Who better to teach than the most capable among us? And I’m not just talking about
seminars or formal settings. Our actions and behaviors, for better or worse, teach those who
admire and look up to us how to govern their own lives. Are we thoughtful about how people
learn and grow? As leaders, we should think of ourselves as teachers and try to create
companies in which teaching is seen as a valued way to contribute to the success of the
whole. Do we think of most activities as teaching opportunities and experiences as ways of
learning? One of the most crucial responsibilities of leadership is creating a culture that
rewards those who lift not just our stock prices but our aspirations as well.

Leadership is a quality rather than a job. We are all leaders and followers at different points in our lives. Many aspects of this book should be useful to those looking to grow as leaders as well as managers, and great managers should cultivate leadership not just in themselves but also within their teams.

This is an important distinction because while the role of a manager can be given to someone (or taken away), leadership is not something that can be bestowed. It must be earned. People must want to follow you.

This is what great leaders do. Great leaders look unflinchingly in the mirror and transform untamed hungers and unruly compulsions into moments of self-compassion and understanding. In doing so, they create the spaces for each of us to do the same, turning our organizations into places of growth and self-actualization. They infuse the profanity of work with the sacred duty of Work: the opportunities to lead, to grow into their whole selves while nurturing others, encouraging them to do the same.

Learning to lead yourself is the hardest part of becoming a leader. That’s one of the things new CEOs and aspiring entrepreneurs come to me for. They come because they feel lonely; they don’t have anyplace else to put the feelings.

So much of what I’ve learned about growing up came from learning to lead.

In fact, the process of becoming me made me a better leader. The two processes, becoming a leader and becoming ourselves, are intertwined and interdependent; better leaders are better humans and better humans are better leaders. Leadership lessons, then, are, at their core, lessons in humanity.

Sometimes the belief systems that are most difficult to overcome aren’t the ghosts in the machine of our childhood. Sometimes the most difficult belief systems fall under the rubric of “conventional wisdom.” Conventional wisdom, for example, dictates that, in our process of becoming warrior-leaders, we focus on the hard things. Big rocks, folks say knowingly. ‘Break down the big rocks and then focus on the little rocks.’ But how do you discern a big rock from a little rock?