Book report - true norh - “True north-discover your authentic leadership” is a result of collaboration PDF

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“True north-discover your authentic leadership” is a result of collaboration between Bill George, the author, Peter Sims (co-author) and their colleague at harvard business school iana Mayer and Andrew McLean.
The authors tried to define the authentic leader model, and to write a guide to auth...

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BOOK REPORT True north - discover your authentic leadership BILL GEORGE With Peter Sims   Executive MBA

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The book “True north-discover your authentic leadership” is a result of collaboration  between  Bill  George, the author, Peter Sims (co-author) and their colleague at harvard business school iana  Mayer and Andrew McLean. The authors tried to define the authentic leader model, and to write  a  guide  to  authentic  leadership throughout the study of life stories of women  and men  whose leadership appeared  to be grounded in their character. The study concern 125 authentic and successful leaders around the world : -

Age : 20s to 70s years

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Not less than 15 leaders per decade

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28% women 8% American minorities 12% international.

An assessment of interviews under their authenticity, helps to learn how  people think about  leadership, and what passion they found in their life stories that gives sense to the true north.

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This book, comes to further clarify the meaning of authentic  leadership, after more than one  thousand studies, of scholars, in the attempt to determine the definitive leadership  styles,  characteristics, or personality traits of great leaders.

 Authors

Bill George 

 Senior Fellow, Harvard Business School Former Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Medtronic Author of Discover Your True North Bill George is a senior fellow at Harvard Business School, where he  has  taught leadership since 2004. He is the author of: Discover  Your  True  North and The Discover Your True North  Fieldbook,  Authentic  Leadership, TrueNorth,FindingYourTrueNorth,7 Lessons for Leading in  Crisis and True North Groups.  Mr.  George is  the  former  chairman  and  chief  executive  officer  of  Medtronic. He joined Medtronic in 1989 as president and chief operating  officer, was chief executive officer from 1991-2001, and board  chair from  1996-2002. Earlier inhiscareer,he was a senior executive with Honeywell  and Litton Industries and served in the U.S. Department of Defense.  Mr. George currently serves as adirectorof GoldmanSachs. He has served  recently on the boards  of ExxonMobil, Novartis,  Target  Corporation,  Minnesota’s Destination Medical Center Corporation and the World Economic  Forum USA. Bill  is currently a trustee of the Mayo Clinic, and  has served as board chair for Allina Health System, Abbott-Northwestern  Hospital, United Way of the Greater Twin Cities, and Advamed.

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An entrepreneur and award-winning  author. His  latest  book is Little  Bets: How Breakthrough Ideas Emerge from Small Discoveries,  which  grew out  of afive-year collaboration with faculty at Stanford's Institute of  Design (the d.school), as well as his previouswork in venture capital with  Summit Partners, including as part of theteam that established Summit's  European  Office in London. He was also the coauthor with Bill George of  the best-seller True North: Discover Your Authentic  Leadership,  a  member of General Electric's Innovation  Advisory  Panel,  an  Innosight  Fellow, and cofounder of Fuse Corps, a social  venture  that  places  entrepreneurial leaders on year-long grassroots  projects withmayors and  governors to tackle some of America's most pressing problems.

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Problematic / Thesis

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Peter Sims

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Focusing on short term results, shareholders value will in the long run, destroy value.  Business leaders today are right near the bottom of the list in trust  This century needs a new kind of leaders to build great companies  and  great  organisations, The world has changed since the war has ended,  beingsuccessful  in the  21th century needs more leaders with substance and integrity not charisma and image. Authentic leaders must be genuine and true to them self. how to create more authentic leaders and what makes an authentic leader? The book present of model of 3 principal parts :

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Part one 1. Leadership is a journey Authentic leaders get their passion to lead through the uniqueness of theirlife stories,  as for Starbucks founder Howard Schultz who build a company where workerswould be 

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valued and respected, a company his father  never had  a  chance to  work  for.  his  childhood poverty and his determination for defeat his  fate, were behind the success he  maintained even in difficult moments. “Leadership is a journey, not a  destination.It is a  marathon, not  a sprint.Itis a process, not  an outcome”.—John Donahoe, president of eBay 

2. why leaders lose their sight To avoid derailment, a leader must question honestlyhismotivations, and purpose. The  risk of being trapped is greater if the leader is driven  by personal  benefits  ...power  money or prestige. In this case external gratification have much more power on leader's  choices and decisions. A leader must surround himself with  honest  supporters  who  speak  the  truth  ,  ignore  their fear of failure , learn from it and avoid his craving to instant gratification. 5 types of leaders who lost sight : Imposters, who lack  self-awareness and self-esteem;  Rationalizers, who deviate from their values; Glory Seekers, who are motivated  by  seeking the world’s acclaim; Loners, who fail to build personalsupport structures; and  Shooting Stars, who lack the grounding of an integrated life. “Once you get under the domination of making the quarter—even unwittingly . . . you’ll begin  to sacrifice things that are important and may be vital for your company over the long term.  The  culprit  that  drives  this  cycle  isn’t  the  fear  of  failure  so  much  as  it is the craving  for  success. . . . For many of us the idea of being a successful manager is an intoxicating one. It is  a  pattern  of  celebration  leading  to  belief,  leading  to  distortion.  When  you  achieve  good  results, you are typically celebrated, and you begin to believe that the figure at the center of  all that champagne toasting is yourself. You are idealized by the outside world, and there is a  natural tendency to believe that what is written is true.” Daniel Vasella CEO Novartis 

3. Transformation form I to We Authentic leaders recognize at a step of their experiences that leadership is  not  only  about individual achievements,thistransformative experience maycomeatany point of  life , a positive experience or a bad one.

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The leader, by stop focusing on its personal ego, becomes more open to others and it  becomes easier to work with them, motivate them and unleash Their full potential. Greater achievements are the result of the ability of a leader  to empower other leaders  and work together toward a shared purpose. This process of transformation  is  associated to the will of changing the world for better. This shift is the transformation from “I” to “We.” isthemostimportant process leaders  go through in becoming authentic.  External demands tends to deviatethe leaderfromhistrue north.Discovering authentic  leadership requires facing values

and beliefs of the leader  through  real  world 

experiences, Maintaining it needs a dynamic tool to keep the leader toward  his  true  north. “  When  you  become  a  leader,  your  challenge  is to inspire others, develop them, and create  change through them. You’ve got to flip that switch and understand that it’s about serving  the folks on your team.”—Jaime Irick, General Electric 

Part Two 4. Knowing Your Authentic Self Self awareness is the most important capability to develop for a leader, it means being  aware of his strengths and weaknesses. It is also important in defining the best role for  the leader. It's so hard for a leader to achieve success withoutbeingabletounderstand emotions of  others, this understanding starts by understanding his own vulnerabilities, fears,  and  longings. Self awareness requires a deep

understanding

of values and motivations,  this 

understanding may uncover invisible blind spots and vulnerabilities.Atthe last stage  of  peeling it's normal to feel vulnerable as all the protectivelayersdeveloped through life  experiences are out. (Getting feedback is one of the best ways).

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 After this exercise it's so important to have self compassion, a leader  need  to  accept  himself and love unconditionally, so the inner child can re-emerge. Temptations and pressures of the outside worldmaypullthe leader away from his moral  center, this is the reason whyit’snecessarytodefine precisely the values, the principles  and the ethical boundaries. “Being  true  to  yourself is the most important thing. If you’re ambitious, that’s great; if not,  that’s also fine. Just be true to what you want. Not everyone can be at the top of the class. If  they try to be, they may not get there. If they did get there, they might not be happy. Know  who you  are, and you can achieve anything in life. You can overcome almost any obstacles,  unless you are the obstacle.” FirstMark CEO Lynn Forester 

5. practicing values To avoid derailment, under pressure or temptations, a leader needtounderstand his values and  principles. This definition of this moral compass, helps keeping in track, and limiting actions  when ethical boundaries are crossed.

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 6. Motivations Before embarking on the journey, leaders must be fully motivated, understand  what  really  motivates them, and set the balance between intrinsic and extrinsic motivations. Dan Vasella, chairman and CEO of Novartis, suffered from serious illness  as  a  child,  lost  his  sister at the age of 18, lost his father during a surgery, his biggest motivation  was  to  fight  illness, he became first a physicianthenan executiveinthepharmaceuticalindustry. Later, as a  CEO of Novartis, he continue développing life saving drugs all over the world. “Find out what you are good at and what you like to do” Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

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7. Building support team No leader ever achieved success alone, leaders need a “support team” of colleagues, friends or  family, this team will provide objective feedback , emotional support.Advices,affirmation, and  above all love. The support team helps leaders to stayontrackwhentheyareunder pressureor  seductions by  the external world. “When you go home at the end of the day and your employees think you’re a jerk, or something has  gone so wrong it seems hopeless,  you’ve  got  to have somebody  who  says,  “I  love  you  unconditionally.” I always had that with my parents and my son. I’m fortunate now to have it with  my husband.  I know  I  can  always  go  home  and  he will love me.”  Paula Rosput Reynolds, CEO of  Safeco,

8. Staying grounded Leaders will continuously face hard times in their journey, under stress and pressures, leaders  will need to make big decisions, and trade-offs. Having an integratedlife,willhelpmaintaining  the authenticity, and continue their journey (personal, professional, religious …) That means, a leader must stay true to his roots, family and his life story. 

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Part Three

 9. Leadership with purpose and passion A purposeful work is a necessary ingredient for success, leaders need to understand  clearly  what is the purpose of their leadership, what are their true  passions,  and  where  is  the  right  place to devote it. Finding those elements may take years, leadersneedto be patient, and stick  to their true north of compasse, not their time table of the clock. Understanding purpose and passions, goes along with finding what change  their  leadership is  making in the world, and what legacy they are leaving behind. “I had fallen in love with what Avon does. I realized I would prefer to be number two in a company  with this  impact  on society than to be number one in another company without it. If you don’t love  your work, it is too great a sacrifice.” Andrea Jung

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10.

Empowering people

Being a true leader, means at some stage of life, that  he must share  credits. No one have ever  made great success alone, great results comes from great teams. A leader  have  to  build  relationships based on mutual respect as a basis for Empowerment. So he can empower other leaders, a true leader need to treat others  as  equals, listen to them  and ask for advice, learn from them and be open to share their personal  stories  and  vulnerabilities. “I get things done by identifying with the people in the company and by trusting them. I care most  about building a good team to lead the company.” —Anne Mulcahy, Chair and CEO, Xerox 

11.

Honing your leadership

As a final and continues step in the journey of leadership,true and successful leaders will need  to optimise the effectiveness of their leadership and maximise results. The leadership style and its use in differents situations is thekeytomaintain an authentic use  of power. Leaders need to develop their self-awareness and clarity, to keep  evolving,  and  creating maximum possible added value. Emotional intelligenceisalsoimportant for leaders to  keep an eye onhowteammates aregrowing andwhich leadership style fits the most for them to  be empowered.

 “  Sometimes you have lots of time to make a decision. I had maybe ten seconds to think about this  one. There was no time for  consensus or to consult with anybody. There are very few decisions in life 

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12

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where you don’t have some time to think about what your decision should be as a leader. This was  the fastest decision that I made. I used my instinctive reactions to decide what should be done.” John  Whitehead

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13

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The cover

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critical reading Personally I find the book a must read , it helps clarify the path, and  requisition the personal  dogma. A shortcut not to take without practicing, as leadership  is a journey,  it’s  a  duty  to  continue my self-development and never say I’m an authentic leader, then when  it’s said by  others it will be time for me to empower them more effectively , and to be more open to their  opinions while staying true to my internal compass. Currently  I think,  that  the three phases of Discovering  -Leading  and Empowering, are not  just a “one cycle”, but multiple ones, in differentsubjectmaybebuttowardthesame direction,  while being true to myself and my values.Maybeit’s becauseam still seeking that true north, or  my reading was not as profound as it needs to be. Nothing is more true than what we personallyexperienced,and tested. The true meaning of our  leadership must come, when it’s time, from our life stories not just from booksand models, as  it’s advised by the book itself.

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14

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As a practical tool, the author offers in his website the True north mirror - a self-assessment survey recommended to take as much as needed to help keeping in track, below the link and an example of results presentation (more details are provided based on your answers) http://truenorthmirror.discoveryourtruenorth.org

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