The more attention we can devote to helping developing leaders tune in to their core values - drawing on their real experience and their true aspirations in life - the more likely it is they'll make smart choices about how and where to invest their talents.

Managing the boundaries between work and the rest of our lives - family, community, and the private self - is now a much more daunting task. The good news is that there are ways to realize the promise of greater focus and presence on the moment for better performance and results, but it does take discipline and practice to get there.

Executives are afraid of losing control if subordinates try to roam too far. Conversely, hierarchy squelches talent by forcing rote standardization through the punishment of failure, a necessary accompaniment to experimentation.

There are many structural changes, both in organizational practice and social policy, that must also change to enable men and women to have the freedom and support to pursue the lives they want to lead. Fortunately, many more people are today engaged in these efforts than when started working on this issue decades ago.

I'm a humanist and an optimist.

You really can choose to be the leader you want to be, in all parts of your life, if you take seriously the idea that there's a purpose to your life worth pursuing because it matters not just to you but to others. Consciously and deliberating devoting effort to realizing this idea is ennobling, though never without some struggle.

Right now we're in the midst of a grand experiment on how best to harness the incredible power of the Internet while we struggle to maintain useful boundaries among the different parts of our lives.