On Becoming a Leader
Warren Bennis · 1989
Warren Bennis's enduring classic argues that leaders are made, not born, and that the path to leading others runs straight through knowing and fully expressing yourself. It's a field guide to becoming the author of your own life so you can inspire it in others.
A foundational classic on the inner journey of becoming an authentic, self-aware leader.
Three of the ideas you’ll keep
The Clif summary of On Becoming a Leader pulls out 7 insights. Here are the first three.
- Lead, don't just manage: managers do things right, but leaders do the right thing, they innovate, originate, and challenge the status quo instead of administering and copying it.
- Make self-knowledge your job: become your own best teacher, take full responsibility and blame no one, accept that you can learn anything, and turn raw experience into wisdom by reflecting on it.
- Lead from expression, not proof: act to fully express who you are rather than to prove yourself to others, the need to prove yourself shrinks you, while self-expression frees you to lead authentically.
The other 4 — and the full 13-minute summary — are in the app.
What’s inside: 10 chapters
The whole summary runs about 13 minutes, read or listened to.
- Mastering the Context: Leaders Are Made, Not Born
- Understanding the Basics: What Sets Leaders Apart
- Knowing Yourself: The Four Lessons of Self-Knowledge
- Knowing the World: Innovative Learning Over Maintenance Learning
- Operating on Instinct: Whole-Brain Leadership
- Deploying Yourself: Strike Hard, Try Everything
- Moving Through Chaos: Innovation Lives on the Far Side of Obstacles
- Getting People On Your Side: Trust Is the Currency of Leadership
- Organizations Can Help, or Hinder
- Forging the Future: The Leader's Lasting Work
Finish On Becoming a Leader tonight.
Read or listen to the full summary in about 13 minutes, then keep the ideas with a minute of review a day. Start with the 2-minute quiz — no card required.
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