26 / 40
26
I
Nonprofit
Professional
Performance
Magazine
T
here’s no one right way of finding
your True North. Some people,
from a very early age, seem to be
connected with their True North
and lead from that. Wendy Kopp,
the founder of Teach for America,
knew in college she wanted to work
on education issues in America, and wrote
a paper, that led to a conference, that led to
starting Teach for America. She was 21 years
old.
In True North, the vast majority of people
(Bill George and I interviewed 130 leaders)
stated they found their True North through
a lot of experiences and by developing a self-
awareness that only comes from what one of
our interviewees described as “rubbing up
against the world.” An example of that might
be Richard Tait: somebody who worked
at Microsoft in his 20s, and didn’t find the
work fulfilling or meaningful at the end of
his 20s/beginning of his 30s. So he stepped
out into the unknown to try to become
an entrepreneur at that stage. He became
massively depressed, confused, and really
lacked confidence because he no longer had
the Microsoft name to hide behind, and had
to really get to know who he was and what he
cared about most. It took several years before
he came up with the idea for what became the
board game company Cranium. He had to
wander through a number of “dark valleys” of
loneliness, despair, hopelessness, depression,
in order to eventually get to a place where he
could be himself.
True North is who you are at your deepest
level. It’s being connected to your core values,
and essentially living a life where you are
yourself. For Richard and for me, that was
a long, painful process of reflection and
self-discovery. For most people, that level of
self-awareness only comes through a lot of
painful experiences and course corrections,
to connect with your True North. We cited
some research from Stanford Business School
where the most-successful accomplished
alumni said that self-awareness was the most
important leadership development trait they
could have.There’s a ton of research out there
that supports that notion. From our research
with practitioners, if you don’t know who
you are and you can’t lead yourself, there’s no
way you’re going to be able to effectively lead
others because you’re going to be inconsistent,
and you’re going to do all the things that
prevent you from gaining trust with others.
If you’re authentic, if you’re aware of who you
are, for example to know what you’re good at
and what you’re not good at, and can let go
of having to control everything, you’re going
to end up empowering other people. People
feel connected to other people who are
themselves, who are authentic. People tend to
not trust or feel connected to people who are
putting on airs and who are holy. Sometimes
people have no awareness of their lack of
authenticity.
We wrote True North for people who want
to lead authentic lives, who want to be
connected to their values. The process of
developing self-awareness can be driven
largely by getting feedback on a regular basis.
One of my professors at Stanford Business
School, Joel Peterson, says “Feedback
is the breakfast of champions.” The
more feedback you can get, the more
experiences you can have to understand
your interests and your values, and
your areas of weakness, the better.
Values, though, aren’t just for the leader.Value
alignment is essential between the leader and
the organization. If there isn’t value alignment
between the CEO and the organization’s
mission, then that CEO is not going to be
able to motivate people. It will be blatantly
clear that the wrong person is in the job. It’s
absolutely essential that the person leading
an organization role-model the values of the
organization. Organizations are like people:
their values are shaped by the values of the
founder, and as the organization grows up, it’s
like a child who’s been influenced by parents,
and those core values remain the same.
A great example of where this went
spectacularly wrong is Hewlett Packard.
The values of Hewlett Packard were around
empowerment, authenticity, innovation,
giving back to society.Then the company had
a series of people leading whose values were
just the opposite, most notably Carly Fiorina.
Carly Fiorina was known to stay in her office,
not walk around, and she was also known to
say that “we have to throw away the HP way,
the company’s core values, and reinvent the
new HP,” kind of in her own image. Disaster!
One of the greatest leadership disasters of
the past hundred years! Hewlett Packard
is a company that’s still trying to find itself
again.The alignment between a leader and an
organization, in terms of values, is essential.
If something is one of my core values, I show
it through actions. If you value humility, then
Leading from Your “True North”
Peter Sims
Feature