In 2002, my wife, Penny, and I attended a seminar Bennis and David Gergen led at the Aspen Institute. At the time I was eager to write a book on my experiences at Medtronic but was struggling to find a publisher. My intent was to offer practical approaches to leading and develop leaders that enabled people to be their authentic selves, rather than emulating others. With Bennis's encouragement, Jossey-Bass published Authentic Leadership as part of the Warren Bennis Signature Series. Bennis served as executive editor and wrote in the foreword, “Timeless leadership is always about character, and it is always about authenticity.”
He became my mentor, friend, and intellectual colleague, and gave me the courage to become a writer. As executive editor for my four books in the Warren Bennis Signature Series, he generously shared his time and his insights. In the midst of writing True North, Peter Sims and I spent five days with him going over the conceptual ideas and stories used in the book. Unlike many great scholars who protect their ideas, Bennis genuinely wanted me to expand on his and make them fully accessible to the new generation of leaders, which he later called “the crucible generation.” We shared a common aim to influence the next generation to lead with clear purpose to serve others and make the world a better place.
Two months before he died, Bennis asked my wife and me to discuss leadership in the next-to-last class he ever taught. Although Bennis was beset with bodily ills, his mind and humanity were as sharp as ever. What other professors have you known who were still teaching at age 89? Over dinner that evening Penny asked what he would like on his tombstone. He replied, “Generous Friend.” A generous friend is just what Bennis was to thousands of friends, students, scholars, and mentees whom he influenced with kindness, buoyancy of spirit, and wisdom.
Bennis's last book, Still Surprised, has a photo of him walking barefoot on the beach with his pant legs rolled up, leaving behind large footprints in the sand. These footprints serve as a calling to incorporate his ideas in our leadership. Ultimately, this will become Bennis's greatest legacy. They bring to mind a stanza from Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's A Psalm of Life:
Lives of great men all remind us
We can make our lives sublime,
And, departing, leave behind us
Footprints on the sands of time.
FOREWORD
When Peter Drucker was in his prime, CEOs often traveled across the country to California to seek his counsel on how to lead and manage their companies. He was an iconic figure in the business world, the father of management studies, whose 30 books were highly influential in shaping modern global companies. As I found in conversation late in his life, he had a wisdom about him that was spellbinding.
Upon his death 10 years ago, people naturally asked, “Who will carry on Peter's work?” Soon it became apparent that the most obvious candidate was Warren Bennis, and once again, CEOs made the trek to California to meet quietly with one of the sweetest, wisest men I have been blessed to know. Warren was the father of leadership studies in American universities, the man who gave them academic legitimacy through his two dozen books, and the best mentor and friend one could possibly have.
Upon his death a year ago, the question naturally arose again: “Well, who will now carry on Warren's work?” With the publication of his sixth and most important book, Discover Your True North, we may well have our candidate: Bill George. There are obvious differences: Bill himself would modestly point out that both Drucker and Bennis were lifelong scholars deeply schooled in theory; by contrast, Bill first made his mark as a highly successful CEO of a large company before becoming a major thought leader. Yet all three have been at the forefront in shaping leadership and management practices of successive generations.
By chance, Warren introduced me to Bill along with Dan Vasella of Novartis at a dinner in Davos, Switzerland, where we were all attending the World Economic Forum in 2001. Bill was coming off his years as CEO of Medtronic and was beginning to pull together his thoughts and experiences about leadership so that he could share them with younger business leaders.
Soon Bill published his first book, essentially a memoir, titled Authentic Leadership, and it was quickly a best seller. Without realizing it, he had launched an entirely new career, one with even greater impact than his first. In reading Discover Your True North, you will find not only a distillation of his ideas about leadership but also revealing portraits of a galaxy of more diverse leaders and what they have learned on their own journeys toward a True North. This book bids to be a classic, standing alongside The Effective Executive by Peter Drucker and On Becoming a Leader by Warren Bennis. I am proud to call Bill a friend and trusted adviser – and to salute him on the completion of his best book.
Here's what is essential for a reader to understand: Experience shows that Bill's ideas not only work well in practice but also apply across the board, helping not only business leaders but those in the civic and public sectors as well. Most books that come from the academy are intended for a small audience of specialized scholars. That is the way advances in knowledge are often made. But non-scholars wonder how this progress applies to them.
Bill George's work – like Warren's and Peter's – intentionally crosses the bridge between the academy and practice. Through writing, teaching, and mentoring, he is helping leaders become better at leading themselves and, in turn, their organizations. At present more than two dozen CEOs of major global companies are calling on him regularly for counsel and advice.
The evidence shows that leaders from across the world are hungry to discover their True North and to make it their polar star. After initial teaching stints at the International Institute for Management Development (IMD) in Europe and at Yale School of Management, Bill came to the Harvard Business School (HBS) as a professor of management. There in 2005, he introduced his course, Authentic Leadership Development, as a second-year elective. Students embraced it with growing enthusiasm, such that it has become one of the most popular courses at HBS and attracts a growing number in executive education.
Bill no longer teaches the master of business administration course but instead is focusing on executive education, where CEOs and senior executives focus on their leadership, including three courses each year for CEOs. Now there is a cadre of other faculty members who are devotees, led by Scott Snook (a retired army officer) and Tom DeLong and blessed by Dean Nitin Nohria.
Fortunately, Bill's course has migrated to the Harvard Kennedy School (HKS), where I am a professor of practice and codirector of our Center for Public Leadership. Dana Born, a retired air force general and the first woman in any military branch to gain flag rank while at a military academy, has just started teaching the course, and once again students are responding with gusto. Moreover, Bill has introduced True North to an annual training program at the HKS for Young Global Leaders chosen by the World Economic Forum. Attendees love what the program offers, especially the deep-dive, small-group conversations every morning over breakfast.
Altogether, some 6,000 men and women have now been trained at Harvard alone in Bill's ideas about authentic leadership. Longitudinal studies are not yet possible on how much he may have shaped lives and leadership, but anecdotal evidence points to encouraging results.
One group that has had lots of exposure to Bill and his work is students who have pursued joint degrees at HBS and HKS and in their third year have received scholarships from Bill and Penny George. These George Fellows, typically in their late twenties, have a home at our Center for Public Leadership and meet frequently, often with Bill and Penny. Bill generously mentors a number of them and remains close long after they have graduated. Altogether, the George Fellowship now has 100 alumni.
To be sure, many had transformative experiences that strengthened their leadership before they became George Fellows. Even so, their recent achievements have been impressive. Here are a few whom Bill continues to mentor: Seth Moulton won an upset victory in his campaign for Congress and has attracted a national following. Maura Sullivan is now serving as an assistant secretary at the Department of Veterans Administration. Nate Fick is CEO of Endgame as well as former CEO of the Center for a New American Security and author of One Bullet Away. Brian Elliott founded Friendfactor,