Oprah, Leading with Heart

Harvard Business School professor Nancy Koehn provides an inspiring example of a leader who leads not just from the head but the heart. Her name: Oprah Winfrey. Here’s how Oprah built a media empire and the lessons you can apply to your own work and life. A leader’s assets include head, heart, and power. Heart tops all. By identifying with others, the best leaders inspire and strengthen people. Oprah Winfrey is such a leader. In her 55 years of soaring from obscurity to global icon, she has turned self-awareness and emotional intelligence into vast empathy, tripling her success as a talk show host, film star, humanitarian, and force of nature. Her secret is quite public: Oprah leads from the heart. She was born out of wedlock in 1954. The place was Kosciusko, a mid-Mississippi town of about 7,000 people with modest incomes. For reasons no longer clear, the place was named after Thaddeusz Kosciuszko, a Polish patriot who fought in the American Revolution.