Preface

1. Deborah L. Ancona, Thomas W. Malone, Wanda J. Orlikowski, and Peter M. Senge, “In Praise of the Incomplete Leader,” Harvard Business Review, February 2007, 92–100.

Chapter 1

1. This story is adapted from Sousan Abadian, “From Wasteland to Homeland: Trauma and the Renewal of Indigenous Communities in North America” (Ph.D. dissertation, Harvard University, 1999). The names have been changed and the story altered to maintain confidentiality.

2. This case is based on Ronald Heifetz’s observations and interviews with key parties during this period in Quito, including numerous conversations with President Jamil Mahuad.

3. Gary Hamel, “Waking Up IBM: How a Gang of Unlikely Rebels Transformed Big Blue,” Harvard Business Review 78, no. 4 (July–August 2000): 138. For the full story on which this is based, see Gary Hamel, Leading the Revolution (Boston: Harvard Business School Press, 2000), 154–166.

4. Hamel, Leading the Revolution, 155.

5. Hamel, “Waking Up IBM,” 138.

6. Ira Sager, “Inside IBM: Internet Business Machines,” Business Week, 13 December 1999. P. EB38.

7. Ira Sager, “Gerstner on IBM and the Internet” (interview with IBM Chairman Louis V. Gerstner, Jr.), Business Week, 13 December 1999. EB40.

8. Hamel, “Waking Up IBM,” 143.

9. Mark Moore, personal communication with author, 16 October 2000.

Chapter 2

1. A more comprehensive version of this story can be found in “Diversity Programs at the New England Aquarium,” Case C116-96-1340.0 (Cambridge, MA: Kennedy School of Government Case Program, Harvard University, 1996).

2. See Ronald A. Heifetz, Leadership Without Easy Answers (Cambridge, MA: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1994), chapter 7.

3. Warren Bennis, The Unconscious Conspiracy (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass Publishers, 1989).

4. Lani Guinier, “The Triumph of Tokenism: The Voting Rights Act and the Theory of Black Electoral Success,” Michigan Law Review 89, no. 5 (March 1991): 1077–1154.

Chapter 3

1. On the skill of reflection in action, see Donald A. Schön, The Reflective Practitioner: How Professionals Think in Action (New York: Basic Books, 1983); and M. Weber, Politics as a Vocation, H. H. Gerth and C. Wright Mills, trans. (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1965).

2. Lee Kuan Yew, From Third World to First: The Singapore Story 1965–2000 (New York: HarperCollins Publishers, 2000).

3. Metaphor courtesy of Jack Bridenstein, U.S. naval officer, personal communication with author, 11 August 1982.

4. Lee Kuan Yew, personal communication with author, 17 October 2000.

Chapter 4

1. John Greenwald, “Springing a Leak,” Time, 20 December 1999, 80. For additional accounts of Ivester’s tenure and demise from which much of this material was gleaned, see also: Betsy McKay, Nikhil Deogun, and Joanne Lublin, “Tone Deaf: Ivester Had All Skills of a CEO but One: Ear for Political Nuance,” Wall Street Journal, 17 December 1999, A1; and Matt Murray, “Deputy Dilemma: Investors Like Backup, but Does Every CEO Really Need a Sidekick?” Wall Street Journal, 24 February 2000, A1.

2. This case is based upon a lecture by Leslie Wexner at the John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 13 September 2000.

3. For a full account of Nelson Poynter and his stewardship of the St. Petersburg Times, see Robert N. Pierce, A Sacred Trust: Nelson Poynter and the St. Petersburg Times (Gainesville, FL: University Press of Florida, 1993).

4. Robert Haiman, telephone interview by author, 24 April 2001.

Chapter 5

1. See Donald Winnicott, The Maturational Process (New York: International Universities Press, 1965); Arnold H. Modell, “The ‘Holding Environment’ and the Therapeutic Action of Psychoanalysis,” Journal of the American Psychological Association 24 (1976): 285–307; Edward R. Shapiro, “The Holding Environment and Family Therapy with Acting Out Adolescents,” International Journal of Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy 9 (1982): 209–226; Robert Kegan, The Evolving Self (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1982); and Edward R. Shapiro and A. Wesley Carr, Lost in Familiar Places (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1991).

2. See Ronald A. Heifetz and Donald L. Laurie, “The Work of Leadership,” Harvard Business Review 75, no. 1 (January–February 1997): 124–134.

3. Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., The Coming of the New Deal (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1958), 538.

4. Delivered on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial on August 28, 1963.

5. For a more comprehensive treatment of this story, see “Ricardo de la Morena and the Macael Marble Industry (A),” Case 16-90-971.0 (Cambridge, MA: Kennedy School of Government Case Program, Harvard University, 1990).

Chapter 6

1. There are many versions of this story. We have relied on two of them: one found in the David Shields’s profile of Phil Jackson, “The Good Father,” New York Times Magazine, 23 April 2000, 60; and Phil Jackson and Hugh Delehanty, Sacred Hoops: Spiritual Lessons of a Hardwood Warrior (New York: Hyperion, 1995), 189–193. The core facts are in accord.

2. According to a New York Times/CBS News poll, Carter’s approval rating went up from 26 percent to 37 percent the day after the speech; see “Speech Lifts Carter Rating to 37%; Public Agrees on Confidence Crisis,” New York Times, July 18, 1979, p. A1, and Howell Raines, “Citizens Ask if Carter Is Part of the ‘Crisis’,” New York Times, August 3, 1979.

Chapter 7

1. For a more comprehensive version of Selecky’s story see “Principle and Politics: Washington State Health Secretary Mary Selecky and HIV Surveillance,” Case 1556 (Cambridge, MA: Kennedy School of Government Case Program, Harvard University, 2000).

2. Heifetz, Leadership Without Easy Answers, chapters 6 and 9.

3. The full story of the U.S. Post Office reorganization can be found in “Selling the Reorganization of the Post Office,” Case C14-84-610 (Cambridge, MA: Kennedy School of Government Case Program, Harvard University, 1984).

4. This account of the relationship between Lehman and General Dynamics is primarily drawn from “John Lehman and the Press,” Case C16-89-917.0 (Cambridge, MA: Kennedy School of Government Case Program, Harvard University, 1989). More comprehensive accounts can be found in Jacob Goodwin, Brotherhood of Arms (New York: Times Books, 1985); and Patrick Tyler, Running Critical (New York: Harper & Row, 1986).

Chapter 8

1. David Gergen, Eyewitness to Power: The Essence of Leadership, Nixon to Clinton (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2000), 261.

2. “The Real Story of Flight 93: Special Report: ‘Let’s Roll,’” The Observer, 2 December 2001, 15.

3. See David Gergen’s account of Hillary Clinton and her impact on Bill Clinton’s strategy toward health care reform in Eyewitness to Power, 296–309.

4. William Shakespeare, Julius Caesar, Act I, Scene 2.

5. “Workshop on Leadership, Religion, and Community,” Plymouth Congregational Church, Seattle, WA, 4 March 2000.

Chapter 9

1. Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Eighty Years and More (New York: Source Book Press, 1970), 148.

2. Ibid., 149.

3. Ibid., 149.

4. Gergen, Eyewitness to Power, 298–299.

5. Ibid.

6. Nurit Elstein Mor, Head of Department of Labor Disputes, State Attorney’s Office, Israel, personal communication with author, September 2000.

7. Of course, no one can know what was in the mind and heart of Rabin during those moments of decision. Our interpretations are based on personal communication with people in his political circle, but they remain interpretations, meant mainly to illustrate the role/self distinction rather than write biographically about Rabin.

8. See Jack Welch, Straight from the Gut (New York: Warner Books, 2001).

9. Speech at Valley College, Van Nuys, California, November 1984, in Geraldine Ferraro, Ferraro: My Story (New York: Bantam, 1985), 292 (italics in the original).

Chapter 10

1. American Heritage Dictionary, fourth edition (New York: Houghton Mifflin Company, 2000).

2. S. L. A. Marshall, Men against Fire: The Problem of Battle Command in Future War (New York: William Morrow, 1947), chapters 9 and 10; and Edmund Shils and Morris Janowitz, “Cohesion and Disintegration in the Wehrmacht in World War II,” Public Opinion Quarterly 12, no. 2 (Summer 1948): 280–315.

3. William W. George, “A Mission for Life,” unpublished manuscript, 2001; and personal communication with the author, November 2001.

4. The Talmud, Koran, and other sacred teachings. Mishnah, Tractate Sanhedrin, chapter 4, Mishnah 5; and Surat al-Ma’idah (translation: The Table Spread) (Sura 5), verse number 32 in the Qur’an.

5. William Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet, Act II, Scene 2.

6. Hank Greenberg with Ira Berkow, Hank Greenberg, The Story of My Life (Chicago: Triumph Books, 2001), 181. The relationship between Greenberg and Robinson is described on pages 181–183 and also noted in “The Life and Times of Hank Greenberg,” an award-winning documentary written, produced, and directed by Aviva Kempner, 1998.

7. Milton D. Heifetz and Will Tirion, A Walk through the Heavens: A Guide to Stars and Constellations and Their Legends (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1998).

8. William Shakespeare, King Lear, act IV, scene 7.

9. Mitch Albom, Tuesdays with Morrie (New York: Doubleday, 1997).

Chapter 11

1. “Deep Ecumenism,” a workshop at Elat Chayyim, Concord, NY, in July 1998 with Rabbi Zalman Schachter-Shalomi.

2. See Richard Pascale, Jerry Sternin, and Monique Sternin, The Power of Positive Deviance: How Unlikely Innovators Solve the World’s Toughest Problems (Boston: Harvard Business Press, 2010).

3. Robert S. McNamara with Brian VanDeMark, In Retrospect: The Tragedy and Lessons of Vietnam (New York: Vintage Books, 1996); and Robert S. McNamara and James G. Blight, Wilson’s Ghost: Reducing the Risk of Conflict, Killing, and Catastrophe in the 21st Century (Public Affairs, LLC, June 2001).

4. Abraham Joshua Heschel, God in Search of Man: A Philosophy of Judaism (Northvale, NJ: Jason Aronson, Inc., 1987), xxxiii.