A School for Leadership

At leadership-themed schools, students learn the key habits they need to succeed.

Some people are surprised to learn that I spent the first 25 years of my career as a teacher. I taught courses on leadership at the university level, and I loved it.

In 1976, in conjunction with the U.S. bicentennial celebration, I conducted an intensive review of the "success literature" that had been published during the previous 200 years. From that research emerged a set of habits—traits and behaviors commonly exhibited by highly successful individuals. The number of habits I included in the list grew and shrank over time, but eventually I settled on seven. The more I integrated the habits into my classroom discussions, the more I realized that the habits had relevance to almost any leadership topic because they were culturally universal and based on timeless principles.