Includes bibliographical references and index.

Foreword / Charles Handy -- Introduction / Warren Bennis -- My life as a leader. Invented life : shoe polish, Milli Vanilli, and sapiential circles (1993) -- Martin Kaplan on "An inventedl life : shoe polish, Milli Vanilli, and sapiential circles -- Berkeley of the east (1973) and What went wrong (1973) -- Patricia Ward Biederman on "The Berkeley of the east" and "What went wrong" -- Searching for the "perfect" university president (1971) -- Steven B. Sample on "Searching for the 'perfect' university president" -- Foreword to The age of heretics (2008) --

How organizations create or thwart leaders. Democracy is inevitable (1964, 1990, 1998) -- Rosabeth Moss Kanter on "Democracy is inevitable" -- Coming death of bureaucracy (1966, 2000) -- Tom Peters on "The Coming death of bureaucracy" -- End of the great man (1997) -- Scott Snook and Rakesh Khurana on "The end of the great man" -- Pornography of everyday life (1976) -- Winning and losing (1988) -- Lessons from Larry (2006) -- When to resign (1972) -- Corporate fear of too much truth (2002) -- James O'Toole on "When to resign" and "A corporate fear of too much truth" -- March of folly redux : Iraq (2003) --

On becoming a leader. Learning some basic truisms about leadership (1976, 1996) -- Understanding the basics (1989, 2003) -- Frances Hesselbein on "Understanding the basics" -- Deploying yourself : strike hard, try everything (1989) -- Judgment trumps experience (2007) -- Crucibles of authentic leadership (2004) -- Susan Nero on "The crucibles of authentic leadership" -- Alchemy of leadership (2002) -- Howard Gardner on "The alchemy of leadership" -- Epilogue to the twentieth-anniversary edition of On becoming a leader (2009) -- David Gergen on "Epilogue to the twentieth-anniversary edition of On becoming a leader" --

Leadership as performance. Seven ages of the leader (2004) -- Sidney Harman on "The seven ages of the leader" -- Leader as storyteller (1996) -- Peter Guber on "The leader as storyteller" -- Leadership as a performing art (2002) -- Glenn Close on "Leadership as a performing art" --

Cultivating the leader in others. Challenges of leadership in the modern world (2007) -- Bill George on "The challenges of leadership in the modern world" -- How business schools lost their way (2005) -- Joel M. Podolny on "How business schools lost their way" -- End of leadership (1999) -- Introduction to The art of followership (2008) -- Followers make good leaders good (1989) -- Jean Lipman-Blumen on "Introduction to The art of followership" and "Followers make good leaders good" --

Leadership and the media. Age of unreality (1989) -- News analysis : it's the culture (2003) -- Geneva Overholser on "News analysis : it's the culture" -- New transparency (2008) -- Geoff Cowan on "The new transparency".