Leading Change: Overcoming the Ideology of Comfort and the Tyranny of Custom (J-B US non-Franchise Leadership): James O’Toole

• Filed under: Business

Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal
O’Toole’s book is stronger in its parts than in its sum. The author, vice president of the Aspen Institute, offers some practical wisdom about leadership, derived in large part from the lessons to be learned from the lives of the figures carved on Mt. Rushmore; other, more recent “corporate Rushmoreans”; and the writings of such thinkers as management guru Peter Drucker, British industrialist Robert Owen, and English philosopher John Stuart Mill. But these are simply insights scattered throughout the pages for the reader to glean rather than elements of a strong, clear, readily identifiable thesis. Some valuable things are said, but the premises tend to be generalizations about generalizations, often specific in illustration but vague in pattern. Interesting in places but not essential.?A.J. Anderson, GSLIS, Simmons Coll., Boston
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist
Held up as exemplary in a decade that’s desperately seeking a new order for business, in case history after case history of corporations and their executives, are usually names like Ben Cohen of Ben & Jerry’s, Anita Roddick of the Body Shop, and even Jack Welch of GE. But those models just won’t work anymore, says professor, consultant, and award-winning author O’Toole. Instead, he uses examples from art, history, philosophy, and, yes, occasionally business to probe the answers to three questions: Why do organizations resist change? How can leaders effect change? What should the leadership philosophy be to most effectively (and morally) induce organizational change? He concludes that a values-based leadership is the only way to pull (not push) change; that change challenges the psychological comfort of the powerful–hence, the basis for resistance; and that imposing new values and new visions will work only if leaders create followers. A thoughtful essay, not a how-to manual, that will most likely spark discomfort among legions of American managers. Barbara Jacobs

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The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership: Follow Them and People Will Follow You: John C. Maxwell

• Filed under: Recommended

If you’ve never read The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership, you’ve been missing out on one of the best-selling leadership books of all time. If you have read the original version, then you’ll love this new expanded and updated one. 

Internationally recognized leadership expert, speaker, and author John C. Maxwell has taken this million-seller and made it even better: 

• Every Law of Leadership has been sharpened and updated
• Seventeen new leadership stories are included
• Two new Laws of Leadership are introduced
• New evaluation tool will reveal your leadership strengths-and weaknesses
• New application exercises in every chapter will help you grow

Why would Dr. Maxwell make changes to his best-selling book?   

“A book is a conversation between the author and reader,” says Maxwell. “It’s been ten years since I wrote The 21 Laws of Leadership. I’ve grown a lot since then. I’ve taught these laws in dozens of countries around the world. This new edition gives me the opportunity to share what I’ve learned.”

About the Author
John C. Maxwell is an internationally recognized leadership expert, speaker, and author who has sold over 13 million books. His organizations have trained more than 2 million leaders worldwide. Dr. Maxwell is the founder of EQUIP and INJOY Stewardship Services.

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The 360 Degree Leader: Developing Your Influence from Anywhere in the Organization: John C. Maxwell

• Filed under: Recommended

From Publishers Weekly
In this latest treatise, leadership mega-guru Maxwell (The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership) taps a rich vein of corporate angst: the plight of the middle manager, saddled with responsibilities but lacking real power, torn by conflicting tasks and time-management dilemmas, seething with thwarted ambition. As Macbeth shows, it’s a predicament fraught with tragic potential, but the staid, platitudinous treatment given it by Maxwell and ghostwriter Charlie Wetzel drains away the drama. They generally counsel acceptance of limitations. Maxwell tells middle managers to work diligently in subordinate positions, support the CEO’s vision, find the good in incompetent or malevolent leaders, infiltrate their bosses’ emotional lives (”Listen to your leader’s heartbeat…. What makes them laugh?… Cry?…. Sing?”) and “stand up for your leader whenever you can.” They can thus exert an unsung but crucial “influence” over higherups, while themselves practicing a higher, sublimated form of leadership by selflessly nurturing the potential of their own colleagues and underlings. Unfortunately, Maxwell’s practical advice boils down to vague truisms (”when you find a problem, provide a solution”) or clichés (”If your boss is a golfer, you may want to take up the game”). His bland injunctions to resignation, patience and self-effacement are unobjectionable, but also uninspiring. (Jan. 10)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

In his nearly thirty years of teaching leadership, John Maxwell has encountered this question again and again: How do I apply leadership principles if I’m not the boss? It’s a valid question that Maxwell answers in The 360 Degree Leader voted best business book of the year by Soundview Executive Book Summary subscribers, and 2006 recipient of their Harold Longman Award. In this award-winning book, Maxwell asserts that you don’t have to be the main leader to make significant impact in your organization. Good leaders are not only capable of leading their followers but are also adept at leading their superiors and their peers. Debunking myths and shedding light on the challenges, John Maxwell offers specific principles for Leading Down, Leading Up, and Leading Across. 360-Degree Leaders can lead effectively, regardless of their position in an organization. By applying Maxwell’s principles, you will expand your influence and ultimately be a more valuable team member.

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The Ethical Challenge: How to Lead with Unyielding Integrity: Noel M. Tichy, Andrew McGill

• Filed under: Recommended

The Enron debacle, the demise of Arthur Andersen, questionable practices at Tyco, Qwest, WorldCom, and a seemingly endless list of others have pushed public regard for business and business leaders to new lows. The need for smart leaders with vision and integrity has never been greater. Things need to change—and it will not be easy.

We can take a first step toward producing better business leaders by changing some of our own ideas about what it means to “win.” Noel M. Tichy and Andrew R. McGill have brought together a stellar group of contributors from a variety of perspectives—including General Electric CEO Jeffrey Immelt, former Secretary of State James A. Baker III, and renowned management gurus Robert Quinn and C. K. Prahalad, among others—to offer insights that will help build better leaders, communities, and organizations. They show how to present a “Teachable Point of View” about business ethics that will help all leaders within an organization:

• Internalize core values
• Build a values-based culture across the organization
• Become engaged to teach the same values lessons to their staff
• Take action and raise the ethical bar

Successful business leaders must be able to articulate their own unique Teachable Point of View on business ethics and drive it through their organization to ensure that everyone knows the ethical line and is neither shy nor silent if others risk crossing it.

From the Inside Flap
The Enron debacle, the demise of Arthur Andersen, questionable practices at Tyco, Qwest, WorldCom, and a seemingly endless list of others have pushed public regard for business and business leaders to new lows. The need for smart leaders with vision and integrity has never been greater. Things need to change— and it will not be easy.
We can take a first step toward producing better business leaders by changing some of our own ideas about what it means to “win.” Noel M. Tichy and Andrew R. McGill have brought together a stellar group of contributors from a variety of perspectives— including General Electric CEO Jeffrey Immelt, former Secretary of State James A. Baker III, and renowned management gurus Robert Quinn and C. K. Prahalad, among others— to offer insights that will help build better leaders, communities, and organizations. They show how to present a “Teachable Point of View” about business ethics that will help all leaders within an organization:

• Internalize core values
• Build a values-based culture across the organization
• Become engaged to teach the same values lessons to their staff
• Take action and raise the ethical bar

Successful business leaders must be able to articulate their own unique Teachable Point of View on business ethics and drive it through their organization to ensure that everyone knows the ethical line and is neither shy nor silent if others risk crossing it.

Order The Ethical Challenge: How to Lead with Unyielding Integrity: Noel M. Tichy, Andrew McGill form Amazon.

The Trusted Leader: Robert M. Galford, Anne Seibold Drapeau

• Filed under: Recommended

Who do you trust at work and who trusts you? By inviting readers to answer these two questions, authors Galford and Drapeau get their arms around the slippery yet strategic dimension of trust in organizations. The Trusted Leader is grounded in their research and experience in executive development. The authors define three areas of trust, including strategic trust (assurance the organization is doing the right things), organizational trust (belief in the way things are being done), and personal trust (confidence between leader and employees). These ideas are illuminated through self-assessments and definitions of the competencies of a trusted leader. One standout chapter introduces the enemies of trusted leadership, from the big daddy syndrome and the revenging angel to the rainmaker/jerk. Another section details how defining events such as downsizing can build or break trust. The book would have been strengthened by a clearer explanation of how trust inside the organization translates into gaining the confidence of outside clients and customers. Still, in this era of headline-grabbing corporate trust-breakers, Galford and Drapeau define what it means to be trustworthy. In their capable hands, trust stops being an intangible noun and becomes an active verb. –Barbara Mackoff

From Publishers Weekly
With Wall Street teeming with questionable characters and their equally questionable practices, trust is a hot topic these days; Galford and Drapeau have perfect timing with their handbook for becoming an executive employees can actually put their faith in. A knitting-together of management theory, real-life anecdotes and snappy tools and self-assessment quizzes, the book tries gamely to be both authoritative and accessible. Its strongest section is a discussion of the “enemies of trusted leadership”-office archetypes ranging from power-hungry control freaks to underperforming slackers-who can undermine what a CEO is trying to achieve. The authors also share helpful tips on how leaders can handle brutal situations (e.g., mass layoffs) with the appropriate amount of class. Although at times weighed down with turgid writing and an overabundance of lists, the book succeeds in distilling what the authors readily admit is an “intangible:” the essence of great leadership.
Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Leadership Ethics: An Introduction: Terry L. Price

• Filed under: Recommended

Review
“Price subtly examines the justifiability of rule breaking characteristic of leaders from the standpoint of the most prominent ethical theories, with acute commentary on pertinent work in psychology and much else. His exposition is clear, his arguments rigorous, his conclusions sometimes provocative but always worth taking seriously.” -Ed Hartman, Stern School, New York University “Terry Price does great service to those of us who are seriously interested in the ethics (and ethical failings) of leaders. Merging philosophy and psychology Price enhances our understanding of ethics and human behavior.” -Ronald E. Riggio, Kravis Leadership Institute, Claremont McKenna College “With this work, Price extends his significant contribution to the field of leadership ethics. Filled with clear examples and connections to empirical research, the book makes his theory as accessible as it is thought-provoking. This is a ‘must have’ for students and leadership scholars alike.” -Ellen Van Velsor, Senior Fellow, Center for Creative Leadership “Terry Price is one of the most insightful and creative writers on ethics and leadership. He is also one of the few who has something original to say about a topic that that has many self-proclaimed experts. This book is sophisticated but also accessible, based on classic philosophy but also the latest empirical work, and one that will provide students as well as scholars with a deeper and richer understanding of an important and timely subject.” -Kenneth P. Ruscio, President, Washington and Lee University “Terry Price provides a compelling case that ethics still has a central place in everyday leadership. In this age of mounting scandals uncovered daily in the media, emerging leaders will find this book an excellent guide to relate moral theories to their decision-making process.” -Gama Perruci, Dean of the McDonough Center for Leadership and Business

Review
“Price subtly examines the justifiability of rule breaking characteristic of leaders from the standpoint of the most prominent ethical theories, with acute commentary on pertinent work in psychology and much else. His exposition is clear, his arguments rigorous, his conclusions sometimes provocative but always worth taking seriously.”
-Ed Hartman, Stern School, New York University

“Terry Price does great service to those of us who are seriously interested in the ethics (and ethical failings) of leaders. Merging philosophy and psychology Price enhances our understanding of ethics and human behavior.”
-Ronald E. Riggio, Kravis Leadership Institute, Claremont McKenna College

“With this work, Price extends his significant contribution to the field of leadership ethics. Filled with clear examples and connections to empirical research, the book makes his theory as accessible as it is thought-provoking. This is a ‘must have’ for students and leadership scholars alike.”
-Ellen Van Velsor, Senior Fellow, Center for Creative Leadership

“Terry Price is one of the most insightful and creative writers on ethics and leadership. He is also one of the few who has something original to say about a topic that that has many self-proclaimed experts. This book is sophisticated but also accessible, based on classic philosophy but also the latest empirical work, and one that will provide students as well as scholars with a deeper and richer understanding of an important and timely subject.”
-Kenneth P. Ruscio, President, Washington and Lee University

“Terry Price provides a compelling case that ethics still has a central place in everyday leadership. In this age of mounting scandals uncovered daily in the media, emerging leaders will find this book an excellent guide to relate moral theories to their decision-making process.”
-Gama Perruci, Dean of the McDonough Center for Leadership and Business

See all Editorial Reviews

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Ethics in the Workplace: Tools and Tactics for Organizational Transformation: Craig Edward Johnson

• Filed under: Recommended

Review
“Ethics in the Workplace: Tools and Tactics for Organizational Transformation is for any middle-management business executive who seeks an interdisciplinary text considering ethical change agents and their work - and for any college level course on the subject. It uses ethical research results from social science, psychology, social psychology and more and provides modern case studies based on recent events. Plenty of room here for in-depth classroom discussion and debate.” — Midwest Book Review The Bookwatch 20070212 “Blending theory and practice, this innovative interdisciplinary text equips students to act as ethical change agents, who improve the moral performance of their work organizations. -ABSTRACTS OF PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION, DEVELOPMENT, AND ENVIRONMENT — Abstracts of Public Administration, Development, and Environment APADE 2007 20080326 “The book maintains its down-to-earth quality throughout -describing theories/concepts, presenting research data, identifying key ongoing relationships with stakeholders where organizations need to respond to changing ethical conditions.” -BUSINESS INDIA — Stanley Coutinho 20080326 “At the end of each chapter, Johnson presents problems to practice ethical thinking. Practice keeps us ethical as individuals and organizations. That will lead to high performance. Following Johnson’s guidelines is good practice for us individually and for our organizations.” — Terrence Fernsler Nonprofit World Journal 20080814

Review
“Ethics in the Workplace: Tools and Tactics for Organizational Transformation is for any middle-management business executive who seeks an interdisciplinary text considering ethical change agents and their work - and for any college level course on the subject. It uses ethical research results from social science, psychology, social psychology and more and provides modern case studies based on recent events. Plenty of room here for in-depth classroom discussion and debate.” (Midwest Book Review The Bookwatch 20080326)

“Blending theory and practice, this innovative interdisciplinary text equips students to act as ethical change agents, who improve the moral performance of their work organizations.

-ABSTRACTS OF PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION, DEVELOPMENT, AND ENVIRONMENT (Abstracts of Public Administration, Development, and Environment APADE 2007 20080326)

“The book maintains its down-to-earth quality throughout -describing theories/concepts, presenting research data, identifying key ongoing relationships with stakeholders where organizations need to respond to changing ethical conditions.”

-BUSINESS INDIA (Stanley Coutinho 20080814)

“At the end of each chapter, Johnson presents problems to practice ethical thinking. Practice keeps us ethical as individuals and organizations. That will lead to high performance. Following Johnson’s guidelines is good practice for us individually and for our organizations.” (Terrence Fernsler Nonprofit World Journal )

See all Editorial Reviews

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The Trusted Leader: Robert M. Galford, Anne Seibold Drapeau

• Filed under: Recommended

Who do you trust at work and who trusts you? By inviting readers to answer these two questions, authors Galford and Drapeau get their arms around the slippery yet strategic dimension of trust in organizations. The Trusted Leader is grounded in their research and experience in executive development. The authors define three areas of trust, including strategic trust (assurance the organization is doing the right things), organizational trust (belief in the way things are being done), and personal trust (confidence between leader and employees). These ideas are illuminated through self-assessments and definitions of the competencies of a trusted leader. One standout chapter introduces the enemies of trusted leadership, from the big daddy syndrome and the revenging angel to the rainmaker/jerk. Another section details how defining events such as downsizing can build or break trust. The book would have been strengthened by a clearer explanation of how trust inside the organization translates into gaining the confidence of outside clients and customers. Still, in this era of headline-grabbing corporate trust-breakers, Galford and Drapeau define what it means to be trustworthy. In their capable hands, trust stops being an intangible noun and becomes an active verb. –Barbara Mackoff

From Publishers Weekly
With Wall Street teeming with questionable characters and their equally questionable practices, trust is a hot topic these days; Galford and Drapeau have perfect timing with their handbook for becoming an executive employees can actually put their faith in. A knitting-together of management theory, real-life anecdotes and snappy tools and self-assessment quizzes, the book tries gamely to be both authoritative and accessible. Its strongest section is a discussion of the “enemies of trusted leadership”-office archetypes ranging from power-hungry control freaks to underperforming slackers-who can undermine what a CEO is trying to achieve. The authors also share helpful tips on how leaders can handle brutal situations (e.g., mass layoffs) with the appropriate amount of class. Although at times weighed down with turgid writing and an overabundance of lists, the book succeeds in distilling what the authors readily admit is an “intangible:” the essence of great leadership.
Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc.

See all Editorial Reviews

order The Trusted Leader: Robert M. Galford, Anne Seibold Drapeau form Amazon.

Behind The Wheel At Chrysler: The Iacocca Legacy: Doron P. Levin

• Filed under: Recommended

From Publishers Weekly
In a hard-hitting, demythologizing portrait of former Chrysler chairman Lee Iacocca, Levin dismantles the public image of Iacocca as a shrewd, can-do executive and the savior of Chrysler. A Detroit Free Press business columnist, Levin paints Iacocca as a self-aggrandizing, fame-obsessed car man who hogged credit for rescuing Chrysler from bankruptcy in 1979-80, when, in fact, the bailout was a collective effort, with key roles played by Chrysler honchos Steve Miller and Gerald Greenwald. In Levin’s scathing portrait, Iacocca injected flair into Chrysler models, making superficial rather than substantive changes and demonizing Japanese automakers instead of learning from their stunning leaps in efficiency and quality. According to Levin, Iacocca’s bungling, blindness and preoccupation with celebrity nearly drove Chrysler once again into bankruptcy, causing the board to force him into retirement in 1992. This meticulous expose lays bare the gaping holes in Iacocca’s bestselling 1984 autobiography.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal
An account of how Iacocca got Chrysler back in the fast lane.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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