One of the categories I like most in the “Profiles” of professionals on our social networking site myragan.com is the topic: “Books I have read.” It’s a useful way to start a conversation, even a virtual one: “What are you reading?” Long since replaced, of course, by: “What movies have you seen lately?” And now: “What’s on your ipod?”

When I’m on the road consulting, I’m an unapologetic fan of business books, a sucker for the retired CEO’s advice, scribbling marginalia about any new process out of a leading business school.

One of my favorite business books is by the former CEO of furniture manufacturer Herman Miller, Max DePree: “Leadership Is an Art.” Great title. Leadership in business used to be thought of as a science: engineering and finance. Management by objective, the MBA. DePree’s editor, Clark Malcolm, was a classmate of mine in English at Michigan, and it’s nice to see at least one of us was able to bring the liberal arts to a business career.

Every rift is loded with ore in DePree’s book. As an example, I like the following passage on the role of leadership. How does your CEO measure up?

Here it is:

Leaders must take a role in developing, expressing, and defending civility and values. In a civilized institution or corporation, we see good manners, respect for persons, an understanding of "good goods," and an appreciation of the way in which we serve each other.

Civility has to do with identifying values as opposed to following fashions. Civility might be defined as an ability to distinguish between what is actually healthy and what merely appears to be living. A leader can tell the difference between living edges and dying ones.

To lose sight of the beauty of ideas and of hope and opportunity, and to frustrate the right to be needed, is to be at the dying edge.

To be a part of a throwaway mentality that discards goods and ideas, that discards principles and law, that discards persons and families, is to be at the dying edge.

To be at the leading edge of consumption, affluence, and instant gratification is to be at the dying edge.

To ignore the dignity of work and the elegance of simplicity, and the essential responsibility of serving each other, is to be at the dying edge.

Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes is reported to have said this about simplicity: "I would not give a fig for the simplicity this side of complexity, but I would give my life for the simplicity on the other side of complexity." To be at the living edge is to search out the "simplicity on the other side of complexity."

In a day when so much energy seems to be spent on maintenance and manuals, on bureaucracy and meaningless quantification, to be a leader is to enjoy the special privileges of complexity, of ambiguity, of diversity. But to be a leader means, especially, having the opportunity to make a meaningful difference in the lives of those who permit leaders to lead.