Chapter 3. Be a leader, not a celebrity

 

Vision is not enough. It must be combined with venture. It is not enough to stare up the steps, we must step up the stairs.

 
 --(Vaclav Havel)

Leadership is about getting people to improve their performance. When groups of people achieve things, it’s the leader who generally gets credited with having brought them to their level of performance. In sport, when a team performs poorly it’s the manager or coach who gets fired. In the corporate world, when companies perform badly shareholders call for the scalp of the CEO. A high-profile example is Carly Fiorina, fired from her job as CEO of Hewlett-Packard. The reasons given were the performance of HP’s stock, which fell in value by 55 percent over the length ...

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