3- Know yourself."17- "There are ten factors, ten personal and organizational characteristics for coping with change, forging a new future, and creating learning organizations. 1- Leaders manage the dream. 2- Leaders embrace errors. 3- Leaders encourage reflective backtalk. 4- Leaders encourage dissent. 5- Leaders possess the Nobel Factor. 6- Leaders understand the Pygmalion effect in management. 7- Leaders have what I think of as the Gretzky factor, a certain touch. 8- Leaders see the long view. 9- Leaders understand stakeholder symmetry. 10- Leaders create strategic alliances and partnerships. "

Bennis pulled from many leaders and presents his interpretation of their advice, here, for others to follow. I tend to like his interpretation, but would like to read more of the sources. And, there were a few spots that seemed to drag a bit; but not enough to make me quit reading it. It was worth those few hard parts to get deeper.Maybe that’s a way Bennis is a good leader; he makes me want to look deeper and not just take his view as gospel. His style is easy and “alongside” rather than out-front-and-all-you-can-see-is-his-ass. This helped keep me into what he was saying.I think anyone interested in leadership for any reason could do worse than reading this book.

This book gives practical advice on how to become and effective leader. He completely destroys the myth that leaders are born, not made. He avoids the trap of most books that develop leadership style classifications (pigeonholes) and then do not tell you how to work with that person. As the title says, becoming a leader is a process - and it is an ongoing process. Highly recommend this for anyone moving to any higher level in an organization from team leader to CEO.

Quality book.