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Robert S. Kaplan is president and chief executive of the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas. Previously, he was the Senior Associate Dean for External Relations and Martin Marshall Professor of[…]

You might believe that leaders are born, not made. Perhaps you think that you need to hold an important job to be a leader—that you need permission to lead. Leadership is one of the most important aspects of our society. Yet there is enormous disagreement and confusion about what leadership means and whether it can really be learned.


As Harvard Business School professor Robert Steven Kaplan explains in his powerful new book, What You Really Need to Lead, leadership qualities are not something you either have or you don’t. Leadership is not a destination or a state of being. Leadership is about what you do, rather than who you are, and it starts with an ownership mind-set.


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