Discover Your True North. George Bill

Your True North

      Discovering your True North is hard work. You may take many years to find it, as was the case for me.

      This book does not contain six easy steps to discover your True North or other simple formulas. It takes the opposite approach. Discovering your True North requires you to maintain your individuality and retain your authenticity. This requires introspection, support, and feedback of friends and colleagues. Ultimately, you must take responsibility for your own development. Like musicians or athletes born with great abilities, you must devote yourself to a lifetime of development to realize your potential.

      Part I of Discover Your True North examines the journey to authentic leadership. It begins with the leaders' life stories, which are unique to them and more powerful than any set of characteristics or leadership skills they possess. Next, the three phases of the leader's journey are dissected, looking at key steps in each phase of the journey. During their journeys, many leaders lose their way. To understand how derailment happens, we analyze five types of leaders who see themselves as heroes of their own journeys. Finally, by exploring the crucibles and life-changing experiences leaders have had, we see how they overcame setbacks and built the resilience to become authentic leaders.

Part II offers five elements of your internal compass that help you develop as a leader and get back on track when you are at risk of losing your way. This section provides you the insights to stay true to who you are as you confront challenges in the world around you. It includes five key areas of your development as a leader: self-awareness, at the center of your compass, and at the four points, your values and principles, sweet spot, support team, and integrated life (see Figure I.2).

Figure I.2 Book Map: Part I, Part II, and Part III

      Part III describes your transformation from an I leader focused on yourself to a We leader focused on serving others. Only when you make this transformation will you be ready to discover the purpose of your leadership and empower people around a shared purpose. Finally, as the world becomes truly global, you can develop the special qualities required to be an authentic global leader. In the afterword, we challenge leaders to serve society by making capitalism a force for solving the world's most challenging problems.

      After each chapter, you will find a series of exercises that you can use to build your leadership development plan. Better yet, purchase the companion workbook, The Discover Your True North Fieldbook: A Personal Guide to Finding Your Authentic Leadership, written with my colleagues Nick Craig and Scott Snook, which contains in-depth exercises corresponding to each chapter in this book.

      By dedicating yourself to discovering your True North, you will become an authentic leader who can make a positive difference in the world and leave a legacy for others to follow.

      PART ONE

      YOUR JOURNEY TO LEADERSHIP

      In our interviews with leaders about their development, the most striking commonality was the way their life stories influenced their leadership. Your life story is your foundation. It shapes how you, as a human being, see the world. And in leadership, the most human of all endeavors, it can propel you forward or hold you back.

      In Part I we examine three topics:

      1. How you frame your life story. Your journey through life will take you through many peaks and valleys as you face the world's trials, rewards, and seductions. Reflection and introspection will help you understand your life experiences, and in some cases reframe them.

      2. The risk of losing your way. Everyone experiences pressures and difficulties in life, and all of us have to deal with fears and uncertainties. In your life journey, you will be confronted with seductions that threaten to pull you off course from your True North. We will examine five archetypes that can cause you to lose your way.

      3. The role crucibles play in shaping your leadership. The way you deal with your greatest adversities will shape your character far more than the adversities themselves. Much like iron is forged by heat, your most significant challenges and your most painful experiences present the greatest opportunities for your personal growth.

      As you gain greater clarity and insight about your life's journey, you will discover the focus of your True North.

      1

      YOUR LIFE STORY

      The reservoir of all my life experiences shaped me as a person and a leader.

– Howard Schultz, CEO, Starbucks

      The journey to authentic leadership begins with understanding yourself: your life stories, crucibles, and setbacks. This knowledge gives you the self-awareness to discover your True North.

Howard Schultz's Leadership Journey

      In the winter of 1961, 7-year-old Howard Schultz was throwing snowballs with friends outside his family's apartment building in the federally subsidized Bayview Housing Projects in Brooklyn, New York. His mother yelled down from their seventh-floor apartment, “Howard, come inside. Dad had an accident.” What followed has shaped Schultz throughout his life.

      He found his father in a full-leg cast, sprawled on the living room couch. While working as a delivery driver, Schultz's father had fallen on a sheet of ice and broken his ankle. As a result, he lost his job – and the family's health care benefits. Schultz's mother could not go to work because she was seven months pregnant. His family had nothing to fall back on. Many evenings, Schultz listened as his parents argued at the dinner table about how much money they needed to borrow. If the telephone rang, his mother asked him to tell the bill collectors his parents were not at home.

      Schultz vowed he would do things differently. He dreamed of building “a company my father would be proud to work at” that treated its employees well and provided health care benefits. Little did he realize that one day he would be responsible for 191,000 employees working in 21,000 stores worldwide. Schultz's life experiences provided the motivation to build Starbucks into the world's leading coffeehouse.

      “My inspiration comes from seeing my father broken from the 30 terrible blue-collar jobs he had over his life, where an uneducated person just did not have a shot,” Schultz said. These memories led Schultz to provide Starbucks employees access to health coverage, even for part-time workers.

      That event is directly linked to the culture and the values of Starbucks. I wanted to build the kind of company my father never had a chance to work for, where you would be valued and respected, no matter where you came from, the color of your skin, or your level of education. Offering health care was a transforming event in the equity of the Starbucks brand that created unbelievable trust with our people. We wanted to build a company that linked shareholder value to the cultural values we create with our people.

      Unlike some who rise from humble beginnings, Schultz is proud of his roots. He credits his life story with giving him the motivation to create one of the great business successes of the last 25 years. But understanding the meaning of his story took deep thought because, like nearly everyone, he had to confront fears and ghosts from his past.

      Brooklyn is burned into Schultz. When he took his daughter to the housing projects where he grew up, she surveyed the blight and said with amazement, “I don't know how you are normal.” Yet his experience growing up in Brooklyn is what enables Schultz to connect with practically anyone. He speaks with a slight Brooklyn accent, relishes an Italian meal, dresses comfortably in jeans, and respects all types of people. He has not forgotten where he came from or let his wealth go to his head: “I was surrounded by people who were working hand-to-mouth trying to pay the bills, felt there was no hope, and just couldn't get a break. That's something that never leaves you – never.

      “From my earliest memories, I remember my mother saying that I could do anything I wanted in America. It was her mantra.” His father had the opposite effect. As a truck driver, cab driver, and factory worker, he never earned more than $20,000 a year. Schultz watched his father break down while complaining bitterly about not having opportunities or respect from others.

      As