Page 240 - HBR Leader's Handbook: Make an Impact, Inspire Your Organization, and Get to the Next Level

Conclusion 229

Make e pluribus unum your leadership agenda

Throughout this book, we have examined various practices and other ele-
ments of leadership, often—for the ease of learning—in an isolated manner.
And some of the things we proscribe may seem at odds with each other; for
example, the importance of inspiring and motivating people but also not
shirking from giving them tough performance feedback; to be relentless in
delivering results and near-term performance, but also to embrace future
experimentation and opportunities; to be bold and personally courageous
but also to step aside sometimes and let others take the lead. We’re not the
first to suggest that leadership must embrace both/and thinking.
Ultimately you must strive to find—and continuously translate for
others—some meaningful and actionable unity among many different
pieces of everything you do and see as a leader: different practices, dif-
ferent ideas, and changes in situation between yesterday and today.
In the end, leadership must be an act (to borrow from the motto of the
United States) of e pluribus unum: “out of many pieces, one overall.” You
aren’t meant to take on the six practices and many steps within them
separately. You must combine all the practices to succeed as a leader. But
how you combine them is up to you: it will depend on the context of your
organization, your skills, and your aspirations. The way you combine them
will change by the day and over the long term as you grow as a leader, as
you practice, learning and refining as you go.
But leadership is not only an aggregate of creating vision, building
strategy, and getting great people on board. As you lead your organiza-
tion, you are, both implicitly and explicitly, constructing a system of people
that reflects you, your values, and your aspirations. Doing so allows you to
make, in iconic leader Steve Jobs’s term, “a dent in the universe.” Recognize
that for all it’s worth and your leadership practice will become the best way
for you to create your impact on the world.