Leader Basic Tools

Leaders come in every size, shape, and disposition—short, tall,
neat, sloppy, young, old, male, and female. Nevertheless, they
all seem to share some, if not all, of the following ingredients:
• The first basic ingredient of leadership is a guiding vision.
The leader has a clear idea of what he or she wants to
do—professionally and personally—and the strength to
persist in the face of setbacks, even failures. Unless you

know where you’re going, and why, you cannot possibly
get there. That guiding purpose, that vision, was well illustrated
by Norman Lear.
• The second basic ingredient of leadership is passion—the
underlying passion for the promises of life, combined with
a very particular passion for a vocation, a profession, a
course of action. The leader loves what he or she does and
loves doing it. Tolstoy said that hopes are the dreams of
the waking man. Without hope, we cannot survive, much
less progress. The leader who communicates passion gives
hope and inspiration to other people. This ingredient
tends to come up with different spins on it—sometimes it
appears as enthusiasm, especially in chapter eight, “Getting
People on Your Side.”
• The next basic ingredient of leadership is integrity. I think
there are three essential parts of integrity: self-knowledge,
candor, and maturity.
“Know thyself,” was the inscription over the Oracle at
Delphi. And it is still the most difficult task any of us
faces. But until you truly know yourself, strengths and
weaknesses, know what you want to do and why you want
to do it, you cannot succeed in any but the most super -
ficial sense of the word. Leaders never lie to themselves,
especially about themselves, know their faults as well as
their assets, and deal with them directly. You are your own
raw material. When you know what you consist of and
what you want to make of it, then you can invent yourself.
Candor is the key to self-knowledge. Candor is based in
honesty of thought and action, a steadfast devotion to
principle, and a fundamental soundness and wholeness. An
architect who designs a Bauhaus glass box with a Victorian

cupola lacks professional integrity, as does any person who
trims his or her principles—or even ideas—to please. Like
Lillian Hellman, the leader cannot cut his or her conscience
to fit this year’s fashions.
Maturity is important to a leader because leading is not
simply showing the way or issuing orders. Every leader
needs to have experienced and grown through following—
learning to be dedicated, observant, capable of working
with and learning from others, never servile, always truthful.
Having located these qualities in themselves, leaders
can encourage them in others.
• Integrity is the basis of trust, which is not as much an ingredient
of leadership as it is a product. It is the one quality
that cannot be acquired, but must be earned. It is given by
co-workers and followers, and without it, the leader can’t
function. I’ll talk about trust in greater detail in chapter
eight, “Getting People on Your Side.”
• Two more basic ingredients of leadership are curiosity and
daring. Leaders wonder about everything, want to learn as
much as they can, are willing to take risks, experiment, try
new things. They do not worry about failure, but embrace
errors, knowing they will learn from them. Learning from
adversity is another theme that comes up again and again
in this book, often with different spins. In fact, that could
be said of each of the basic ingredients.

On Becoming
a Leader by
Warren Bennis