Putting Leadership on the Map

Gary Burnison is CEO of Korn Ferry and the author of Love, Hope & Leadership: A Special Edition.

I hadn’t seen them in years, maybe even a couple of decades. But when I recently opened the glovebox of an old car I’ve kept for sentimental reasons, there was that dusty pouch. And inside—all those roadmaps.

Spreading each one across the hood of the car, I studied the highlighted routes, destinations circled in pencil, notes in the margins. All the stories came back to me—the road trips we took, the places we stopped, even meetings I attended.

One side of the map gave the bird’s eye view from city to city—along highways with numbers as familiar now as they were then—405, 5, 101. On the other side the focus narrowed to the granularity of neighborhoods and city streets.

Frankly, it boggled my mind to think about how we used to travel from neighborhood to neighborhood, state to state, and even across the country with nothing more than paper to guide us. And it wasn’t that long ago.

We’ve gone from pencils on paper to pressing a 7-inch screen with the world of where we’re going mapped out for us. Coincidentally, all that transition has happened within a window that mirrors my own leadership journey.

And that got me thinking. How much has leadership changed… or has it?

Clearly, there are fundamentals of leadership. A few of these essential truths come to mind:

Leadership is inspiring others to believe and enabling that belief to become reality. First and foremost, that is our primary role as leaders.

It’s not about you, but it starts with you. Humility and self-awareness go hand in hand. If you don’t improve yourself, you’ll never improve an organization.

Coaches don’t win games, players do. It’s all about the mosaic of talent you surround yourself with.

Establish the left and right guardrails. Leaders define the mission and values of the organization—then others take it from there.

Listen to what you don’t want to hear. The difference between hearing and listening is comprehending.

Learn—always. Knowledge is what we know; wisdom is acknowledging what we don’t know. Learning is the bridge between the two.

Communicate to constantly connect with others. This is where leadership lives and breathes.

Then as now, the essence of good leadership is timeless.

It’s just like those old maps. Sure, there are a few different street names or errant exits, but no doubt today I could still use them to get from Point A to Point B.

But that isn’t evolving.

Over the past few years, I’ve witnessed no greater evolution in leadership, from the ways of the past to the new world of working, than the premium placed on authenticity and vulnerability.

Early in my CEO career, I would have described a great leader as someone with vision, a growth mindset, confidence, charisma, courage. Then a board member called me aside. “Burnison, you need to be more vulnerable. You’ll be amazed by the results.”

To navigate so much uncertainty and ambiguity, leaders need to be confident; but too much self-confidence can narrow our peripheral vision. As counterintuitive as it may seem, vulnerability is actually a strength for leaders, particularly when we know that all of tomorrow’s answers won’t be found at the top. Rather, they emerge from the mosaic of people, talents, and perspectives around us. And the more we as leaders are willing to be vulnerable, the more we empower others.

But here’s the thing. A leader can’t wake up one day and declare, “I’m going to be a great leader today,” then go to bed that night saying, “And tomorrow, vulnerable!”

The landscape is always changing, but our direction is always driven by our “why”—our overarching purpose. It’s a journey—one we have to navigate day to day, week to week, one destination to the next.

It’s a fact of life and leadership—the roadmap that got us here, won’t get us there.

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