Peter Senge, Author of "The Fifth Discipline", Senior Lecturer at MIT

Peter is a well-known author on leadership and popularized the concept of "learning organizations". He spoke to my SDM '05 class and provided many insightful while not always mainstream thoughts on leadership.

Peter Senge's Biography

Notes:

MBA students have different responses about what they think leadership is versus SDM students (MBA students tend to say leadership is about "getting people to do what I want them to do"). Shows lack of experience actually leading ;-)

If you are trying to be a leader, you probably aren't doing a good job

We talked about the Sloan Leadership model and what it means to us

People can lead from any position

Management and Leadership are different concepts (so true! and very often confused at my workplace)

Definition of manager: A person that can be held responsible for the results produced by others

Management is a hierarchal concept whereas leadership is not

People often use leadership as synonymous with management

Dictionary definition of leadership: to step ahead

Should use my time in SDM to reflect and think about what I want out of life and work

He's found most leaders have a deep sense of purposefulness

Considers purposefulness was a key trait

As a business you should think of who would miss you if you were gone (and it won't be an investor)

Businesses should not have as their primary goal to provide a return on invested capital

Profit is important – like air to people – but it shouldn't be the purpose (just like oxygen isn't people's purpose for life)

In your company you need to foster who we are, why we are, who would miss us if we were gone

This isn't radical stuff, Peter Drucker said it for 40 years

The importance of a mission/vision statement is the mission/vision NOT the statement

He doesn't think everyone should say the company slogan if asked about the vision. It should be a personal statement from each person that taken together are harmonic with the company's vision

Source of potential for leadership:
* Deep sense of purposefulness
* Desire to serve. Recommends "The Leader as Servant" by Robert Greenleaf. It has been proven time and time again in combat that people only follow leaders they think truly care about them.
* Reflective openness – truly open to not having all the answers. He thinks it is ridiculous that Sr Mgrs feel they have to portray a sense of knowing all the answers. Biggest trap when getting into a role of authority is to stop asking for help
* Appreciation of wholeness. Not surprised by the ethical issues of Enron and Worldcom. He said the business world is kind of a basketball game where the players pay the refs after the game.