CHAPTER I Just What Is Leadership?

In this chapter, I want to help you understand what I call the ecology of leadership. Obviously, someone cannot be much of a leader if no one is there to be led. So it's a delicate environment of projects, priorities, and plans as well as emotions, sensitivities, and ambitions.

President Eisenhower once commented, "Leadership is the art of getting someone to do something you want done because he wants to do it." Ike's approach to delegation could be called subtle. But to him, delegation was an important skill and a big deal. It surely served him well in Europe as he dealt with many big egos to lead the Allied effort in World War II.