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Summary: The Leadership Challenge: the hardest form of management
Review: For the past five years The Leadership Challenge has been required reading for many students getting an MBA degree, and for good reason. First, the book is highly readable. Kouzes and Posner write for real managers with serious leadership problems. They include many true stories or managers facing difficult challenges. For example, the Pat Carrigan story at the Lakewood Assembly Plant outside of Atlanta demonstrates that it is possible for management and labor to work effectively together if the leader is a person genuinely interested in people. Pat was smart enough to know that she didn't have all the answers. She turned to her rank-and-file employees for help and they responded more favorably than even she had expected. Pat broke down the barriers that typically had existed at General Motors, opened lines of communication, and helped people to take responsibility for their work. She treated her employees like adults and the good people she knew they were. Many other stories like Pat Carrigan's fill the pages of this book and these stories are an inspiration for on-the-job leaders or those aspiring for these positions. Next, the book is filled with good ideas and suggestions for taking a leadership role in any organization. Challenging the Process, Inspiring a Shared Vision, Enabling Others to Act, Modeling the Way, and Encouraging the Heart provide a game plan for leaders to use to positively influence the behavior of others. Typically, managers consider such stuff as Encouraging the Heart to be too "touchy feely" to be worth serious consideration. Kouzes and Posner demonstrate convincingly, I think, that such encouragement is not "soft soap," but the hardest reality on which integrity and trust are based. Without these attributes a manager is a "menace, unfit to manage" according to no less an authority than Peter Druker, the dean of management thinking and writing for the past forty years. Finally, The Leadership Challenge is filled with suggestions for application. Leadership is a practice and anyone interested in becoming a leader must work each day at building leadership skill. Kouzes and Posner ask readers to 1. Pay attention, really pay attention to what is going on in their organization. 2. Take risks that separate them from the play it safe folks who consider hiding the safest form of management. 3. Seek feedback. As Ken Blanchard says, "Feedback is the breakfast of champions." Kouzes and Posner encourage the reader to talk across boundaries -- Pat Carrigan was a perfect example of this. 4. Accept responsibility. Harry Truman seemed like such an ordinary man, but when leadership presented itself to him, he accepted full responsiblity for his actions and became a fine president. Forty years ago David McClelland of Harvard espoused these ideas in his book, The Achieving Society, and provided evidence that people who act on these suggestions become effective leaders. Kouzes and Posner do not write like academics such as McClelland. They are popularizers, and good ones. Many of their ideas have stood the test of time and are worth learning and applying.
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Summary: Re-read for new inspiration ...
Review: From Tom Peter's, "In Search of Excellence" through this title and others, this group knows management and leadership. Facing new challenges in my professional life, I decided to re-read "The Leadership Challenge" and it was once again on target and all inspiring. Positive feedback and respect as well as high expectations all lend to the best managers with the most loyal worker's. Nice to be reminded that leading with one's heart is not necessarily a negative thing. Both times I have read this title, I found myself affirming what I know to be true. A must read for all management levels!
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Summary: Concepts that have stood the test of time
Review: I am the CEO of a Fortune 500 company who read the original version of this book in the late 1980's. As the five criteria for leadership success discussed in this book, namely -- model the way, inspire a shared vision, challenge the process, enable others to act, and encourage the heart -- have stood the test of decades of exploration and execution, the subtleties explored in this new edition are a welcome addition to my library of leadership books. I strongly recommend this book and additionally, wholeheartedly recommend Optimal Thinking: How to Be Your Best Self as a superlative universal resource for leadership and corporate optimization.
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Summary: Leadership Education
Review: I just finished this book and wanted to pass on my opinion while the iron is hot and before I go on to another book on leadership. "The Leadership Challenge" is an outline of the practical basics of what has come to be called "leadership". While I think the authors did a fine job of imparting the messages for which the book was intended, they did not (like all the other how-to books on leadership) get their arms around understanding just exactly what leadership actually is. The terms "leader" and "leadership" have come to be slippery and lightly used in our society. But, in all honesty, I think that dealing with understanding leadership is slightly beyond the purposes for which this book was intended, and, for its intended purposes, I highly recommend this book.
(I also recommend "West Point: Character Leadership.." by Remick, if you want to get your arms around what "leadership" is)
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Summary: The foundation for all the others
Review: I know that it's a cliche to call anything other than the Bible, a "Bible," but this is The Leadership Bible, nonetheless. If this is not in your library and a large part of your leadership journey, you are way way way behind the curve. Kouzes and Posner have been conducting some of the most significant leadership reasearch on the planet for over 20 years--and you'll find all that accumulated wisdom in this book.
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Summary: The foundation for all the others
Review: I know that it's a cliche to call anything other than the Bible, a "Bible," but this is The Leadership Bible, nonetheless. If this is not in your library and a large part of your leadership journey, you are way way way behind the curve. Kouzes and Posner have been conducting some of the most significant leadership reasearch on the planet for over 20 years--and you'll find all that accumulated wisdom in this book.
Rating:
Summary: The foundation for all the others
Review: I know that it's a cliche to call anything other than the Bible, a "Bible," but this is The Leadership Bible, nonetheless. If this is not in your library and a large part of your leadership journey, you are way way way behind the curve. Kouzes and Posner have been conducting some of the most significant leadership reasearch on the planet for over 20 years--and you'll find all that accumulated wisdom in this book.
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Summary: Even the Acknowledgements are too long. Cliff Notes anywhere
Review: I only wish Kouzes and Posner were constrained to 1000 words. That would have been totally sufficent to make the points they present. In an increasingly time limited business world, few have got the time to read 300+ pages of common sense and obvious facts. Read it if you have to (It was assigned by my MBA Prof.), but try and find someone else who has, they could sum up the substance in a few minutes.
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Summary: Had to read the book again
Review: I read the original book a few years ago and found the information very inspirational. I was happy to see the updated printing has chapters on corporate downsizing and covered the loss of jobs due to increased technology in the workplace. Now more than ever companies have to work smarter with fewer employees and this book has the insight on getting that job done. I also recommend reading Rat Race Relaxer: Your Potential & The Maze of Life.
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Summary: Guidelines and Parameters for the Perilous Journey Within
Review: I recently re-read this brilliant book before proceeding to Kouzes and Posner's more recently published Encouraging the Heart. I highly recommend both and suggest that they be read in the order in which they were written. Those of us who presume to review books such as this one can merely indicate their breadth and depth of substance as well as their stimulation of thought about the material presented. For example, Kouzes and Posner identify what they call "five leadership practices common to successful leaders" and then suggest ten "behavioral commitments" among those leaders studied. Here they are: Practice: Challenge the process
Commitments: (1) Search for opportunities and (2) Experiment and take risks Practice: Inspire a shared vision
Commitments: (3) Envision the future and (4) Enlist others Practice: Enable others to act
Commitments: (5) Foster collaboration and (6) Strengthen others Practice: Model the way to the desired objectives
Commitments: (7) Set the example and (8) Plan small wins Practice: Encourage the heart of everyone involved
Commitments: (9) Recognize individual contribution and (10) Celebrate accomplishments Those who conduct "360 Feedback" programs could do much worse than to base evaluations on criteria suggested by these practices and commitments. They provide the thematic infrastructure of the material which Kouzes and Posner present within seven Parts. The first introduces key concepts and terms: "Knowing What Leadership Is Really All About." Each of Parts Two-Six is devoted to one of the five Practices. Kouzes and Posner conclude with Part Seven, "The Beginning of Leadership', followed by two appendices which enable the reader to complete "The Personal Best Questionnaire" before reviewing "The Leadership Practices Inventory." There are dozens of outstanding books on leadership and this is one of the best. I am especially impressed by the balance Kouzes and Posner maintain throughout between theory and practice. More specifically, they introduce and explain various core concepts and then draw upon real-world situations to illustrate those concepts. Obviously, "Encouraging the Heart" (Part Six) introduces ideas which Pouzes and Posner develop in much greater depth in a sequel volume which bears the same name. They conclude this book as follows: "We have said that leaders take us to places we have never been before. But there are no freeways to the future, no paved highways to unknown, unexplored destinations. There is only wilderness. If you are to step into the unknown, the place to begin is with the exploration of the inner territory." Those who agree (as do I) with these final remarks are urged to check out David Maister's Practice What You Preach, Tim Sanders' Love Is the Killer App, David Whyte's The Heart Aroused, and Larry Davis' Pioneering Organizations.
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