How do you walk the tightrope between the world as it is and the world as you wish it could be? This tension between idealism and pragmatism—hope and reality —comes to the surface whenever getting things done threatens to compromise your principles. If you let it, the paralysis this friction creates will stop you from acting in time to influence how risks and opportunities will affect your future. And that problem is multiplied whenever we’re working together in teams where our values diverge or even conflict. We call these two mindsets The Missionary and The Mercenary and they both live hidden inside you. If circumstances mislead you into leaning too far to one side or the other, you risk making mistakes that can send you and your stakeholders tumbling out of control. We’ve discovered that experience mastering the Missionary + Mercenary balancing act is what leadership really means. Unfortunately, the kind of experience that leaders are made of is earned by making mistakes. And today the stakes are simply too great to make very many or we risk not having any future at all. Most people think leaders are in charge because they have all the answers. In reality, leadership has never been about having all the right answers, but by asking the right questions. We’ve spent decades distilling the most critical questions leaders must ask if they want to get everyone pulling in the right direction to control their future. This is our guidebook to making the choices that will help you control your future, too.