Leadership is an Art - A Leader, in summary

The book Leadership is an Art by Max De Pree, is the single book that has had profound influence on my leadership style. I'm fortunate enough to lead some of the most outstanding and humble folks and the ideas of the book has helped me to make a small difference in their lives. I'll share key concepts of the book in a few posts.



In summary, a leader:

• Has consistent and dependable integrity
• Cherishes heterogeneity and diversity. Is open to contrary opinion
• Searches out competence. 
• Leads through serving.
• Communicates easily at all levels. 
• Understands the concept of equity and constantly advocates it
• Is vulnerable to the skills and talents of others.
• Is intimate with the organization and its work. 
• Is able to see broad picture (beyond his own area of focus)
• Can be a tribal story teller
• Is a spokesperson and a diplomat.
• Tells why rather than how.

"Leadership is much more an art, a belief, a condition of the heart, than a set of things to do. The visible signs of artful leadership are expressed, ultimately, in its practice"

Leadership is an Art - Reviewing Performance

The book Leadership is an Art by Max De Pree, is the single book that has had profound influence on my leadership style. I'm fortunate enough to lead some of the most outstanding and humble folks and the ideas of the book has helped me to make a small difference in their lives. I'll share key concepts of the book in a few posts.

Reviewing performance is a time like that, a time to ask what we are trying to do, evaluate how we are doing, and then ask "What's next?". Both the people and the process should be directed towards reaching human potential.

Simply asking questions is another important part of performance reviews. Asking the right questions is a knack that needs working on. Here are some questions:

• Would you be willing to share your philosophy of management with your work team?
• What do you want to do (be)? What are you planning to do about it?
• Who are you? How do you see yourself personally, professionally and organizationally?
• Does need you?
• Do you need ?
• If you were in "my shoes", what one key area or matter you focus on?
• What significant areas are there in the company where you feel you can make a contribution but feel you cannot get a hearing?
• What have you abandoned?
• Do you have any feelings of failure in any particular area?
• What will you do to in the coming year to develop your three highest-potential persons (and who are they)?
• What are the three signals of impending entropy you see? What are you doing about it?

"Leaders, in a special way, are liable for what happens in the future, rather than what is happening day to day". 

Leadership is an Art - Elegance and Completeness

The book Leadership is an Art by Max De Pree, is the single book that has had profound influence on my leadership style. I'm fortunate enough to lead some of the most outstanding and humble folks and the ideas of the book has helped me to make a small difference in their lives. I'll share key concepts of the book in a few posts.

Lacking the last 5 yards of the race, makes the first 95 point-less. Elegant leaders always reach for completeness. Mark of Elegance:

• A complete relationship needs a covenant
• To give one’s time doesn’t always mean giving ones involvement
• Hierarchy provide connections, equality makes the hierarchy responsive
• Opportunity needs to be linked to accountability
• A whale is as unique as a cactus
• When rewards become our goals, we are only pursuing part of our work. Goals are to be pursued
• Rewards complete the process by bringing joy. Leaders are obligated to provide joy

“Our search for elegance, for completeness, for potential, is a search that should never end”

Leadership is an Art: Signs of Entropy

The book Leadership is an Art by Max De Pree, is the single book that has had profound influence on my leadership style. I'm fortunate enough to lead some of the most outstanding and humble folks and the ideas of the book has helped me to make a small difference in their lives. I'll share key concepts of the book in a few posts.

Everything has a tendency to deteriorate. One of the important things leaders need to learn is to recognise the signals of impending deterioration.

Here are some signs of entropy:

• A tendency towards superficiality
• Not having time for celebration and ritual
• Growing feeling that rewards and goals are the same thing
• When problem-makers outnumber problem-solvers
• When pressures of day-to-day ops push aside our concern for vision and risk
• When folks confuse heroes and celebrities
• Leaders who seek to control than liberate, rely on structures instead of people
• Orientation to dry rules, rather than value orientation that takes into account such things as contribution, spirit, excellence, beauty, and joy

“If you and your corporation are committed to being as good as you can be, beware of entropy"

Leadership is an Art - Communication

The book Leadership is an Art by Max De Pree, is the single book that has had profound influence on my leadership style. I'm fortunate enough to lead some of the most outstanding and humble folks and the ideas of the book has helped me to make a small difference in their lives. I'll share key concepts of the book in a few posts.

The best way to communicate common bonds and values is through behavior. Good communication is not simply sending and receiving. The best communication forces you to listen.

The right to know is basic. It is better to err on the side of sharing too much information rather than risk leaving someone in the dark. Communication must be based on logic, compassion, and sound reasoning
Plato said that society cultivates whatever is honored there:

• Communication plays vital role to pass on values to new members and reaffirm those values to old hands

“There may be no single thing more important in our efforts to achieve meaningful work and fulfilling relationships than to learn and practice the art of communication”

Leadership in an Art - Inclusiveness

The book Leadership is an Art by Max De Pree, is the single book that has had profound influence on my leadership style. I'm fortunate enough to lead some of the most outstanding and humble folks and the ideas of the book has helped me to make a small difference in their lives. I'll share key concepts of the book in a few posts.

Each of us is needed. Each of us has a gift to bring. Each of us is a social being and our institutions are social units. Each of us has a deep seated desire to contribute. Sn inclusive systems requires us to be insiders. One can define this inclusive approach in three ways.

First, there are certain marks of being included:

• being needed
• being involved
• being cared about as an individual
• fair wages and benefits
• having the opportunity to do one's best 
• having the opportunity to understand
• having a piece of action - productivity gains, profit sharing, ownership appreciation

Second, inclusive approach makes the institution place of fulfilled potential. Leadership is a condition of indebtedness. Leaders who have an inclusive attitude think of themselves as owing, at the very least the following:

• space:  gift to be what I can be
• the opportunity to serve
• the gift of challenge: we don't grow unless we're tested
• the gift of meaning: not superfluous, but worthy; not superficial, but integral; not disposable, but permanent

Finally, Inclusive capitalism requires something from everyone. People must respond actively to inclusiveness. Naturally, there is a cost too belonging.

• Being faithful is more important than being successful (integrity)
• Reaching our potential is more important than reaching our goals
• Belonging requires us to be willing and ready to risk. 
• Belongingness requires intimacy, It means adding value and forgoing superficiality
• Last, we need to be learners together. We need to be searching for maturity, openness, and sensitivity

"Inclusiveness means including normal human problems in the system"

Leadership is an Art - Giants

The book Leadership is an Art by Max De Pree, is the single book that has had profound influence on my leadership style. I'm fortunate enough to lead some of the most outstanding and humble folks and the ideas of the book has helped me to make a small difference in their lives. I'll share key concepts of the book in a few posts.

What is a giant? Well, giants are many things. People like you and me may become giants.

• Giants are many things. Me and you can become giants.
• Giants see opportunities, when others see troubles
• Giants give others gift of space
• Giants catch fastballs
• Without giant catchers, there can be no giant pitchers
• Giants have special gifts
• Giants enable others to express their own gifts

“While productivity is important, giving space to giants is much more important. For the corporation to be truly effective, you will need to help corporations be open to giants at all levels”

Leadership is an Art - Intimacy

The book Leadership is an Art by Max De Pree, is the single book that has had profound influence on my leadership style. I'm fortunate enough to lead some of the most outstanding and humble folks and the ideas of the book has helped me to make a small difference in their lives. I'll share key concepts of the book in a few posts.

Intimacy is the experience of ownership. Intimacy is at the heart of competence. It has to do with understanding, with believing, and with practice. It has to do with the relationship to one's work.

Our companies can never be anything we ourselves do not want to be. Intimacy with our work directly affects our accountability and results in personal authenticity. A key component of intimacy is passion.

Beliefs are connected to intimacy. Beliefs come before policies or standards. Managers who have no beliefs but only understand methodology and quantification are modern day eunuchs. They can never engender competence or confidence. They never get seriously and accountably involved in their own work.

Intimacy breaks down when leaders:

• Cannot provide continuity and momentum
• Find complexity where simplicity ought to be
• Encumber people rather than empower them

"Being an effective department supervisor on a manufacturing floor is fundamentally different from giving seminars about it"

Leadership is an Art - The Rights

The book Leadership is an Art by Max De Pree, is the single book that has had profound influence on my leadership style. I'm fortunate enough to lead some of the most outstanding and humble folks and the ideas of the book has helped me to make a small difference in their lives. I'll share key concepts of the book in a few posts.

Ground rules of working mandates the leaders offer certain "rights" to their followers:

• The Right to be Needed
• The Right to be Involved
• The Right to a Covenantal Relationship
• The Right to Understand – Mission, Strategy and Direction, Career Path etc.,
• The Right to Affect One’s Own Destiny
• The Right to be Accountable
• The Right to Appeal
• The Right to Make a Commitment

• Is this a place they’ll let me do my best?

“One of the most important responsibilities of leaders is to work hard at offering these rights to the people we lead”

Leadership is an Art - Covenants vs Contracts

The book Leadership is an Art by Max De Pree, is the single book that has had profound influence on my leadership style. I'm fortunate enough to lead some of the most outstanding and humble folks and the ideas of the book has helped me to make a small difference in their lives. I'll share key concepts of the book in a few posts.


Best people are volunteers
They can get jobs in any number of companies. They work with us for reasons less tangible than salary or position. Volunteers do not need contracts, they need covenants

• Legal contracts break down under inevitable duress of change and conflict
• Contracts has got nothing to do with reaching our potential
• Covenantal relationships rests on shared commitment to ideas, to issues, to goals
• Covenantal relationships fill deep needs, enable work to have a meaning and to be fulfilling

“Understand that relationships count more than structure. Structures do not have anything to do with trust. People build trust"

Leadership is an Art - Obligations

The book Leadership is an Art by Max De Pree, is the single book that has had profound influence on my leadership style. I'm fortunate enough to lead some of the most outstanding and humble folks and the ideas of the book has helped me to make a small difference in their lives. I'll share key concepts of the book in a few posts.


What does leaders owe?

• Future leaders – identify, develop and nurture future leaders
• Maturity – Expressed in terms of sense of self-worth, sense of belonging, expectancy, responsibility, accountability and a sense of equality
• Rationality – To provide opportunity for self-development and self-fulfillment in the attainment of organizational goals
• Space – Enabling our gifts to be exercise, to grow, to give and receive
• Leaders are obligated to provide and maintain momentum

Leaders are responsible for effectiveness

• Effectiveness comes from enabling others to achieve their potential
• Encourage roving leadership

Leaders must develop, express and defend values and civility


“To be a leader means, especially, having the opportunity to make a meaningful difference in the lives of those who permit leaders to lead”

Leadership is an Art - The premise

The book Leadership is an Art by Max De Pree, is the single book that has had profound influence on my leadership style. I'm fortunate enough to lead some of the most outstanding and humble folks and the ideas of the book has helped me to make a small difference in their lives. I'll share key concepts of the book in a few posts.


What is the Art here?
The art of Leadership, as Max says is “liberating people to do what is required of them in the most effective and humane way possible” Thus the true leader:

• Is a ”servant” of his followers in that he removes the obstacles that prevent them from doing their jobs
• Enables his or her followers to realize their full potential
• Have the self confidence to “encourage contrary opinion” and “abandon themselves to the strength of others”

What is Leadership?
The first responsibility of a leader is to define the reality. Last is to say thank you. In between the two, the leader must become a servant and a debtor. This sums up the progress of an artful leader. The measure of leadership is not the quality of the head, but the tone of the body.

Signs of outstanding leadership appear primarily among the followers:

• Are the followers reaching their potential?
• Are they learning? Serving?
• Do they achieve the required results?
• Do they change with grace? Manage conflicts?