Leadership the Hard Way: Why Leadership Can't be Taught– and How You Can Learn it Anyway

Chapter 2. LEADING AGAINST THE CURRENT

Survival requires risk taking. Taking risks often involves doing the unexpected—and sometimes the seemingly impossible—even in the face of considerable opposition. For that reason, leadership the hard way means leading against the current—for example, competing on costs at the Jerusalem fab when the rest of Intel was still focused exclusively on product innovation and performance, or replacing the fab's air-filtering system without shutting down the production line.

I believe that leading against the current is a general principle of leadership in an environment of high turbulence. In my experience, often the best thing to do in the middle of a crisis or when facing major uncertainty is precisely the opposite ...