Leading Minds

Gardner claims that the key to leadership is the creation and embodiment of an effective story. He argues that unless they're working with specialists, leaders must deal with the "unschooled mind." They must take into account the fundamental theories about the world that all of us acquire as children and that persist through life - even when those theories are later undermined by what we learn in school. In striking portraits of a wide range of leaders - from J. Robert Oppenheimer to Alfred P. Sloan, from Margaret Mead to Pope John XXIII to Mahatma GandhiGardner recreates the leaders' stories and depicts the struggles among rival stories that occur in the minds of an audience. He explains the overwhelming appeal of simplistic stories and enumerates the key moves needed to counter that appeal. He also describes the ways in which all leaders ultimately confront failure.