University of Minnesota - UMN Executive Leadership Insights
The Leadership Challenge
Book

The Leadership Challenge

How to Keep Getting Extraordinary Things Done in Organizations

Barry Z. Posner and James M. Kouzes
Jossey-Bass, 1995
First Edition: 1987
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Editorial Rating

9

Qualities

  • Innovative
  • Applicable

Recommendation

James M. Kouzes and Barry Z. Posner’s remarkable guide debunks the myth of the leader as a maverick rather than a team player. It also tackles the image of the leader as a special breed. Indeed, the book’s basic premise is that there are certain critical and identifiable skills that most anyone can learn and adopt in order to become an effective leader. The authors spell out these skill sets, and list the guiding principles that leaders should follow and represent to their organizations. The seminal book is a mile deep and a mile wide. getabstract recommends this excellent manual to all current and future leaders.

Summary

Mastering Leadership

Abraham Lincoln once characterized the leader’s lonely job this way: "If the end brings me out all right, what’s said against me won’t amount to anything. If the end brings me out wrong, ten angels swearing I was right would make no difference." Leadership is often treated as a mystical, inexplicable quality, like charisma or spirituality. But, what if leadership was actually a set of behaviors and attitudes that you can study and master?

A decade of research with almost 1,400 leaders indicates that exemplary leadership rests upon five fundamental practices and 10 leadership commitments that make the five principles work. If you master these critical attributes, you will be able to inspire any organization, no matter how difficult the circumstances.

Universally, effective leaders follow these principles:

  1. They challenge the process.
  2. They inspire a shared vision.
  3. They enable others to act.
  4. They set an example.
  5. They encourage the heart.

Challenge the Process

One of the differences between leaders and followers is that leaders are ...

About the Authors

James M. Kouzes  is the CEO and chairman of Tom Peters Group/Learning Systems. Barry Z. Posner  is dean of Santa Clara University’s Leavey School of Business and Administration. IndustryWeek magazine named their previous book, Credibility , as one of the best business books of 1993. The authors are also frequent speakers and corporate consultants to 3M, AT&T, Kodak and many other organizations.

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