Nine Minutes on Monday: The Quick and Easy Way to Go From Manager to Leader

3The Nine Needs

Leadership should be born out of the understanding of the needs of those who would be affected by it.

—Marian Anderson

I was raised on a ranch in the foothills of the Rocky Mountains. While the scenery was beautiful—even to a six-year-old boy—it was rivaled after dark by a canopy of stars, shouting from an unpolluted night sky. The Big Dipper was always prominent, and I was taught how to use it to locate Polaris, the North Star. How many sailors in centuries past had used these beacons in the sky to help navigate their way on the open sea? As long as the sky was clear, the stars would show themselves. Faithful and unchanging, they provided a map that, night after night, could be counted on to lead sailors home.

There has been ...