Business Leadership: A Jossey-Bass Reader

Part 4. Sustaining the Leader

In "The Secret Sharer," novelist Joseph Conrad offers a powerful portrait of leadership development from the inside out. Readers are privy to the inner struggles of a young sea captain seeking to understand the meaning of leadership and what he must do to rise to the challenge. The young captain has technical know-how: training from a top seafaring academy and solid experience as first mate on comparable vessels. At the helm for the first time, however, he is surprised by what he finds—and finds out about himself. Leadership is a lot harder and less glamorous than he expected: followers must be earned, the pace of the work is swift and steady, decisions are often made in the face of ambiguity, and mistakes can be ...