Leading So People Will Follow

Making This Real

You may be asking (I hope you’re asking!), How can I make this real and practical for myself? That’s my job in this book. First, I’ll share with you a composite folktale, one that demonstrates these six hardwired leadership attributes, so you can get a sense of these qualities as they live in their natural habitat of the fairy tale. It will almost certainly seem familiar to you, reminding you of stories you read or were told as a child—or the ones you read to your children.

Then I devote one chapter to each of the six characteristics, first pulling out the part of the story that most directly speaks to this quality, then discussing examples of the quality (or its lack) in leaders with whom I’ve had the pleasure to work over the ...