Acknowledgments

This book is the product of our combined half-century of teaching and consulting. It draws on the experiences and insights of students, clients, friends, and professional colleagues, and we owe them our thanks for sharing their stories and lessons, although they bear no responsibility for what we have done with them.

We have been blessed with an extraordinarily attentive and skilled team at the Harvard Business School Press. Individually and collectively they put the lie to the notion that old-time collaborative relationships between authors and editors are passé. This book was first encouraged years ago by Linda Doyle and Carol Franco. The belief of our first editor, Marjorie Williams, in the project was a critical factor in our proceeding at all. Sarah Weaver’s copyediting has clarified what we wanted to say by cleaning up the prose and clearing out the underbrush. Amanda Elkin, our manuscript editor, has been a steady and supportive force. But we never would have made it to the finish line without the gentle prodding, great insights, and nurturing encouragement of Jeff Kehoe, our editor. A relatively new parent, Jeff handled us with subtle parenting skills, knowing just when to draw the line and when to let us go. We also want to thank, but unfortunately not by name, the anonymous readers selected by the Press, whose no-holds barred critique was a critical wake-up call for us at a crucial juncture in the process.

There are eight people who played a special role in helping this book come to be. Many of these ideas were first articulated by Ron’s longtime collaborator, Riley Sinder, who first intuited the difference between leadership and authority, who cobuilt the framework, and who painstakingly reviewed this manuscript with detailed comments and rewrites at every stage of the process. Sousan Abadian played a special role in taking us through the penultimate manuscript line-by-line and pushing us over the top. Marty’s wife, Lynn Staley, brought her designer’s eye and editor’s judgment to bear at important turning points; she also endured with grace his absence and inattentiveness as the project rumbled toward its close. Kathryn Heifetz, Ron’s wife, brought wonderful clarity of logic with words, a more active voice, and human understanding to our new preface. We hired two book doctors along the way. Kelly Rappuchi helped us clarify our essential purposes and better use of Ron’s experiences and stories. And Kent Lineback became part of our core team, coming to endless meetings, forcing us to clarify and refine the story line, drafting and redrafting, prodding us to do better—all the while being an unflagging cheerleader for what we were trying to do. We were also blessed with two wonderful faculty assistants at the Kennedy School, Sheila Blake and Kathleen Kaminski. Sheila and Kathleen provided terrific research support, screened out diversionary intrusions so we could work together, and did their best to keep the rest of our lives from spiraling out of control when this project became all-consuming.

We imposed shamelessly on many of our friends and colleagues to read part or all of the manuscript at various stages of its creation. We received extremely detailed and constructive page-by-page feedback from Tom Bennett, Charles Buki, Robyn Champion, Katherine Fulton, Milton Heifetz, and Steven Rothstein. We had generous and very useful advice from David A. Heifetz, Steve Boyd, Ben Cheever, Brent Coffin, Phil Heymann, John Hubner, Barbara Kellerman, John Kotter, Steve Lakis, Larry Moses, Hugh O’Doherty, Sharon Parks, Richard Pascale, Bernie Steinberg, Bill Ury, and Dean Williams.

Finally, this effort began more than a decade ago in the first years of the Leadership Education Project at the Kennedy School. Derek Bok suggested that we write a practical treatment of leadership, in the spirit of Fisher and Ury’s Getting to Yes, which Marty edited. Sr. Theresa Monroe, a colleague and gifted educator who helped give birth to the Project, devoted mind, heart, and soul to setting this effort on its way. Jenny Gelber, a skilled consultant to the Project, held together with warmth and ingenuity a small team of pioneering graduate students who brainstormed ideas with us and gave us courage. We have not strayed far from those initial purposes.

Ron Heifetz

Marty Linsky

Cambridge, Massachusetts