Harvard Business Review Leader's Handbook

1. Leadership is about achieving significant positive impact through others

Leadership is not about making this kind of impact alone; it depends on doing so through others.

Definition of leadership. Leadership is defined as achieving significant positive impact by building an organization of people working together toward a common goal. This impact goes beyond running projects; it's about creating large-scale results that transform businesses, drive growth, or move markets.

Collective effort. Leaders must excel at building and developing collective work, inspiring and organizing others toward shared objectives. This applies not only to traditional corporations but also to nonprofits, startups, divisions, government agencies, and even loosely coupled groups working toward a common purpose.

Leadership vs. management. While managers focus on taming chaos with controls and processes, leaders thrive on ambiguity, creativity, and discovery to spur change. Leadership emerges from management but delivers a leap in impact by deeply understanding, continuously learning from, and practicing management while adding unique leadership actions.

2. Six essential practices differentiate impactful leaders

We have identified six essential and timeless practice areas for aspiring leaders, with each of these constituting a chapter of the book.

Core practices. The six fundamental practices that differentiate highly impactful leaders are:

• Building a unifying vision
• Developing a strategy
• Getting great people on board
• Focusing on results
• Innovating for the future
• Leading yourself

Interdependence and iteration. These practices are not sequential but interdependent, often overlapping, and iterative. For example, vision, strategy, and innovation are closely related, while people and results management occur throughout all stages of work.

Continuous improvement. Leaders must constantly practice these areas, reflecting on their experiences and improving their approach. This journey is unique for each individual, involving varying degrees of success and failure, but always aiming for increased capability and impact.

3. Building a unifying vision is the foundation of leadership

Exceptional organizations have an exciting, clear, and simple vision—a vision that honors and reinforces the core purpose of the organization, but also creates a picture of where the organization is heading and what it aspires to accomplish in the future.

Characteristics of a compelling vision. A powerful vision should be:

• Aspirational and almost dreamlike
• Simple and clear
• Emotionally compelling
• Bold and forward-looking
• Providing context for strategic planning

Impact of vision. A well-crafted vision serves as the starting point for developing strategic plans, recruiting talent, setting goals, and challenging people to find innovative solutions. It aligns diverse groups and individuals around a common direction while inspiring them to contribute to something larger than themselves.

Vision creation process. Developing a vision involves engaging stakeholders, balancing organizational needs with individual aspirations, and periodically recrafting it as conditions change. Leaders must overcome challenges such as timing, boldness, competing ideas, and time constraints to create a vision that truly resonates and motivates.

4. Developing strategy translates vision into actionable plans

The essence of strategy is making choices . . . One of the leader's jobs is to teach others in the organization about strategy—and also to say no.

Strategy definition. Strategy is a coordinated set of actions that organizations follow to win by creating distinctive value, differentiating their performance, beating competitors, and moving toward their vision. It involves making choices about where and how to compete for customers.

Strategy development process:

1. Set the stage (purpose, audience, constraints, deliverables)
2. Set strategic goals
3. Understand current situation
4. Develop options for where and how to compete
5. Assess options, engage stakeholders, move toward decisions
6. Allocate resources and manage implementation

Balancing analysis and action. Effective strategy-making involves finding the right balance between analysis and deliberation to make the right choices, while embracing speed, flexibility, and openness to adaptation in today's fast-paced environment. Leaders must know when to move from analyzing and debating options to taking real action.

5. Getting great people on board is crucial for organizational success

I believe the real difference between success and failure in a corporation can be very often traced to the question of how well the organization brings out the great energies and talents of its people.

The social contract. Leaders must balance organizational needs with individual aspirations, creating a social contract where employees give their best efforts to achieve collective goals in exchange for rewards, growth, job satisfaction, and relationships.

Key elements of people management:

• Building a strong leadership team
• Providing performance feedback
• Fostering learning and development
• Sharing an incentives philosophy
• Shaping organizational culture

Building capabilities. Leaders must create opportunities for people to learn new ways of working to achieve better results. This involves empowering teams to experiment, learn from failures, and develop new capabilities while delivering real results.

6. Focusing on results drives continuous performance improvement

Effective leadership is not about making speeches or being liked; leadership is defined by results, not attributes.

Elements of results focus:

1. Establishing high expectations and accountability
2. Reducing organizational complexity
3. Building capabilities while growing results
4. Maintaining organizational discipline

Setting stretch goals. Leaders must set aggressive, seemingly impossible goals that force people to work differently, smarter, and more creatively. This approach drives innovation and pushes the organization to new levels of performance.

Accountability and feedback. Holding people accountable for meeting measurable goals is crucial. This involves providing constructive, candid, and timely feedback, and taking action when goals are not met. Leaders must overcome the tendency to avoid tough decisions and create a culture of accountability.

7. Innovating for the future ensures long-term organizational resilience

The enterprise that does not innovate ages and declines. And in a period of rapid change such as the present, the decline will be fast.

Balancing present and future. Leaders must maintain current operations while also looking ahead to avoid future threats and create opportunities for growth. This involves:

• Creating bandwidth to focus on the future
• Taking a portfolio approach to innovation
• Building current surplus to fund future initiatives
• Scanning the horizon for breakthrough opportunities

Innovation approaches:

• Disruptive innovation
• Lean startup methodology
• Controlled failure and learning

Building an innovation culture. Leaders must infuse the organization with skills, beliefs, and values that foster continuous innovation. This includes developing learning capabilities, incentivizing innovation, and modeling innovative thinking.

8. Leading yourself is fundamental to leading others effectively

Successful careers are not planned. They develop when people are prepared for opportunities because they know their strengths, their method of work, and their values.

Self-knowledge areas:

• Character (purpose, values, aspirations, resilience)
• Personal style and habits
• Knowledge and skills

Growth strategies:

• Formal learning (classroom, workshops, conferences)
• Informal or on-the-job learning
• Seeking feedback and external perspectives
• Working with executive coaches

Sharing yourself. Contributing to the growth and welfare of others, both within and outside the organization, enhances leadership skills and broadens perspectives.

9. Leadership requires balancing inspiration and demanding performance

Dreaming big and having the courage to pursue those dreams—despite the risk—is essential for leaders. But you also need to get others to share your dream, vision, and purpose.

Inspiring others. Leaders must help people understand the broader goals, how their work contributes, and the potential impact on customers and the world. This inspiration is crucial for motivating teams to tackle challenging objectives.

Demanding results. While encouragement is important, leaders must also set clear expectations for results and hold people accountable. Finding the right balance between inspiration and demands is an ongoing challenge for leaders throughout their careers.

The Pygmalion Principle. Leaders who expect their people to succeed create a self-fulfilling prophecy, as team members are more likely to live up to high expectations. Conversely, constant doubt can undermine confidence and performance.

10. Learning from failures is essential for leadership growth

All leaders have their share of setbacks; the key is adopting a mindset of learning from failures and having the resilience to bounce back, wiser and more experienced for the next challenge.

Embracing failure. Leaders must be willing to take risks and learn from both successes and failures. This approach fosters resilience and adaptability, crucial traits for long-term leadership success.

Learning strategies:

• Conduct after-action reviews
• Share lessons learned across the organization
• Identify patterns in failures to prevent future issues
• Reframe setbacks as growth opportunities

Building organizational resilience. By modeling a learning mindset and creating a culture that embraces controlled failure, leaders can build more innovative and adaptable organizations better equipped to handle future challenges.

11. Creating a unified organization is the ultimate leadership goal

Your goal, stated more simply, is to create a one-minded pursuit of excellence. Great leaders work tirelessly to motivate and align large masses of people to achieve the kinds of goals that no individual can accomplish on their own.

Unification strategies:

• Creating a common and motivating vision
• Modeling desired behaviors and thought processes
• Storytelling and contextualizing challenges
• Establishing cultural expectations for performance

Synthesizing and meaning-making. Leaders must excel at synthesizing information, contextualizing challenges, and creating meaning for everyone in the organization. This helps align diverse groups toward common objectives.

E pluribus unum. The ultimate leadership challenge is to create unity from many pieces, combining different practices, ideas, and changing situations into a cohesive whole. This requires continuous translation and adaptation, helping the organization navigate complexity and change while maintaining a clear sense of purpose and direction.

Last updated: November 20, 2024