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Common Purpose

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Common Purpose

How Great Leaders Get Organizations to Achieve the Extraordinary

Jossey-Bass,

15 min read
10 take-aways
Text available

What's inside?

The command-and-control leader is a dinosaur. The ideal replacement: the “common purpose” leader.

Editorial Rating

7

Qualities

  • Applicable

Recommendation

Renowned business thinker Joel Kurtzman offers an excellent primer on modern-day leadership. Kurtzman, a senior fellow at the Milken Institute and former editor in chief of Harvard Business Review, dramatically illustrates that the aloof, insular, condescending leader is a dinosaur from an unenlightened past. To foster organizations that thrive, leaders must guide and empower, not command and control, as Kurtzman explains with precepts you can put directly into action. His thoroughly researched book is packed with case studies of prominent leaders – both the good and the bad. These fascinating, sometimes chatty stories entertain and instruct at the same time. getAbstract highly recommends Kurtzman’s illuminating, clearly written book.

Summary

Western Union: A Lesson in Poor Leadership

Companies suffer when their leaders insulate themselves from new ideas. Western Union is a prime example. By 1865, the year the U.S. Civil War ended, Western Union had become America’s biggest communications company. With its vast infrastructure of telegraph wires spanning the nation, Western Union was a commercial powerhouse and one of the first stocks listed in the Dow Jones Industrial Average. However, the company had two glaring problems: It was rigidly hierarchical and its leaders strongly distrusted fresh or innovative thinking. These deficiencies proved to be its downfall. In 1879, Western Union leaders dismissed Alexander Graham Bell’s telephone as an insignificant invention and refused to partner with Bell to transform their company into a national telephone provider. In the decades that followed, Western Union also passed on radio, television, the internet and cellphones. The company, bought and sold many times, is now in abject decline and swimming in debt. In fact, “Western Union’s leadership never missed an opportunity to miss an opportunity.”

This cautionary tale illustrates an important lesson: The leaders ...

About the Author

Joel Kurtzman is chair of the Kurtzman Group and senior fellow at the Milken Institute, a nonpartisan think tank. He was previously editor in chief of the Harvard Business Review.

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