An interview with Warren Bennis

Interview by James Nelson

Warren Bennis is one of the world's leading experts on leadership.

He is Distinguished Professor of Business Administration and founding

chairman of the Leadership Institute at the University of Southern
California's Marshall School of Business. He is also the Thomas S. Murphy
Distinguished Research Fellow, and a Visiting Scholar at the Center for
Public Leadership at Harvard Business School.

His lengthy career has involved him in education, writing, consulting and
administration. Along the way he has made a contribution to an array of
subjects and produced a steady stream of books on leadership, change
and creative collaboration, including the recent Geeks and Geezers.

His seminal work Leaders (Harper & Row, 1985), was selected by the
Financial Times as one of the top 50 business books of all time.

In your new book Geeks and Geezers, you point You seem to be saying that highly attentive
to integration as being a crucial act for today’s leaders are required now. But in the context of
leaders. Can you tell us more about how leadership, how do you define the word
integration applies to leadership? attentive?

Warren Bennis: Warren Bennis:

I use the term to suggest a creative act that goes
beyond merely processing facts to recognizing
patterns and bringing together connections.
Leaders that truly integrate are what I like to call
first-class noticers, that is, individuals who notice
things that make a difference. But leadership is
far more than that. It is as much an art as a
science. It is neither and it is both. Aspects of it
can be quantified, but, basically we must think of
leadership primarily as a combination of art,
adventure, science, and, perhaps most
important, purpose. Purpose has to do with
ambition, with drive, with passion. It has to do
with wanting to be a leader. Its components
include an adaptive capacity, an authentic voice,
and the ability to engage others in shared
meaning.
So, purpose, in the special sense that you use
the term, is a key aspect of leadership?
Warren Bennis:
Purpose, yes, but also integrity, because
purposes can be good or evil. You have to want to
lead, but it would be a mistake to give power to
people who can’t live without it. You can't be a
Richard III who, for example, will do anything to
stay in power. In other words, the effective
leader, the first-class noticer, integrates a
purpose with noble aims.
The phrase I would use would be "intensity of
attention." First-class noticers are intensely
attentive. And this applies not only to business
leaders but also to leaders in the arts, in sports,
in any field. Failures in leadership are almost
always related to lapses in this kind of attention.
In fact, people become first-class noticers
because they are passionate and intense about
paying attention to the things that matter. Yes,
"attention must be paid," but only to those
inflection points that make a difference.
Machiavelli was a first-class noticer. Are his
ideas relevant to the modern leader?
Warren Bennis:
More than ever. For today’s leaders, Machiavelli’s
ideas force us to examine and question our view
of human nature. He illustrates that human
beings are capable of being destructive, of
making people suffer, and that we are capable of
despotic forms of oppression.
The force of Machiavelli’s arguments is in part
attributable to the voice he uses to express
them. But voice can be of two kinds: one
dominated by form, the other by substance and
sincerity. What are your views on these two
approaches?
Warren Bennis:

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1

Empty rhetoric – that based exclusively on form –
is, at its worst, nihilistic, implying a lack of belief
in anything. Clearly, I prefer the latter approach
and, I think, whether we like it or not, our voices
are coming through.
An authentic voice is the natural by-product of
being an integrated individual, and an authentic
leader is an integrated human being. The premise
of almost all of my work has been that the
process of becoming a leader is the same as the
process of becoming a fully integrated human
being.
Does an authentic voice ensure that an individual
is moral as well as integrated?
Warren Bennis:
No. One can have a clear, resounding voice and
be evil. So voice has to be distinguished – and I
think this is important – from morality and from
"just leadership."
Isn’t that difficult to do?
Warren Bennis:
Yes. It’s a very tricky undertaking that does not
lend itself to black and white pronouncements.
My point is that a strong, authentic voice does
not necessarily express that which is morally
right, and that even when it does, it might be
coloured by expediency, compromise, or other
difficult ethical challenges.
What are other key qualities of successful
leaders?
Warren Bennis:
CEOs, for example, should possess a number of
characteristics. For a start, they need to provide
direction, it's the vision thing. To get a collective
definition of success, they must engage, motivate
and animate people in their organizations. It isn't
enough just to have the vision; they really have to
engage with their people.
"The process of becoming a
leader is the same as the
process of becoming a fully
integrated human being."
If you look at leaders who failed, in most cases it
was because they were seemingly unable to
understand the kinds of changes taking place
within their worlds, worlds which were vastly
different to when they first started working for the
company. It wasn't so much a lack of interesting
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ideas. It was an inability to engage, motivate and
animate people in their organizations, to really
incarnate their ideas.
Leaders must be able to personally demonstrate
adaptive capacity and be alert to inflection points
in the cartography of stakeholders. Successful
leaders should also be personally involved with
leadership development programmes and
mentoring. It's an ability to connect with people,
although it is very hard to measure. It's probably
a sub-set of the ability to engage and animate
others. It has to do with relatedness to others.
What is the most important challenge facing
CEOs today?
Warren Bennis:
The number one challenge facing CEOs today is
restoring confidence and honour in the
profession of management.
The second challenge, as we've discussed, is
becoming a first class noticer. To really be aware
of the people you are directing and have
excellent sources of information so that you are
truly aware of what's going on in the world. With
so much going on, it's a task just to keep in touch
with the changes that can make a difference to
your own life. It is a grind but it's exciting as well.
The successful CEOs of the future will need
incredible wide-ranging and diverse sources of
information.
Looking at current leaders, how would you
characterize the leadership of, say, Kofi Annan,
Secretary-General of the United Nations?
Warren Bennis:
I think Mr. Annan embodies characteristics of
leadership that I totally endorse. He is just, fair,
eloquent, and able to work with diverse
constituencies. And he accomplishes this without
any real, formal power. That’s an amazing
capacity, one that is rarely written about. He also
has a strong moral voice. Mr. Annan embodies
the characteristics of great leaders: his own ego
takes a backseat to the talents and interests of
others; he is able to deal with very different,
strongly held points of view and somehow make
them work together; and he is able to build and
to work within alliances and coalitions.
Can you give us an example from the world of
business of a contemporary leader who meets all
or most of your leadership criteria?
Warren Bennis:
Yes. In my mind, Bill George, former chairman
and CEO of Medtronic, comes closer than anyone
I know to being an archetype of the successful
2
business leader. While he embodies all of the
leadership qualities we’ve talked about, he best
exemplifies the benefits derivable from voice and
authenticity as a means of building trust and
community. He recognized the wholeness of his
organization and considered the needs of all of
its stakeholders. He was able to drive a sense of
purpose throughout the organization. In a
company survey he conducted, 87 per cent of
responders aligned their personal values with the
values of Medtronic. That’s an amazing
accomplishment.

What else in your view sets him apart?

Warren Bennis:

Through adaptability and alignment, he built a

healthy organization, where people feel they can
grow and learn, where they want to stay for the
rest of their working lives, and where they believe
they are doing something to better the human
condition. Those two A’s – alignment and
adaptability – are, I think, the key aspects of
successful organizations today. An adaptable
organization continually responds to change. An
aligned organization is one in which people at
every level know the company’s direction, vision,
and strategy and are rewarded for doing so. The
great challenge for leadership today is to balance
adaptability and alignment. Bill George was able
to meet that challenge successfully.

While Bill George is your model for the

successful business leader, is he also a model of
the "just leader?"

Warren Bennis:

He was one of the first to speak out on the recent

corporate scandals, and he is, in my view, a "just
leader." The truth is that I have to do a lot more
thinking and studying before I can fully answer
that question. I need to interview people who
know a lot more than I do, including philosophers
and experts in human and moral development. I
plan to write a book about "just leadership" that I
hope will be my major contribution. But I am only
now beginning to learn a lot more about what I
don’t know. □

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