Defining Great Leadership
Warren Bennis and Joel Kurtzman
August 24, 2010
4:30 p.m. - 6:00 p.m.
Santa Monica
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| Leadership guru Warren Bennis says one weakness he has seen in even the best leaders is "being hesitant to make tough decisions about people." While loyalty to a long-time employee is understandable, he said, failing to recognize when they are in over their heads hurts the organization.
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Are great leaders born or made?
What's the right relationship between a leader and the group?
What's the difference between a leader and a visionary?
Recent failures in the financial markets and the corporate world have underscored the value of smart, effective, ethical leadership - and what can happen to an organization when it is absent.
No one is more attuned to these issues than Warren Bennis, dubbed the "dean of leadership gurus" by Forbes magazine. Adviser to four U.S. presidents, Bennis is the author of the seminal works "Leaders" and "On Becoming a Leader." In his latest book, "Still Surprised: A Memoir of a Life in Leadership," Bennis examines the question of leadership through a highly personal lens, recounting his own experiences as a young army recruit in the Battle of the Bulge and later as a university provost during the Vietnam war protests.
Joining Bennis for this in-depth one-on-one conversation was the Milken Institute's Joel Kurtzman, an authority on management and author of the new book "Common Purpose: How Great Leaders Get Organizations to Achieve the Extraordinary."
These two experts explored a wide-ranging set of issues: the role of management in the financial meltdown, examples of companies with outstanding leadership and the skills needed to inspire and harness creativity in the high-tech world.
 Warren Bennis is university professor, distinguished professor of business administration and professor of management and organization at USC's Marshall School of Business, where he founded the university's Leadership Institute. He also chairs the advisory board of the Center for Public Leadership at Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government. He holds a Ph.D. from MIT.
Joel Kurtzman is a senior fellow at the Milken Institute, where he directs the Center for a Sustainable Energy Future. Previously he was global lead partner for thought leadership and innovation at PricewaterhouseCoopers. Kurtzman is the former editor of the Harvard Business Review and a former member of the editorial board of Harvard Business School Publishing. He was also a business editor and columnist at The New York Times.
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