The Heart of Business

15

The Purposeful Leader

We can do so much more. We can save this world with the right leadership.

—Adrian Veidt, Watchmen, 2009

In January 2013, Shari Ballard, Best Buy’s then-head of human resources and stores, encouraged me to articulate what I thought made a great leader. If the most important decision CEOs make is to choose whom they put in a position of leadership, she argued, we had to be clear about the criteria we would rely on to make these decisions. Our turnaround plan was just getting underway, however, and Best Buy was still in critical condition. I felt we should focus on action rather than words, so I declined to go through the exercise back then.

But Shari was right, of course. And a few years later, after we had saved ...