Thinkers 50 Leadership: Organizational Success through Leadership

CHAPTER2

Crucibles of Leadership

There is a moment in the life of a leader when the leader makes the grade, when he or she leaps from management to leadership, from team member to leader. For Warren Bennis, that moment came when he was the youngest infantry officer in the European theater of operations during World War II. This experience was what Bennis later called a crucible.

“A crucible is by definition a transformative experience though which an individual comes to a new or an altered sense of identity,” Bennis wrote.¹

The crucible experience was instrumental in shaping the leadership qualities of the people that Bennis later interviewed. “We found that something magical happens in the crucible—an alchemy whereby fear and suffering are transformed ...