Cambridge Business Association
Identity is Destiny
Book

Identity is Destiny

Leadership and the Roots of Value Creation

Laurence D. Ackerman
Berrett-Koehler, 2000
Buy book or audiobook

Read or listen offline

Amazon Kindle
auto-generated audio
  • 0.5×
  • 0.75×
  • 1×
  • 1.25×
  • 1.5×
  • 1.75×
1×
auto-generated audio

Editorial Rating

6

Qualities

  • Inspiring

Recommendation

Business consultant and writer Laurence D. Ackerman has written a deeply felt and poetically-crafted book that explores eight universal laws relating to identity and leadership. He uses examples from his personal life as well as from his many interactions with business clients to illustrate each of the laws of identity. These laws reflect the values and understandings that govern the productivity and personality of organizations. getAbstract recommends this book to anyone interested in leadership philosophy or personal growth.

Summary

The Knowledge of Insight

More than anything else, leadership requires insight into people, organizations, situations, and circumstances. "Without the knowledge that comes with insight, all the courage in the world can amount to nothing - or worse." When courage is misplaced, it can destroy organizations and employees, and even lead nations into war.

The information age made leadership more difficult. From the leader’s perspective, it is nearly impossible to "command" people now because information and knowledge are so easy to obtain and "intellectual capital is now as important as financial capital in business planning and execution." A leader can’t command people to think in a particular way. In identity-based management, there are no walls between leaders and managers. Instead this kind of management applies across the board to everyone. The Laws of Identity show how people, including leaders, come to know themselves and how this knowledge informs and affects their leadership. These laws are:

The Law of Being

"Any organization composed of one or more human beings is alive in its own right, exhibiting distinct physical, mental, and emotional capacities...

About the Author

Laurence D. Ackerman is senior vice-president at Siegel & Gale, an international strategic brand management consulting firm specializing in business transformations. He is widely published in business magazines and journals.

Comment on this summary