Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Vision, Passion, and Prudence, 9 Feb 2006
In The Inferno, Dante reserves the last and worst ring in Hell for those who, when faced with a moral crisis, preserve their neutrality. I thought about that as I recently re-read this brilliant book, first published in 1994. Those who assume leadership responsibilities frequently encounter stiff resistance and sometimes place themselves at great risk. Two of the three great leaders whom Heifetz examines in this book, Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King, Jr., were assassinated. (The third is Lyndon Baines Johnson.) There are seldom easy solutions to the most difficult problems and seldom easy answers to the most important questions. Heifetz acknowledges that great leaders are guided by non-negotiable values, to be sure, and sustained by a deep faith in a worthy cause but they are also realists. That is, they have a clear-headed understanding of the perils they face. Draw up a list of the 10-15 greatest leaders in history. How many of them died of natural causes? On my own list, only Winston Churchill and he was twice voted out of office amidst ridicule and even contempt.Heifetz organizes his material within Four Parts: Setting the Frame, Leading With Authority, Leading Without Authority, and Staying Alive. The book's final section is intended to be a "theoretical framework for understanding leadership and authority in the context of adaptive change." It is important to understand that Heifetz views the subject of leadership in a much wider and deeper context than one normally encounters in a business book. The world has never before needed leaders as much as it does today, in large measure because never before has the world been as dangerous as it is today. (Weapons of mass destruction can accomplish in only a few hours what once took plagues years and even decades to accomplish.) We desperately need effective leaders in all areas of human activity. According to Heifetz, such leaders will probably be ignored, at first, and then ridiculed. When they begin to attract others to their cause, they will be rigorously opposed. If and when they become sufficiently dangerous, either to their opponents or (yes) to those who once supported them, they will be "eliminated" in one way or another. Have we learned nothing from the past? Heifetz obviously has. After almost 15 years of research on those who provide leadership in all manner of organizations and institutions, he shares what he has learned. I wish a higher rating were available. Readers who share my high regard for this book are urged to check out the more recently published Leadership On the Line which Heifetz co-authored with Marty Linsky; also David Maister's Practice What You Preach, James O'Toole's Leading Change, and Larry Bossidy and Ram Charan's Execution: The Discipline of Getting Things Done.
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9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
exceptionally thoughtful and presented, 29 Jun 1998
By A Customer
as the title suggests, there are few easy answers, though we seem to be in constant search for them, and when in positions of authority are constantly being asked to provide them. this challenge is presented through case studies of sanger, gandhi, king, and lbj, and augmented with powerful discussions of the doctor-patient relationship, informal authority in the military hierarchy, and the leadership of william ruckleshaus while at the epa in the reagan administration. the book is amazingly complex, requiring two and sometimes three reads. leadership is defined as something exercised, and within everyone's abilities, in the right circumstances. whereas conventioal presentations often focus on the individual as "leader", a view thoroughly discounted in this groundbreaking text. the leadership challenge is defined as difficult enough that most attempts in exercising it will result in failure, and most successes a precarious balance of holding steady to create the environment needed for adaptive work to take place. an essential document for anyone working in a milieu where change is sought, and where the change desired can only come from adaptation.
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