Leading Up : How to Lead Your Boss So You Both Win

Rating:
Summary: Thought-provoking read
Review: I bought this book after hearing a snipet of a review on NPR, but mostly because of the phrase "how to lead your boss." I walked away from the book with an entirely new view on my position in the company. I found most of the chapters had lessons that I could apply to my role, and it helped to quell some of my frustrations of being stuck in the middle of an organization. This isn't a book you'll fly through, but one whose lessons may stick with you for a long time.

Rating:
Summary: Excellent resource for companies with communication problems
Review: I was really disappointed to read several of the other reviews that felt this book was so poor. I found the style of the book to be quite helpful. The historical analysis of events were interesting and useful to me in my everyday business interactions. My company needs to be able to "Lead Up", let the boss know what is going on without fear, and "Lead Down", to bring in the ideas from all quarters of the company.

Our company is currently in crisis and the book is giving me ideas about how to get inforamtion and ideas up and down the chain of command. There is nothing worse than the image of employees ideas rotting on the shelf while the business goes under. This book encouraged me to speak my mind, lead up, lead down and in general be a better leader.

The book also addresses the leadership culture that promotes leading up and leading down.

The only reason I can think that other people did not get much out of this book is that they already knew about these concepts, or they did not identify with the stories/analysis.

Rating:
Summary: weLEAD Book Review provided by leadingtoday.org
Review: Leaders are not just bosses. In fact, some of the most effective leaders in an organization may be those leading the boss! Leading up is about helping your superiors lead and do their job better. Everyone can lead up. Even if you are a CEO you will need to lead your board and stockholders.

Michael Useem, the author of Leading Up, is professor of management and the director of the Center for Leadership and Change Management at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. His writing style uses detailed cases from military history, politics, business and even stories of Biblical figures to emphasize the need to lead up. I found some of the stories a bit long and detailed, going beyond what some readers might desire in order to grasp the point being made. However, if you enjoy this presentation style, the cases are well written and provide fascinating insights into actual historical events.

Professor Useem says that business has often looked to the military model for lessons in leadership "because of the seemingly impervious top-down authority system." Using actual military stories, the author demonstrates that the military model can also offer invaluable lessons that are just the opposite. Encouraging your subordinates to say what is positive or negative about a plan before you impose an order can often avoid costly errors, or even save lives. Creating a culture that stimulates and rewards upward leadership is critical in today's complex environment where no single individual can possibly have all the answers. Useem says, "The military might appear to be the last place on earth where upward leadership is tolerated, but in fact such leadership is obligatory." Encouraging upward challenges can keep a leader on course regarding adherence to principles.

The book also forcefully demonstrates that redefining an institution's reality is one of the greatest tests of leading up. Changing well-established worldviews is certainly a difficult task, but the very fact that it is so difficult underscores the "overriding importance of achieving it." Often the redefining of a superior's misplaced perceptions, or clarifying a superiors' understanding of a situation requires extraordinary steps. This is one of the greatest challenges to leading up.

Sometimes a subordinate must exercise the courage to ask the boss to elaborate and clarify inadequate instructions or an unclear strategy. Often a superior does not specifically seek this type of leading up. Nevertheless, such challenges can often make the difference between failure and success.

If you enjoy reading detailed, but interesting leadership stories, accompanied by succinct lessons in leading up, then this is a book for you. If you are looking for a quick read of principles and leadership philosophy, you will not find that in this work.

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Rating:
Summary: Trite, Superficial and Without Merit
Review: Skip this book. It is utterly without redeeming value. This book could easily been written on a very short stack of 3x5 cards. Unfortunately, it is about 200 pages too long. I was amused by the fact that it had end notes and an index, like anyone is going to use this clunker as a reference. You will find a lot more management wisdom in an average Dilbert cartoon. Did I already mention trite and superficial???

Rating:
Summary: AN AVERAGE BOOK ON LEADERSHIP
Review: There are good parts to this book. Useem gives some good advice to his readers: you must communicate well with your superior, show him the respect he deserves, and you will get much farther than those who feel they can get away with treating their boss with disdain. Useem also uses many good examples from American history and corporate America.

If there is one thing that bothered me about this book it was Useem's chapter on Romeo Dallaire. Useem blames Dallaire for not successfully persuading his superiors to give him more troops in Rwanda. Useem says that if Dallaire had been able to do this, there would have been no genocide in Rwanda. It was angering to see that Useem would oversimplify such a complex situation. To place all the blame on Dallaire for his supposed lack of persuasive skills takes incredible arrogance and I think Useem is way off base in doing this. From my knowledge of the situation Dallaire pleaded with his superiors for more troops, but to no avail. I think the only reason Useem doesn't point his finger at Dallaire's superiors is because it doesn't fit into Useem's narrow model of "leading up."

I don't recommend this book: there are better leadership books out there. I recommend especially John Gardner's On Leadership. It's much more substantial (and more humble) than Useem's book.

Rating:
Summary: Unsubstantiated anecdotes
Review: This book is just a collection of somewhat amusing anecdotes, with off-the-cuff musings about what these anecdotes might mean. This type of book is generally not useful, because there is no way to tell whether the anecdotes are accurate and certainly no validation of the tatke-aways. The only time they are useful is when the author happens to be unusually perceptive and insightful - unfortunately, this author is unusually not-perceptive and not insightful at all. Bad book.

Rating:
Summary: Great History Lesson
Review: This books gives a great history lesson, trouble is, I wanted to read a book about business leadership! I could only make it half way throught the book, maybe the second half was better.

Rating:
Summary: Good book.....you should pick it up....
Review: Typically when someone thinks about leadership, they believe the flow of power and authority to take a downward course. Although leadership usually gets delegated in such a manner, in Michael Unseem¡¦s book, Leading Up, he recommends that leadership must come from below as well as from the top. During the course of this book, examples taken as far back as biblical times are used to compare and contrast between individuals who were constantly in tune with their superiors to those individuals who were not in close communication with their superiors. I will be discussing the decisions that David Pottruck and Thomas Wyman made during their roles of senior company executives that caused them to dominate or disintegrate in their industry. By and large, based on the experiences of various individuals in this book, it is vital that a person become comfortable with and communicate to their superiors for the overall success of all parties involved in any endeavor.
STRENGTHS
„X Keep your superiors well informed of what you have done, what you are doing and what you plan to do.
„X Persuade your boss of a new course with a path that is right, a rationale that is airtight, and a determination that is steadfast.
„X Step up to a moment when you can make the difference even if your superiors fail to see it and the risks are grave in seizing it.
„X Even if you are CEO, remember that your directors and investors are your bosses, and never surprise any of them
„X Convey intents downward and interests upward, transforming what your superior and subordinates want into what all deserve (Useem 281)
WEAKNESSES
I felt that the author did a good job using actual examples and consequences of existing CEO¡¦s and various other individuals. The one thing that bothered me about Mr. Useem¡¦s presentation in this book was in the example of Romeo Dellaire. ¡§If your superiors need to appreciate a grave threat to the institution but are simply not getting it, you may find it essential to transcend the normal channels of communication to drive home a message that they must come to appreciate¡¨ (Useem 88). Useem stated this as the lesson in leading up. I believe that there is only so much of a circumstance that is under your control and if one was to challenge authority in an unprofessional manner it will not resolve the matter at hand regardless of consequences by staying steadfast. Useem needed to constructively break down what he meant by that lesson. Or he should have given a means to make that lesson applicable.
RECOMMENDATION
I felt that the book was very informative. Although during certain instances in the book, the flow of information tends to slow down because of some of the examples. Despite this flaw, I highly recommend this book to anyone who is considering a career in business or management. This book makes one realize how important communication between channels is in this growing era of decentralized management. Without proper teamwork efforts of keeping internal affairs efficient, any corporation can diminish and loose its competitive advantage.


Rating:
Summary: Another terribly disappointing business book
Review: With a full-page ad in the Harvard Business Review, and the impressive credentials of the author, I was sure I would be pleased with the book. It turns out to be one of the most disappointing business books I have read in a long time. Useem attempts to illustrate a number of concepts with detailed stories from history. The stories are often interesting and insightful; unfortunately, his commentary is chock full of meaningless platitudes and superficial analysis.

For example, Useem writes about U.N. Commander Romeo Dallaire's experience in Rowanda. Dalleire was sure of an approaching genocide, but could not convince his superiors of the impending tragedy, which ultimately occurred. While explicitly not blaming Dalleire for the tragedy, Useem give us this "Lesson in Leading Up": "When the risk is greatest to yourself and your organization, your only choice may be no choice at all. Steadfastly pursuing your mission in the face of personal danger and even organizational ignorance is sometimes both the sole course to be followed and the greatest service you can render." If anyone is able to put this "Lesson" into practice at work, please let me know. The others are not much better.