Warren G. Bennis

Scholar and author, 1925–2014

Warren G. Bennis was a scholar and author who advised U.S. Presidents John F. Kennedy, Lyndon Johnson, Gerald Ford, and Ronald Reagan as well as business executives, including Howard D. Schultz, Starbucks CEO, on the essence of successful leadership. For more than 30 years, he was a distinguished professor of business administration at the University of Southern California and headed the Leadership Institute. He also wrote more than 30 books on leadership, a subject he first found interest in when he led a platoon during World War II at the age of 19.

In 1989, he published On Becoming a Leader, his seminal work, which exemplified his core belief that leaders are not born—they are made. The book delves into the qualities that define leadership, the people who exemplify it, and the strategies that anyone can apply to achieve it.

In Chapter 4, “Knowing the World,” he writes:

“Innovative learning is the primary means of exercising our autonomy, a means of understanding and working within the prevailing context in a positive way. It is a dialogue that begins with curiosity and is fueled by knowledge, leading to understanding. It is inclusive, unlimited, and unending, knowing and dynamic. It allows us to change the way things are. 

In sum, we have the means within us to free ourselves from the constraints of the past, which lock us into imposed roles and attitudes. By examining and understanding the past, we can move into the future unencumbered by it. We become free to express ourselves, rather than endlessly trying to prove ourselves. 

In the same way, through the exercise of innovative learning, we no longer follow along, but rather lead our own lives. We do not accept things as they are, but rather anticipate things as they can be. We participate in making things happen. 

We shape life, rather than being shaped by it. This dictum is borne out again and again.”