Leadership — The Inside Story: Time-Tested Prescriptions for Those Who Seek to Lead
Willie Pietersen
Rivertowns Books (September 2024)

Bon appétit!

By the time I was ten years old, I realized that — with all due respect to adult family members and other elders —  the most important lessons I learned were from my own experiences…and the most valuable of them were not from success. Rather, from making bad decisions. I was again reminded of that as I began to read Leadership — The Inside Story.

Don’t be misled by the title. The value of the material is not limited to those who “seek to lead.” (I wish I had been able to read it when  I was beginning to deliver daily newspapers in Chicago.) Willie Pietersen shares what he has learned from his own as well as others’ experiences and these insights can at least serve as well-intentioned suggestions and helpful reminders. There are no head-snapping revelations nor does he make any such claim.

Pietersen focuses his attention on subjects and issues that include:

o The Three Domains of Leadership: Personal (self), Interpersonal (others), and Strategic (organization)
o Nelson Mandella (exemplar of high-impact leadership in all three domains)
o Four Biases (“barriers to truth”)
o The power of asking the right questions
o Information flow (bottom to top)
o Setting priorities
o Building trust
o Leadership and learning

These are among the observations selected by Pietersen that caught my eye:

o “Truth is discovered, not taught.”  Marcel Proust

o “We don’t see the world as it is, we see it as we are.” Anaïs Nin

o “If I had 60 minutes to solve a problem, I would spend 55 minutes defining the problem and five minutes thinking about solutions.” Albert Einstein

o “If I had to reduce the responsibilities of a good follower to a single truth, it would be to speak to power.” Warren Bennis

o “Whatever matters most must never be at the mercy of whatever matters least.” Goethe

o “The difference between successful people and really successful people is that really successful say no to almost everything.” Warren Buffett

o “What you do speaks so loudly that I cannot hear what you say.” Ralph Waldo Emerson

o “The Universe is made of stories, not of atoms.” Muriel Rukeyser

I highly recommend this book to anyone who is determined to become a high-impact leader in every area of activity and in all of their personal and professional relationships.

Think of Leadership — The Inside Story as a lavish and delicious buffet of information, insights, and counsel. Thank you, Chef Pietersen.