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Useful reminders what
leadership and its partner, management, are all about from eight
thoughtful leaders who have done it.
Book Review
© Dr. Terry J. van der Werff, CMC
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Leadership is or should be on everyone's mind.
This book, or "briefing" as the American
Management Association likes to term these periodic books circulated
to all its members, is a series of interviews with eight leaders
and students of leadership (frequently, one and the same), structured
around eleven questions:
- Do you have a personal vision of good leadership
in these times?
- What do you see as the five or so defining characteristics
of good leaders and managers?
- How does a leader get people to follow?
- How does a leader inspire leadership at every
level of the organization?
- How does a leader develop a team culture in
an organization?
- How do you attract the best people?
- What are the main challenges/issues today's leaders
face?
- How does a leader/manager cope with the seemingly
endless barrage of information flow?
- How do you deal with burnout, on a personal level
and among those on whom you count most?
- Who among current leaders or managers would you
consider to be a model in the current fast-changing environment?
- Will tomorrow's leaders be different from our
stereotype of today's top executives? If so, how so?
Be advised that while there is a certain commonality
of opinion on many of these questions, there are sharp divisions on
others. The greatest contrast is whether leaders are made or born.
My own views are closest to those of James Champy, who said, "there
are pieces of leadership that are innate, that people are really born
with, and there are other skills that are developed over time through
the experiences that they have."
Several characteristics of leaders were repeated
with enough strength and conviction to really pay attention to:
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integrity |
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clarity of vision |
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boundless energy |
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breadth of knowledge |
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communicating through action,
reinforced by words |
How about dealing with information overload?
Decide what's important to know and track. Manage the flow.
Filter out what doesn't belong.
Who is the model current leader? The answers
may surprise you, though it will be no surprise to learn that Jack Welch
of General Electric was mentioned most often.
Without exception, each interview taught me something
I did not know, showed me another dimension to something I did know,
or reminded me of leadership areas I need to work on. Here are
a just few gems that resonated with me:
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"There is no handbook on how to evaluate
risk." (Dan Bannister, CEO of Dyncorp) |
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"We still haven't invented processes
that accelerate organizational and behavioral change. It's
still a five-year process." (James Champy, Chairman of Perot Systems
Consulting Practice) |
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A leader gets people to follow
by "his energy, example, value system, and moral courage." (Mort
Feinberg, Chairman of BFS Psychological Associates) |
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"You can't develop a team
culture; you develop the teams, and in the working of the teams,
the culture is developed." (Frances Hesselbein, CEO of The Drucker
Foundation) |
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"If I were on a desert island
for a year and could only have four numeric indicators of how my
business is doing, what would they be?" (Thomas Horton, retired
CEO of the American Management Association) |
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"People who are running a
business day-to-day without a defined group of people who are evaluating
the future will be subject to wrenching events that they can't anticipate."
(Victor Kiam, Chairman of Remington Products) |
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"Leaders are people who take
you to places you've never been before." (Ed Ridolfi, Vice President
of McGraw-Hill) |
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"Everyone stands equal on
earth, but the leadership position is by definition elevated, which
means the light that gets cst on you casts a longer shadow." (Glen
Tobe, Leader of the Change Management Practice for the Americas
within Andersen Consulting) |
Do yourself, your company, and your career a favor: read
this book.
