LEARNING FROM YOUNG LEADERS : Question 2

Building on that idea of leading people from here to there, I came across a wonderful sentence from General Eisenhower in which he said that leadership is the art of getting people to want to do what must be done. Notice those three parts. As a leader, #1, you have to know what must be done.

I mean, part of the responsibility of being a leader is to figure out what must be done on the big things, and much more often than not, to be right. Two, it’s not about getting people to do what must be done; it’s about getting them to want to do what must be done. And third, it’s not a science; it’s an art. Each person has to cultivate his or her own artistry. It might be oratory. It might be the pen. It might be a genius for figuring out who are the right six people to get in a room and what is the one question to ask. It’s developing your own peculiar art form. You learn from others, but you don’t copy them. Beethoven learned from Haydn but did not copy Haydn.

Now, speaking of Eisenhower, what was Dwight Eisenhower doing in early 1936? He was a relatively undistinguished major working as an assistant carrying MacArthur’s bags in the Philippines. Eight years later he was Supreme Commander of Allied Forces and then President of the United States. He did not start out as Eisenhower as we know today. He grew into being Eisenhower. Most great leaders in every sector that I’ve had the privilege to touch—most great leaders do not start as great leaders. They grow into great leaders. The critical question is, will you do whatever it takes to scale your leadership as the demands of your enterprise grows? As your quest, as your cause, as your enterprise scales from 1X to 2X to 5X to 10X, will you scale your leadership from 1X to 2X to 5X to 10X? Because if your BHAGs are big enough, you're going to need to grow a lot.