Looking Outward While Looking Inward

Leaders need to balance self-awareness with external competition

The Pied Piper of Hamelin by Kate Greenaway, 1888 (Wikimedia Commons - public domain)

“The chief proof of man’s real greatness lies in his perception of his own smallness.” — Arthur Conan Doyle, 1890

“Alan, what kind of car do you drive?”

That was the question I put to Alan Mulally, CEO of Ford Motor Company, in December 2008 — the final question at a Q&A session on Twitter that would mark the first time a Fortune 500 CEO took questions from Twitter followers.

I had engaged him in this impromptu interaction with fans about five months into my tenure and weeks after some high-profile appearances in front of Congressional committees, where U.S. automakers were under intense scrutiny.

So it was natural that interested and engaged people would want to know what kind of car the CEO of one of the Detroit automakers drove.

And his answer blew me away.