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Finding Your True North: The Ultimate Guide to Authentic Leadership
In a world filled with leadership books that promise quick fixes and shallow formulas, "True North" by Bill George and Zach Clayton stands as a beacon of authenticity. This revised "Emerging Leader Edition" has become a cornerstone text at Harvard Business School and is reportedly a favorite of leaders like Oprah Winfrey and Warren Buffett. Since its original publication, the book has transformed countless emerging leaders by challenging the traditional command-and-control approach to leadership. Instead, it offers a deeply personal journey toward authentic leadership based on one's core values and purpose. As leadership expert David Gergen notes in the foreword, this isn't just another business book-it's a roadmap for discovering the leader you were meant to be.
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The End of Command-and-Control Leadership
The days of top-down, directive leadership are over. Today's emerging leaders-Gen X, Millennials, and Gen Z-reject the hierarchical structures their parents accepted. They demand workplaces aligned with their values and seek leaders who are authentic rather than authoritarian.
The shift began after the 2008 financial crisis, which exposed the failures of leadership focused solely on financial metrics. Companies like General Electric, once the epitome of command-and-control leadership under Jack Welch, collapsed when their focus on short-term results proved unsustainable. This crisis of confidence in traditional leadership created space for a new approach.
Authentic leadership has emerged as the gold standard for 21st-century leaders. Harvard Business Review recognized this shift, noting that authenticity-not charisma or style-defines effective modern leadership. Authentic leaders build trust through truth-telling, transparency, and consistent actions that align with their stated values.
The contrast between 20th and 21st-century leadership couldn't be starker. Where previous generations valued hierarchy, charisma, and self-interest, today's most effective leaders emphasize empowerment, purpose, and institutional focus. They understand that their title makes them a manager, but their character makes them a leader.
This transformation isn't merely theoretical. The 222 leaders interviewed for this book-ranging from established figures like Howard Schultz and Sally Jewell to emerging leaders like Kabir Barday and Zach Clayton-demonstrate that authentic leadership produces better results. Their stories reveal that leadership isn't about emulating others or projecting a certain image. It's about discovering who you truly are and leading from that authentic core.
What makes this approach powerful is its foundation in self-knowledge. As the authors note, "The hardest person you will ever have to lead is yourself." Only by undertaking this inner journey can leaders effectively guide others. This begins with understanding your "True North"-your internal moral compass based on your deepest beliefs and values-and your "North Star"-your purpose to improve the world.
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Your Life Story Shapes Your Leadership
No leader is born fully formed. Great leaders develop through understanding and reframing their life stories. The journey to authentic leadership begins with examining how your experiences have shaped your worldview and values.
Consider Kabir Barday, founder of OneTrust. As the son of Indian immigrants facing discrimination in Atlanta, Kabir developed resilience and determination. After founding his privacy management platform, his intense work ethic-flying 500,000 miles yearly and sacrificing personal relationships-led to a severe autoimmune condition requiring daily blood transfusions. This health crisis transformed his perspective. He emerged with a more balanced approach to leadership, prioritizing meditation, family time, and employee wellbeing. Remarkably, this people-first philosophy accelerated OneTrust's growth to become America's fastest-growing startup valued at over $5 billion.
Howard Schultz's leadership journey similarly began with childhood experiences. At age seven, he watched his father lose both his job and family healthcare after falling on ice. This formative experience inspired Howard to build "a company my father would be proud to work at"-one that treated employees well and provided healthcare benefits. Despite facing 200 investor rejections, Howard persevered to acquire Starbucks and transform it into what he calls "the quintessential people-based business" focused on human connection.
The key distinction between authentic leaders and others lies in how they interpret their experiences. Rather than seeing themselves as victims of circumstance, they reframe their stories as context for making a positive impact. As novelist John Barth noted, "The story of your life is not your life. It is your story"-meaning how you understand yourself through your narrative matters more than the facts themselves.
Leadership development progresses through three distinct phases. In Phase I (Preparing for Leadership), you develop as an individual contributor, measured primarily by personal accomplishments. Phase II (Peak Leadership) begins as you take on greater responsibilities that test your character and accelerate development. Many leaders face crucibles during this phase that cause them to "tumble down into the valley," eventually shifting from an "I"-centric worldview to a "We"-centric approach of servant leadership. Phase III (Generativity) involves sharing wisdom across multiple organizations through board service, mentoring, teaching, or working across sectors.
Erskine Bowles exemplifies this progression, weaving together multiple careers across private, public, and educational sectors. His financial independence gave him freedom to "speak truth to power" when advising President Clinton. Despite navigating major crises like Clinton's impeachment and the Great Recession, his greatest regret is not spending more time with his children when they were young: "Raising kids is not a movie. You can't see it again. Once it's done, it's done." At 76, he prioritizes family while approaching philanthropy with the same data-driven ardor he applies to everything, following his father's teaching to add to the "community woodpile."
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Crucibles Transform Leaders
Crucibles-significant trials in life-are essential elements in becoming an authentic leader. These defining moments test your character and can fundamentally reshape your life. As psychologist Abraham Maslow found, tragedy and trauma can be the most important learning experiences leading to self-actualization.
Ping Fu's journey from victim of China's Cultural Revolution to pioneering 3D printing technology exemplifies how leaders can transform severe crucibles into foundations for growth. At age 8, Ping was taken from her Shanghai home and subjected to physical, emotional, and sexual abuse in Nanjing. Her father's teachings about the "three friends of winter"-the pine tree (standing unperturbed), plum blossom (blooming amid misfortune), and bamboo (flexible, never breaking)-became her resilience framework.
Despite enduring unimaginable hardships, Ping's responsibility to her sister kept her alive. After Mao's death, she researched China's One Child Policy, was imprisoned and deported to America where she studied computer science. In 1997, she founded Geomagic with the mission "not to make $1 billion, but to touch a billion people." Her immigrant experience taught her that "you come here with nothing, so you have courage because you have nothing to lose," transforming her crucibles into the foundation for pioneering leadership.
After experiencing trauma, leaders can either become victims of their circumstances or transform their wounds into catalysts for growth. Pedro Algorta, one of 16 survivors of the Andes Mountains plane crash chronicled in "Alive," identifies three ways to deal with trials: living as a victim with anger and blame, burying the experience while pain remains inside, or transforming the wound into a pearl. The first two approaches often lead to posttraumatic stress disorder, while the third approach-using pain as a catalyst for renewal-leads to what psychologist Carol Dweck calls "posttraumatic growth."
Valerie Keller exemplifies this transformative approach. Raised in a fear-based religious cult where women were taught to serve their husbands, she courageously broke free at age 25. Rather than becoming bitter, she channeled her experience into helping others, transforming a homeless shelter into a comprehensive care center after Hurricane Katrina. At Ernst & Young, she created Beacon to redefine business as a force for good, later partnering with Unilever's Paul Polman to form IMAGINE, helping companies become fully sustainable.
Similarly, Chad Foster, who lost his eyesight in his early 20s due to retinitis pigmentosa, initially denied his condition before embracing it. "We become the stories we tell ourselves," he explains, choosing to reframe his blindness as a strength rather than a limitation. "I refuse to let my lack of eyesight limit my vision," he says, emphasizing that while we can't control our circumstances, we control how we respond to them.
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The Dangers of Leading Without True North
Without a moral compass, leaders swim in chaos. When driven by external gratification-money, fame, and power-these temptations can control decisions without leaders even realizing their impact. Many leaders who derail have an underlying fear of failure paired with an insatiable craving for success. As former Novartis CEO Dan Vasella described, "Being successful is intoxicating... When you achieve good results, you are celebrated, and you begin to believe that you are at the center of all that champagne toasting."
Leaders who lose their way typically fall into five archetypes:
Imposters advance through organizations with cunning and aggression, mastering office politics while letting nothing stand in their way. Adam Neumann of WeWork exemplifies this archetype-starting with a legitimate insight about real estate for Millennials, he raised $10.4 billion but his ego grew unchecked. When WeWork's IPO failed, he negotiated a $185 million exit package while employees faced job cuts and shareholders suffered huge losses.
Rationalizers always appear on top of issues but blame external forces when things go wrong. Rajat Gupta exemplifies this archetype. Despite being a highly accomplished leader-worldwide managing partner of McKinsey and board member of Goldman Sachs and P&G-he was sentenced to prison for providing inside information to a hedge fund manager. Despite his $120 million net worth, Gupta had an unquenchable thirst for more.
Glory seekers define themselves by external acclaim. Money, fame, and power are their goals. Greg Lindberg's story demonstrates this pattern. Starting with just $5,000, he built a business empire through acquisitions. To ensure favorable regulatory treatment for his insurance companies, he bribed officials, offering $2 million in campaign donations to remove a regulator. His downfall revealed $35 million in luxury homes, expensive jets, and a $45 million yacht.
Loners avoid forming close relationships, seeking mentors, or creating support networks. Lehman Brothers CEO Dick Fuld exemplifies this archetype. From March to September 2008, associates warned him the firm was overleveraged and inadequately capitalized. When heads of major investment banks met to address Lehman's pending bankruptcy, Fuld stayed in his office behind closed doors, perhaps hoping for a bailout.
Shooting stars center their lives entirely on careers. They move up so rapidly they never learn from mistakes, changing jobs before confronting the results of their decisions. Travis Kalanick of Uber demonstrates this pattern. With profanity-laced tirades, he drove extraordinary growth but encouraged employees to crush competition. Despite employee surveys showing negative views of his leadership, Travis dismissed these as PR issues.
The consequences of leading without True North can be devastating, as illustrated by Elizabeth Holmes. Once hailed as "The Next Steve Jobs" and the youngest self-made female billionaire worth $3.6 billion, she built Theranos on deception. Her supposedly groundbreaking blood testing device simply didn't work, giving patients inaccurate diagnoses for serious conditions like cancer and HIV. Rather than addressing these life-threatening issues, Elizabeth treated them as PR problems. In 2022, she was convicted on four counts of criminal fraud, with Theranos going bankrupt-a stark lesson that "fake it until you make it" doesn't work in leadership.
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Developing Self-Awareness: The Foundation of Authenticity
Self-awareness forms the foundation of authenticity. When Stanford's Graduate School of Business surveyed its advisory council on the leader's most important quality, their answer was unanimous: self-awareness. It's the essential prerequisite for knowing your values, discerning passions, staying balanced, and discovering purpose.
Satya Nadella transformed Microsoft's dysfunctional political culture by focusing on self-awareness and empathy. His son Zain was born with cerebral palsy, which Satya initially saw as his own tragedy until his wife helped him develop empathy for his son's pain. "Being an empathetic father makes me a better leader," he reflects. Satya committed to changing Microsoft's culture from "know-it-alls" to "learn-it-alls," seeing his chief job as curator of organizational culture.
Searching for your true self is like peeling back the layers of an onion. The outer layers represent how you present yourself to the world-appearance, facial expressions, body language, attire, and leadership style. As you peel deeper, you reach your inner core where you gain understanding of your strengths, weaknesses, values, and motivations. At the very center is who you really are-your True North.
What if we were willing to expose our full selves without false layers of protection? Initially it's frightening-we fear rejection if we show vulnerabilities, admit weaknesses, and acknowledge mistakes. But as we realize people accept and love us for who we really are, it becomes liberating. As John Hope Bryant declares in his book Love Leadership, "Vulnerability is power."
In today's frenetic, electronically-connected world, leaders need daily practices to pause and reflect. Mindfulness-focusing attention on thoughts, emotions, and feelings in the present moment-has become mainstream in business. Research shows regular mindfulness practice rewires the brain, making us calmer, more compassionate, more focused, and less reactive. Leading companies like General Mills, Aetna, BlackRock, and Google encourage meditation practices.
To develop self-awareness, leaders must also see themselves as others see them. Honest feedback is difficult to obtain since people often tell leaders what they want to hear. Leaders should actively solicit feedback through one-on-one meetings, 360-degree surveys, and psychological inventories. A support team of spouses, friends, mentors, and small groups who provide honest feedback is invaluable.
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Living Your Values Under Pressure
Your values are standards of behavior that shape your True North, derived from your beliefs and convictions. Staying centered on these values isn't easy as external pressures often pull you away from your True North. The most challenging test comes when you have much to lose by staying true to your values-requiring moral courage to take action despite adverse consequences.
Ken Frazier's moral courage stems from his father's teachings: "Do what you know is right, not what others think." The grandson of a slave, Ken became a lawyer focused on social change, winning freedom for an innocent death row prisoner. At Merck, he defended the company against 50,000 Vioxx lawsuits by standing firm on science and values rather than settling cheaply. As CEO, he committed $8 billion annually to R&D despite shareholder pressure, leading to breakthrough drugs like Keytruda.
His greatest moral stand came in 2017 when he resigned from President Trump's council after Charlottesville, triggering 42 other CEOs to follow. Ken's principled leadership shows that staying true to values under pressure defines authentic leadership.
Ethical boundaries establish clear limits on what you will and won't do under pressure. Without these boundaries, leaders like Enron's Ken Lay and Jeff Skilling gradually cross lines until catastrophe strikes. The Wall Street Journal test helps leaders evaluate their actions: "How would I feel if this entire situation was printed on the Journal's front page?" When you operate with integrity, you'll be comfortable having anyone examine your words and actions.
Values are truly tested under pressure. When forced to make values-based decisions with much to lose, you learn what matters most in your life. Leaders like Sallie Krawcheck demonstrate moral courage by standing firm on values despite personal cost. As Wall Street's most powerful woman, she advocated returning client funds on misrepresented investments during the 2008 financial crisis, telling Citi's board, "We must do the right thing for our clients" despite knowing it would cost her job.
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Finding Your Sweet Spot and Leading an Integrated Life
Your sweet spot is the intersection of your motivations and your strengths-where you feel inspired, energized, and confident. When operating in your sweet spot, you're fulfilled because you're passionate about your work, creating a powerful flywheel that enables both satisfaction and success.
Warren Buffett exemplifies focusing entirely around one's sweet spot. Though unimpressive and insecure at 26, he made the bold decision to leave his torturous stockbroker job to start his own investing firm. This allowed him to spend time on what he loved: fundamental analysis of financial securities. This early decision to position himself at the intersection of his motivations and strengths became his best investment ever, creating hundreds of billions in value for Berkshire Hathaway shareholders since 1965.
Leaders need both extrinsic and intrinsic motivations to sustain high performance. Extrinsic motivations-like good grades, athletic victories, money, power, and prestige-are measured by the external world. Intrinsic motivations come from your deepest desires: personal growth, family building, helping others, creating great products, and making a difference. Finding your sweet spot requires aligning your motivations with your capabilities-you won't succeed pursuing something you're not good at or roles that don't motivate you.
Many leaders become trapped by external validation, taking high-paying jobs they don't enjoy to maintain expensive lifestyles. This approach ultimately backfires, as external recognition proves fleeting when challenges arise. Leaders like Ann Moore, former Time Inc. CEO, demonstrate the opposite path-she took the lowest-paying job offer after business school because she loved magazines, a decision that ultimately led to greater success and satisfaction.
The most pressing question for emerging leaders is whether they can have both great careers and fulfilling personal lives. Having witnessed their parents' generation sacrifice family for career, today's leaders are committed to living differently. The integration challenge grows more difficult with increasing job pressures, time demands, and two-career partnerships.
Nike CEO John Donahoe exemplifies leading an integrated life while managing a demanding career and family. When his fiancee Eileen challenged his career path, he wrote, "I will not live the life of a management consultant." Despite becoming Bain's worldwide managing director, John prioritized family alongside career success. After leading eBay and spinning off PayPal, he took a sabbatical including a silent Buddhist retreat before becoming Nike's CEO.
Establishing clear boundaries between work and home life is essential for integration. Without them, you risk becoming trapped in a career you hate because your expenses are too high to quit. Integrated leaders are more effective because they're authentic in all settings, delegate effectively, make thoughtful decisions with perspective, and bring positive energy from being well-rested.
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From "I" to "We": The Essence of Leadership
The greatest challenge for emerging leaders is transforming from "I" to "We"-recognizing that leadership isn't about them but about serving others and bringing out their best. This chapter introduces servant leadership through Robert Greenleaf's philosophy that "the servant leader is servant first" and focuses on others' growth and well-being.
Nelson Mandela exemplifies this transformation, evolving from a militant activist to a reconciliation-focused leader who served all South Africans without bitterness despite 27 years of imprisonment. His journey demonstrates how true leadership requires moving beyond individual achievement to serving a greater purpose.
Most of us begin careers envisioning ourselves as heroes who can change the world through individual achievement. But true leadership requires evolving beyond this narrative. As PPG executive Jaime Irick explains, "When you become a leader, your challenge is to inspire others, develop them, and create change through them." The transformation from "I" to "We" means discarding the myth that leadership means having followers as we climb to power. Instead, we must recognize leadership as serving others and empowering them to achieve their dreams.
Leaders must learn to see themselves objectively through others' eyes. Doug Baker Jr. experienced this at Ecolab when 360-degree feedback revealed his arrogance. "I had become arrogant and was pushing my own agenda," he admits. This critical feedback came just in time, helping him realize leadership meant uniting people around common purpose.
American Red Cross CEO Gail McGovern recalls her early struggle as a telecommunications manager: "Within 1 month, I went from being the best programmer to the worst supervisor." She tried doing everything herself until her boss overwhelmed her with new projects. When she complained about having "the work of 10 people," he responded, "Look out there. You have 10 people. Put them to work." This revelation taught her that a leader's value isn't measured by personal accomplishment but by the output of their team.
Anjali Sud rose from director of marketing to CEO of Vimeo in just three years, taking the company public with a $5 billion valuation four years later. "The greatest strength I have is building good relationships. I've always believed that if you support your colleagues and give credit where it's due, that will ultimately help you effect change." Sud gained buy-in by being transparent about problems and collaborating with experts across the business. She acknowledges the challenge of transitioning from "doer to enabler" but now sees decisions being made without her involvement as a sign of success: "If that's happening, I'm absolutely doing my job!"
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Finding Your North Star: Purpose-Driven Leadership
Your North Star represents the purpose of your leadership-a constant guiding light that reveals your purpose, unlocks your passion, and draws people to you. Finding alignment between your personal purpose and your organization's purpose becomes the motivating force that binds people together toward common goals.
Despite early career success at McKinsey and other companies, Hubert Joly felt something was missing. After a spiritual journey with a Jesuit monk, he discovered his North Star: "to make a positive difference for people around me and then to use the platform I have to make a positive difference in the world." This guided his leadership at Best Buy, where instead of following the classic turnaround formula of closing stores and terminating employees, he inspired staff to engage in the "Renew Blue" strategy by increasing revenues and partnering with suppliers.
Your North Star emanates from your life story and crucibles. While some leaders discover their purpose through transformative events, others like Hubert require several leadership experiences. Many emerging leaders initially express discomfort with their roles but find clarity when asked what they want written on their tombstones. Young leaders should "follow your compass, not your clock"-setting timetables leads astray, while following your compass shows the way to your North Star.
As an emerging leader, your most important task is bringing people together around a shared purpose that inspires them. Johnson & Johnson exemplifies commitment to purpose through its credo, written in 1943, which articulates responsibilities to stakeholders starting with customers, followed by employees, communities, and stockholders. This guided CEO Jim Burke's decision to remove all Tylenol from shelves during the 1982 cyanide crisis, enhancing the company's reputation despite short-term costs.
Purpose without action is meaningless. As a leader, your task is to translate purpose into tangible reality by aligning your personal mission with your organization's purpose and finding their intersection points.
John Replogle had his awakening at 35 when he realized his work at Guinness Beer conflicted with his purpose "to inspire people to take great care of people and planet." Looking in his rearview mirror with his kids, he had a "spear-in-the-chest moment" recognizing this incongruence, especially witnessing his brother's alcoholism. This sparked his metamorphosis from pursuing professional development to pursuing purpose. He joined Unilever, then became CEO of Burt's Bees where he used purpose as a business differentiator, and later led Seventh Generation with its eco-friendly products.
Tim Welsh, adopted from an orphanage, found his purpose in profound love: "When you've been loved that profoundly, your purpose is clear: you're going to be loving to everyone else." As U.S. Bank's vice chair, he embodies this purpose through the bank's mission of "investing hearts and minds to power human potential." During COVID-19, Tim launched a program where employees made 1.4 million calls to clients simply checking on their wellbeing, not seeking business.
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The Leader as Coach: Bringing Out the Best in Others
Great leadership requires transforming from manager to coach. While traditional business education emphasizes managerial techniques of exerting power over subordinates, coaching involves fully engaging a team and bringing out each member's best qualities. The best coaches are deeply engaged, care about each team member, and share a common definition of success with their team.
The COACH framework provides a comprehensive approach to leadership:
Care: Build understanding and trust through genuine relationships. Without deeply understanding people, leaders cannot unlock their full potential. True caring means understanding teammates' career objectives, motivations and challenges, having deep one-on-one meetings, maintaining natural interactions with "common humanity," and knowing colleagues' lives outside work.
Organize: Get people playing as a team by understanding each member's strengths, weaknesses and motivations. Nothing destroys team effectiveness more than having someone play outside their strengths-it damages individual confidence, slows the team, and prevents organizational purpose fulfillment.
Align: Unite people around a common vision. The coaching leader's most challenging task is aligning employees with the company's mission and inspiring them to pursue bold goals that make the mission real. Jim Whitehurst transformed Red Hat by aligning his team around purpose that "transcends profit," creating a culture where employees believed in Red Hat's open-source mission, transparency, and intellectual property freedom.
Challenge: Summon people's best by pushing them beyond their comfort zones. Great coaches like Anson Dorrance add tremendous value by challenging their players to reach peak performance. Through game tape reviews, weekly team ratings, or one-on-one feedback meetings, they push team members to excel.
Help: Solve problems and celebrate success by engaging personally with teams where the work happens. Effective leaders can't succeed from behind a desk. Sometimes the most helpful leadership act is genuine listening. Warren Bennis was known as a world-class listener who made people feel respected by believing he could learn from them.
Your leadership style is the outward manifestation of your authentic leadership-style without authenticity makes you merely a persona that people see through. Having flexibility in your style is crucial for effective leadership. You must adapt to your teammates' capabilities and readiness to accept responsibility while maintaining authenticity.
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Becoming a Moral Leader in Today's World
In today's complex world, moral leadership is more crucial than ever. While logic and empathy are required of today's leaders, what's most necessary is ethos, or morality. Though few believe they can achieve the standard set by moral leaders like Gandhi, Lincoln, or Mandela, their virtues are within our grasp. By discovering your True North, behaving authentically, and following your North Star, you can inspire others and become a role model.
Chip Bergh exemplifies today's moral leader. When he became Levi's CEO in 2011, the company faced declining sales, high debt, and a weakened 168-year-old brand. Believing he could reinvigorate it by leading through humanitarian values, he brought the company back to public markets after 39 years of private ownership and achieved record revenues despite the pandemic.
Bergh models authenticity through monthly "Chips and Beer" sessions where employees can ask anything, building trust through transparency. He's outspoken on issues like gun violence, climate change, and voting rights, targeting socially-aware Gen Z consumers. His lens for taking stands is: "Will we be on the right side of history 30 years from now?"
The courage of moral leaders like Chip Bergh contrasts sharply with the transactional, short-term mindset dominating business since the 1980s. In 2019, the Business Roundtable took a momentous step when 181 CEOs committed to lead their companies for the benefit of all stakeholders-customers, employees, suppliers, communities, and shareholders. This approach creates greater long-term value by aligning stakeholders around a shared mission.
Increasingly contentious media coverage and pressure from activists raise a vital question: When should CEOs speak out on public issues? These decisions are complex with no clear "right" answer. Leaders should focus on issues directly related to their purpose and values, asking: Does involvement violate my deepest values? Is it contrary to my North Star? How can I do the most good while causing least harm?
Marc Benioff exemplifies how a moral leader uses the duality of "doing well by doing good" at Salesforce. After feeling divided between his business and philanthropic lives at Oracle, Marc had an epiphany during a sabbatical at an Indian ashram. When founding Salesforce in 1999, he integrated values of trust, customer success, innovation, and equality into the company's DNA through a 1-1-1 model: donating 1% of stock, product, and employee time.
The torch now passes to you-lead with your heart and head to make this world better, starting with your organization and acting with moral clarity as you discover your True North. While you cannot solve all the world's problems, you can have meaningful impact by focusing your leadership on specific major issues that align with your purpose and values. This is the essence of authentic leadership-using your unique gifts to serve others and create positive change in the world.
