For such a small and simple book, Leadership is an Art is an incredibly resourceful book. Max DePree gleans from his career as the head of Herman Miller, a Fortune 500 furniture company, and offers a quick summary of the lessons he learned about leadership. Within the 148 pages, DePree highlights three aspects that he believes are necessary for effective leadership: integrity, nurturing relationships, and community building. Though it's geared towards corporate culture, this is a refreshing leadership book. DePree promotes characteristics of leadership that are not commonly championed in our money-and-power-grabbing society. DePree promotes servant-hood in leadership, cooperation, lifting others up, enabling others to shine, and the importance of storytelling.
Scientific management can only work for a time, DePree says. The nurturing of a relational community based on trust is the true key to an honestly successful organization. What's needed are leaders who can continually share the story of the organization... communicate the identity, the values and the vision of the group so that others may take up the cause. "Every family, every college, every corporation, every institution," he explains, "needs tribal storytellers. The penalty for failing to listen is to lose' one's history, one's historical context, one's binding values." (82) Story-telling helps keep alive the passion and the definition of a group. As society changes, stories can get lost or dismissed. Instruction manuals, DePree says, should never replace the stories. (92)
Leadership is an art, not a science. Leadership cannot be outlined to fit a mold. Leadership, DePree contends, is an enabling interaction with people. Leadership aims for the future more than the management of today. "Today's trust enables the future," he says.(114) No matter the production output of an organization today, if trust in relationships and community has eroded, the future is going to be compromised.
Another resourceful aspect to DePree's book involves his reflection on facilities. He argues that a facility reflects the values and vision of the community. Therefore, a facility should be a place that people can possess, should enable and empower people to do their best, should encourage lavish communications, and should be a place of realized potential. A facility should create an environment that
- encourages an open community and fortuitous encounter
- welcomes all
- is kind to the user
- changes with grace
- is person-scaled
- is subservient to human activity
- forgives mistakes in planning
- enables this community (in the sense that an environment can) to reach continually toward its potential
- is a contribution to the landscape as an aesthetic and human value
- meets the needs we can perceive
- is open to surprise
- is comfortable with conflict
- has flexibility, is nonprecious and nonmonumental.
I've only mentioned a few of the many resourceful reflections in this book. For instance, his discussion about entropy in an organization is a fascinating and vital admonition for any organization that desires growth and a future.
I've dog-eared at least twenty of the 148 pages... and I've virtually underlined and margin-noted every page. (In the preface, DePree invites the reader to own the book- not just read it!) Leadership is an Art is an artful leadership book. It's a must read for any leader.
