“On the face of it, shareholder value is the dumbest idea in the world. Shareholder value is a result, not a strategy… your main constituencies are your employees, your customers and your products… Short-term profits should be allied with an increase in the long-term value of a company.” Jack Welch, Former CEO, General Electric

A business leader interested in changing the world develops a vision like “organizing the world’s information and making it universally accessible and useful.” She hires people with shared values. Her occupation is story-teller for this business undergirded by its values, helping create habits of behavior, leading self-sacrificially, making and delivering on commitments and supporting others as she asks them to do the same. These values end up infused into all the activities of the business and as a result into the psyche of the stakeholders. This is the gospel of leadership according to gurus of business. What most gurus don’t realize is the outcome isn’t a longer lasting, more successful firm, but character change in stakeholders that outlasts the firm itself.

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