Leadership Revolution

CHAPTER 1The Big Leap

I guess you'll need me to tell you a lot about my background.

Coach: Actually, we won't need to dwell too much on the past.

Then where should we begin?

Coach: Let's focus on what you really care about: your future.

Let's start with a big leap.

That's how a winning coaching relationship begins, not (contrary to common assumption) with a slow, meticulous excavation of the past, but with a clear, even blunt articulation of aspirations and goals. What are we trying to do here? What change do we wish, or need, to achieve?

In the case of this book, we need to start with a leap beyond the familiar “leadership” paradigm. At various points in my career I've been pressured to define a leadership philosophy that outlines “this is what it is to be a good leader.” But I have remained adamant that I am not—and my company is not—going to do that. That's because (here's the big leap) there is no single leadership paradigm. We need to start by breaking the myth that being a leader means one specific thing.

For some reason, people resist this idea. So much leadership thinking dating back to the 1980s, 1990s, and early 2000s literally argues that to be a successful leader you must follow some very specific model: You have to be a leader like this. And then they'll proceed to name, say, five particular traits. I have read dozens of books like this—and I thought every one of them was wrong.

Not just wrong, but disappointing. Often my clients would say, “Oh, I read this book, ...