One of our favorite examples of a good mission statement is Britain’s mission in 1940, as articulated by Winston Churchill: Our whole people and empire have vowed themselves to the single task of cleansing Europe of the Nazi pestilence and saving the world from the new dark ages. We seek to beat the life and soul out of Hitler and Hitlerism. That

To be clear, I’m not saying financial incentives lack impact. Indeed, the evidence from economics makes clear: People do respond to incentives (even if they are not the primary source of motivation for the best people). To ignore the influence of incentives is to ignore human nature. And that leads me to a key point: The wrong incentives are not

“When I was being wheeled into the operating room,” Bill began to explain, “I bet they saw a smile on my face. I realized that if this was to be the end of my life, well, so be it. Dorothy and I had had a fabulous run, a wonderful life. To know that—I mean, to really feel it—while heading into the operating room . . . that’s the moment I knew I’d

Leadership is the art of getting people to want to do what must be done. Notice three things about this definition. First, as a leader, it’s your responsibility to figure out what must be done. You might do this by your own insight and instinct or, more likely, via dialogue and debate with the right people; but however you do it, you need to get

Clearly, it is virtually impossible to lead a company and have only one “to do” on your list. But you should be spending the bulk of your time on your number one priority, concentrating your efforts on that priority until it is complete.

I’ve asked multitudes of gatherings of executives this question: “Which of the following two categories of mistakes have you more frequently made? Category 1: In retrospect, you waited too long before you acted to move the person out of the key seat. Category 2: In retrospect, you acted too quickly and you should have been more patient. Stop and

We live in a world rich in success but impoverished in meaning. A life of relentless work without meaning is brutal and dark. Most of us will never have the depth of love in our daily work that Manchester had with his fellow Marines. But we can move closer to it by building a culture where people depend on people.

I’ve been asked many times whether people can become Level 5, and if so, how? Yes, and the best spark to ignite such leadership in yourself is to wrestle with a hard, simple question: What cause do you serve? What cause are you willing to sacrifice and suffer for, when you must make decisions that cause pain for yourself and others to advance that

Mentorship—being a mentor and being mentored—is a relationship, not a transaction.