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AN INVENTED LIFE
Reflections on Leadership and Change
Warren Bennis
Addison Wesley, 1993.
Warren Bennis is one of the leadership gurus whose
writing is not only illuminating. It's also entertaining.
As he says, "I have been thinking about leadership
almost as long as I have been thinking." He learned
how to cope with two older twin brothers, one a natural
leader and the other an innate follower. His first
leadership lesson: leadership is both a function of
character as well as chosen behaviors.
An Invented Life is a collection of essays written
over thirty years. It's very personal and you'll get to
know Bennis in ways that most authors do not allow
themselves to be known. Some of the points that Bennis
makes seem obvious, but in the field of leadership
many of the basics need to be review over and over again.
For example, he points out that managers need: people
skills, conceptual skills, judgment, character and
technical competence. Bennis maintains that character is
the one attribute that distinguishes leaders from
managers. He says above all, leaders make people hopeful,
even if they aren't technically competent. And many
leaders lack good people skills. They step on the toes of
people who get in their way. But their effects are
significant.
Leaders:
 Make
people feel significant.
Value
learning and competence and everyone around them feels
the effects of this valuing.
Create a
community of people around them.
Help
people find excitement in work.
In other words, good leaders get people excited about
what they are doing, help them to feel empowered, let
them feel part of a team effort, and encourage them to
constantly grow and learn. How do leaders do this? This
is where the character issue comes in. It is also where
belief lies. True leaders believe in what they are doing.
They resonate it and everyone around them can feel it and
wants a piece of that action. People are starved for
belief. They always have been and probably always will
be, and leaders are simply tapping into that wellspring
of energy that most people (followers) aren't quite able
to access themselves.
Even though many of these articles were written when Bill
Gates was still a teenager, they are worth looking at
again. Because it is written as mostly short essays, An
Invented Life is the perfect book to put by your bed
stand and read before falling asleep. It is sure to
inspire some interesting dreams.
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