Leaders involved 90 of America's leaders, including Neil Armstrong, the coach of the LA Rams, orchestral conductors, and businessmen such as Ray Kroc of McDonald's. They were right brained and left-brained, tall and short, fat and thin, articulate and inarticulate, assertive and retiring, dressed for success and dressed for failure, participative and autocratic, says Bennis. The link between them was that they had all shown 'mastery over present confusion'. Bennis' message was that leadership is all-encompassing and open to all. Management of attention is, says Bennis, a question of vision.
Successful leaders have a vision that other people believe in and treat as their own.
Having a vision is one thing, converting it into successful action is another. The second skill shared by Bennis' selection of leaders is management of meaning communications. A vision is of limited practical use if it is encased in 400 pages of wordy text or mumbled from behind a paper-packed desk. Bennis believes effective communication relies on the use of analogy, metaphor and vivid illustration as well as emotion, trust, optimism and hope. The third aspect of leadership identified by Bennis is trust which he describes as 'the emotional glue that binds followers and leaders together'.