The three box approach to leadership

 This article is part of the Contemporary leadership series

“Every day I have to get up and earn the trust of the people as leader, and that means I do whatever I need to do to make that happen.” Robert Tarkoff, CEO of Lithium

There are three aspects to any leader’s job. Think of them as three boxes. The first box is managing the present. The second box is about selectively forgetting the past. And the third box is about creating the future. They apply to relationships as much as any other aspect of organisational life.

Vijay Govindarajan, known as VG, is widely regarded as one of the world’s leading experts on strategy and innovation. He ranked no. 13 in the 2015 Thinkers50. He is the Coxe Distinguished Professor at Dartmouth’s Tuck School of Business and a Marvin Bower Fellow at Harvard Business School. He is a WSJ and NYT best-selling author, and author of Three Box Solution: A Strategy for Leading Innovation, HBR Press, April 2016. Watch the book trailer. Twitter: @vgovindarajan.

Hylke Faber is CEO of the Growth Leaders Network, a non-profit supporting a global community of leaders committed to self-growth and selfless service, and is Managing Partner of the culture and leadership consultancy Constancee. Hylke also directs the Leading as Coach programs at the Columbia Business School Executive Education programme.