Lessons - True North Is the Only Leadership That Scales | Bill George - Former Medtronic CEO
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What is True North and how does it define authentic leadership?
In this lessons episode, explore how finding a true North shapes purposeful leadership and long-term fulfillment beyond external success. Discover how deep self-awareness clarifies values and career direction. Understand why authentic leadership builds trust and resilience inside organizations. And uncover how mission-driven principles guide leaders through uncertainty, growth, and crisis.
So the concept of true north, I want you to describe that concept and I think that that's that would be the epitome of finding your purpose and your calling in a professional and personal sense, correct? Is that what true north means?
Absolutely. True North is who you are at the deep at your deepest level. It's the uh pr uh beliefs that you have that you're raised with or you have the values that you live by, the principles you lead by. And where you find real joy and satisfaction and fulfillment in your life. Again, it's not about the external uh motivations like money, fame and power. Those things will come along. by the way, but uh you have to find the right place for uh for you, which we call your sweet spot, where you are highly motivated by mission values and see that wasn't true at Honeywell. The mission was making money in those days. That was some time ago, thirty years ago. But uh you know, and and you weren't you're kind of an engineer's coming, you really couldn't be yourself.
And I think today it's all about being authentic. And that's what younger leader younger people in your organization, the millennials, which are more than half of your employees, are looking for. They want you to be real. They aren't interested in somebody who's terribly impressive. They're much more interested in someone who cares about them.
It's interesting though because when a CEO is real and authentic and vulnerable, that's a that's super scary because then it opens up all the flaws in the business and it makes things seem not as and and in reality things probably aren't as great as the CEO would like them to be. So for for a leader, actually I wanna I wanna double down on true north first and then I wanna understand how they can best do that while building and and Scaling an organization. Um so first a leader that's that so you have uh somebody who wants to lead an organization, whether or not they're building it from the ground up or they've worked their way up and they're trying to figure out where they want to place themselves and position themselves as a as a manager or an executive, VP, C suite, director, whatever.
Um How how do you discover your true north? How did you discover your true north outside the fact that your your wife called you out on being miserable and not being happy and not being in the right spot?
How can leaders discover their personal True North and purpose?
How can a leader effectively figure out and define their true north so that they can make more uh meaningful career decisions?
Well, I think you have to spend a lot of time developing your self awareness. It starts with understanding your life story, who you are, where you come from. Those are your roots. So it's like a a giant tree is is nourished by its roots, your your values and the principles that you and beliefs you have. But beyond that, then you gotta deal with the difficult times as we you started out asking a question, difficult time. Well Those define you much more than the good times. The good times you tend to think you're better than you are. And uh it's when everything gets stripped away that you realize who you are, you look yourself in the mirror. And I strongly advocate two practices for everyone, uh including all the CEOs we work with, from MBAs to CEOs, and that's one, take 20 minutes a day for some form of introspection.
I I'm a meditator or I've been meditating for 45 years. Uh it could be some form of mindfulness, it could just be going for a long walk, taking a jog, something you kind of clear the mind, put all the electronics away, and and think about how did I show up today? Was I the kind of leader I wanted to be? I was excited about what I was doing.
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Chapters
7 chapters
1
What is True North and how does it define authentic leadership?
0:00–2:40
2
How can leaders discover their personal True North and purpose?
2:40–4:46
3
What daily practices build self‑awareness and introspection for CEOs?
4:46–7:24
4
Why is honest feedback essential and how can leaders create a feedback loop?
7:24–9:46
5
How does vulnerability and admitting mistakes strengthen organizational trust?
9:46–12:19
6
What changes in leadership expectations have emerged from past to present?
12:19–13:28
7
When should leaders take a public stand on social and political issues?
13:28–14:18
Speakers
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