This article is an excerpt from the Shortform book guide to "Discover Your True North" by Bill George. Shortform has the world's best summaries and analyses of books you should be reading.
Like this article? Sign up for a free trial here.
What’s the key to being a good business leader? Why is sticking to your core purpose and values essential for leadership?
Identifying your core purpose (what Bill George calls your “True North”) and ethical principles is essential for becoming an effective leader. These two factors will help you stay grounded and humble during your time as a leader.
Keep reading to learn how to be a good leader in business, according to Discover Your True North.
Identify Your Core Purpose and Ethical Principles
The core purpose is your overarching goal for your career and the “why” behind everything you do in your leadership journey. Your ethical principles are the moral boundaries you must identify so you can work toward your core purpose without sacrificing your integrity. These are both crucial for learning how to be a good leader in business.
We’ll examine why these components are important and how to identify them based on your unique life experiences.
The Core Purpose
George asserts that throughout your career, your core purpose will help guide you when making decisions and motivate you when you’re experiencing challenges. In other words, it’s something you can refer to and remind yourself of the ultimate goal you’re working toward. Without a core purpose, George warns, you risk ending up in an unfulfilling career because you chased things like a higher salary and fancy possessions instead of following your true passion.
George says that no one can determine your core purpose for you. To identify your unique core purpose, start by reflecting on your life story and your biggest challenges (what George calls “crucibles”). George found through his interviews that many of the world’s successful business leaders were shaped by their life experiences and setbacks, which they channeled into a passion to pursue a meaningful goal. When you reflect on your own core purpose, these experiences could include experiences from your childhood or even recent events that impacted your priorities and vision for yourself.
In one example of someone using their life story to define their core purpose, George describes how the early experiences of Howard Schultz—the former CEO of Starbucks—helped him identify his vision for his career. When he was a young child, his family struggled financially when his father was injured and lost both his job and health insurance. At this time, his mother was also pregnant, and they had no savings to cover expenses.
Experiencing the precarity of poverty and seeing his father’s shame over his blue-collar job inspired Schultz’s core purpose—to create his own company where the employees would feel respected, and even part-time employees would have access to company-sponsored health insurance.
Ethical Principles
Once you’ve identified your core purpose, you’ll also need to reflect on what your ethics are as a leader. George says that by doing so, you can ensure that your team members align with those values as well as your core purpose.
Another important element is articulating your ethical principles before you’re in crisis when they’ll be the hardest to stick to. For example, if you decide early in your career that you’ll never lie to your colleagues to cover up a mistake, it’ll be easier to stick to this choice even when you mess up and lying becomes tempting in the moment.
———End of Preview———
Like what you just read? Read the rest of the world's best book summary and analysis of Bill George's "Discover Your True North" at Shortform.
Here's what you'll find in our full Discover Your True North summary:
- Why being true to yourself is more important than having talent or charm
- Guidelines anyone can follow to become a leader in their organization
- How to identify your purpose and ethics based on your unique experiences
