At the Aspen Ideas Festival, David Brooks told a story about Dorothy Day that revealed something counterintuitive about leadership effectiveness.

Day was asked late in life if she’d write a final memoir. She said: “I thought of the Lord and his visit to us all those centuries ago, and I was just grateful to have had him on my mind all that time.”

Brooks’s insight: “I don’t think you need to believe in God to be happy, but that sense of surrender to some good that is transcendent…”

This connects to something I’ve observed in the most effective leaders I know—they share a quality that seems paradoxical: They become more powerful by giving up power.

✔️ Steve Kerr talked about “immersing myself in process vs. results”
✔️ David Rubenstein described his happiest moments as “helping other people”
✔️ Wes Moore emphasized “embrace the suck” and shared struggle over personal glory

The surrender solution works because:

✔️ It eliminates the energy drain of ego protection
✔️ It creates space for others to contribute their best work
✔️ It builds trust through demonstrated service
✔️ It aligns individual effort with larger purpose

This reminds me of research from Jim Collins in “Good to Great.” Level 5 leaders—those who built the most successful companies—combined personal humility with professional will. They were ambitious, but their ambition was for the organization, not themselves.

The modern leadership trap: We’re told to “build our personal brand” and “own our narrative.” But the leaders who create the most lasting impact often do the opposite—they surrender their need for credit to serve something larger.

The question that challenges me: What would happen if you led your next project as if the success belonged entirely to your team and the failure belonged entirely to you?

David Brooks explores this theme in “The Second Mountain.” Jim Collins’s research on Level 5 leadership appears in “Good to Great.” Dorothy Day’s biography reveals how surrender to transcendent purpose created extraordinary impact.