Marvin Bower was a great leader and a great teacher. He did not believe leadership could be taught, but he did believe it could be learned. What made him a pioneer was that he took basic values into the business world – a fairly novel approach – to help leaders create value-based compasses for their own leadership.

Marvin never believed in making money just for the sake of making money to keep score. His commitment to his clients, his partners, and his values was exceptional. He believed that a great service institution was built not only on skills and experience, but most importantly on the behavior and conduct of its people.

What enabled Marvin's professional success, and the financial success of his firm, was an undeterrable will to lead coupled with a base of business values, strong leadership skills, and unemotional, absolute logic.

Because the vision of management consulting as a targeted profession was revolutionary, management consultants had to earn stellar reputations in order for the profession to be widely accepted and valued. And this requirement presented somewhat of a circular challenge. A professional firm working hand in hand with top-management executives to successfully solve major management problems would, by definition, develop a favorable reputation; however, at the same time, a professional service firm would be unlikely to gain access to top management without a favorable reputation.

During Marvin's long tenure with the firm, he made, advocated, influenced, and/or adopted thousands of decisions that were the natural enactment of his original vision, yet accommodated a changing world. From the start, he had a sense of what firm values ought to be and all his decisions were consistent with that vision.

To understand the power and reach of Marvin Bower's leadership, one only needs to consider the history of courageous changes at Marvin's client companies and the subsequent accomplishments of people at client companies who were members of Marvin's teams and of McKinsey & Co. alumni. Looking at both groups – the client team members and the consultants – from a quantitative perspective, the evidence of leadership success is astounding. Client members of Marvin's teams were 20 times more likely to rise to a senior management level (president or CEO) than were their peers. During Marvin's 17 years as managing director of McKinsey, more than 50 of the consultants evolved into CEOs of leading global companies.

In working with his clients, Marvin Bower would challenge them as leaders to give the people in their organizations. He would coach them to take the initiative and to stand up to the boss, to listen to others, and to let go of hierarchical controls and conventions. In doing so, Marvin led by example. He was not reckless, but he was fearless.

Marvin's impact attests to the power on one: He influenced those who had the good fortune to work with him either as consultants or clients, and they influenced others, who influenced others, and on and on. The list of graduates from the “Marvin School” is long, diverse, and impressive, making the task of choosing examples a daunting one. This alumni association is global: Corporations throughout not just the United States but every industrialized country in the world have benefited from Bower's legacy.