James M. Kouzes and Barry Z. Posner, The Truth About Leadership: The No-fads, Heart-of-the-Matter Facts You Need to Know. Jossey-Bass, 2010.
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LifeandLeadership.com Summary
This contextualizes the authors’ best-selling volumes, The Leadership Challenge and Credibility into the current leadership context. It is addressed to younger, emerging leaders of the millennial generation who face different circumstances in context (global terrorism, global warming, scarcity of resources), the workforce (multicultural, dispersed, horizontal, distributed, and requiring more collaboration), etc.
It is based on an additional layer of research from their previous volumes, primarily the over 1 million responses to the Leadership Practices Inventory and several focus groups of millennials. They are presented with the following scenario: “Imagine you’re sitting in a meeting with a group of your colleagues. The door to the conference room opens. In walks someone you’ve never met before, and that person says, ‘Hi, I’m your new leader.’ What questions immediately come to mind that you want to ask this person?”
They found that this generation and the ones before them all expected the same thing of leaders. Since 30 years of research have yielded the same results, they now call their findings “the truth about leadership.” They say many of the same things as in their previous volumes, but with more boldness, stronger data, and global and cross-generational support.
The book develops these ten truths:
1. You Make a Difference: Before you lead, you have to believe you can have a positive impact on others. You have to believe in yourself.
2. Credibility is the Foundation of Leadership: You have to believe in you, but others have to believe in you, too.
3. Values Drive Commitment: People want to know what you stand for and believe in.
4. Focusing on the Future Sets Leaders Apart: The capacity to imagine and articulate exciting future possibilities is the defining competence in leaders.
5. You Can’t Do It Alone: No leader ever got anything extraordinary done without the talent and support of others.
6. Trust Rules: Trust is the social glue that holds individuals and groups together.
7. Challenge Is the Crucible of Greatness: Adversity and change bring you face-to-face with your level of commitment, your grittiness, and your values.
8. You Either Lead by Example, or You Don’t Lead at All: You can’t ask others to do something you aren’t willing to do yourself.
9. The Best Leaders are the Best Learners: You have to believe that you (and others) can learn to lead, and that you can become a better leader tomorrow than they are today.
10. Leadership is an Affair of the Heart: Leaders are in love with their constituents, their customers and clients, and the mission that they are serving.
From the Publisher
In these turbulent times when the very foundations of organizations and societies are being shaken, leaders need to move beyond the pessimistic predictions, the trendy fads, and the simplistic solutions. They need to turn to what’s real and what’s proven, to understand what the evidence tells us about how exemplary leaders get extraordinary things done. This is the imperative that bestselling, award-winning authors James M. Kouzes and Barry Z. Posner have undertaken in their engaging, personal, and bold new book, The Truth About Leadership.
Based on thirty years of research – and more than one million responses to Kouzes and Posner’s leadership assessment – this all-new work explores the fundamental, enduring truths of leadership that hold constant regardless of context or circumstance. In ten time-tested truths, Kouzes and Posner reveal what all leaders must know, the questions they must be prepared to answer, and the real-world issues they will likely face.
For nearly three decades, Kouzes and Posner’s The Leadership Challenge has helped people discover and develop their leadership potential. The Truth About Leadership will show emerging leaders the heart of leadership and what they need to know to be effective; fans of The Leadership Challenge will find a dynamic new look at what it means to lead today. This is a book leaders can use to do their real and necessary work – bringing about the essential changes that will renew organizations and communities.
About the Authors
James M. Kouzes is the Dean’s Executive Professor of Leadership, Leavey School of Business at Santa Clara University, and one of the leading executive educators in the United States.
Barry Z. Posner is Professor of Leadership at Santa Clara University, where he served as Dean of the Leavey School of Business for twelve years (1996-2009).
Together, they are the bestselling authors of The Leadership Challenge, A Leader’s Legacy, Credibility, Encouraging the Heart, The Leadership Challenge Workbook, and over a dozen other books and workbooks on leadership. They also developed the highly acclaimed Leadership Practices Inventory (LPI), a 360-degree assessment tool based on The Five Practices. They are among the most sought-after scholars and educators on the subjects of leadership and leadership development.
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