LEADERSHIP: Enhancing the Lessons of Experience

Leadership: Enhancing the Lessons of Experience provides an academic perspective on leadership. Designed as a textbook for academic courses, Leadership, includes pedagogical tools such as chapter summaries, discussion questions, suggested readings, and key terms and concepts.

Designed as a textbook for a college course, the premise of this book is "Being able to analyze your experiences from multiple perspectives may be the greatest single contribution a formal course in leadership can give you." (p. 18)

The book's 17 chapters are divided into five parts. The first six chapters focus on the process of leadership. The next three chapters focus on the leader. The next three chapters focus on the followers. The next two chapters focus on the situation. And the last three chapters talk about how to put it all together.

Chapters 9, 12, and 14 focus on leadership skills and are particularly interesting.

The basic skills in Chapter 9 include: communication, listening, assertiveness, and feedback.

The basic leadership skills in Chapter 12 include: building technical competence, building effective relationships with superiors, building effective relationships with peers, setting goals, and delegating.

Chapter 14 discuss skills such as: conducting meetings, encouraging creativity, managing conflict and negotiating, managing stress, and diagnosing performance problems.

As with any good book on leadership, this book has quotes from great leaders in each chapter.
Some of my favorites are:

"Common sense is the collection of prejudices acquired by age 18." Einstein

"Leadership and learning are indispensable to each other." John F. Kennedy

"Remember the difference between a boss and a leader: a boss says "Go!" --a leader says, "Let's go!" E.M. Kelly

"So near is a falsehood to truth that a wise man would do well not to trust himself on the narrow edge." Cicero

Chapter 9 of Leadership: Enhancing the Lessons of Experience has a highlighted reprint from "Organizational Dynamics" entitled the Abilene Paradox. I have repeatedly referred to the Abilene Paradox when mentoring young leaders, and even some not-so-young leaders. If you would like to know more about the Abilene Paradox click here: Abilene Paradox.

The World is Flat

If you want a thought provoking read on what is happening in the world today pick up Tom Friedman's The World Is Flat 3.0: A Brief History of the Twenty-first Century.

Friedman highlights 10 world events that have taken place since 1989 to revolutionize how businesses operate in the 21st century. He starts with the collapse of the Berlin Wall and the release of the Windows operating system in 1989.

He then discusses the dot com boom, bubble and bust which happened as a result of the Y2K software concerns beginning in about 1995. While the individual investor may have taken a beating in this market, businesses were given a world-wide information superhighway providing them access to markets around the globe. A concept Friedman refers to as "making the world flat." Or leveling the playing field of competitive advantage based on geographic location.

World Flatteners #4 - #9 include:

4. Uploading -- placing your own created work on the Internet where anyone can gain access to it and download it for themselves. Individuals are no longer just consumers of electronic products, they are now producers. Think blogging, YouTube, and Wikipedia.

5. Outsourcing -- sub-contracting all or part of your work functions to another company or individual. Then re-assimilating their work back into your organization.

6. Offshoring -- moving an entire operation, such as a whole factory, overseas or off shore.

7. Supply-Chaining -- horizontal collaboration between suppliers, retailers and customers to deliver products smoothly, quickly, just-in-time, and add value during the process.

8. Insourcing -- allowing collaborating companies to actually come inside your organization and perform functionality for you.

9. Informing -- making all the knowledge of the world available at your fingertips. No longer are you limited by the experts you can talk to. You can Google anything and learn from the best and brightest in the world.

In The World Is Flat 3.0: A Brief History of the Twenty-first Century, Friedman suggests that these flatteners have allowed 3 billion new competitors to enter the global job market. Any job that is not bound by physical proximity is fair game for these new job seekers.

Physical proximity jobs include: mowing your yard, fixing your car, unplugging your toilet, serving your food, etc. But even some traditionally geographically based jobs can be done over the Internet such as: teaching you Spanish, preparing your taxes, taking your order at McDonalds (the food will still have to be prepared and served locally, but your drive up order can be taken from anywhere), and providing you medical advice.

In these economically challenging times, you owe it to yourself to read this book to gain a better understanding of what you are really up against!