Mastering Leadership
Book

Mastering Leadership

An Integrated Framework for Breakthrough Performance and Extraordinary Business Results

Robert J. Anderson and William A. Adams
Wiley, 2015
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9

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Recommendation

In their introduction, leadership experts Robert J. Anderson and William A. Adams promise that this work can serve as your leadership development book for life. It’s a bold promise, but they offer something unique: an honest and courageous perspective that blends data and science with poetry, psychology, theology and philosophy. Though their treatise is unnecessarily lengthy and complex in parts, it goes well beyond leadership development books that speak only about how leaders should behave and the competencies they need to engage a modern workforce within complex organizations. The authors weave in ex-Harvard psychologist Robert Kegan’s stages of adult cognitive development. Using large data sets that rest on decades of work, they demonstrate that leaders must evolve through these stages individually and as a leadership team – before they can transform organizations or lead effectively. Leadership development professionals will find this groundbreaking approach worthwhile to read and may come to consider the other publications in their field through its lens.

Summary

The Burdens and Possibilities of Leadership

Leadership comes with high expectations that 90% of leaders never achieve. But, if you accept the challenge of those expectations, you can make an enormous difference. Though exceedingly rare, excellent leaders create cultures that transform careers, inspire other leaders, increase organizational fortunes and, sometimes, change the world. Great leaders develop over time by improving their ability to fulfill the “four universal promises of leadership”:

  1. Provide purpose and direction – Executives must articulate the “why” of their organizations. Salaries and benefits alone will not inspire employees to commit their energy and imagination to a firm.
  2. Make corporate goals meaningful to all – Employees must adopt a firm’s objectives and take responsibility for achieving them. Link corporate goals with team and individual goals across the organizations.
  3. Manage with discipline – Purposeful goals matter only if you execute them. Give employees the resources and space they need. Resist distractions by...

About the Authors

Robert J. Anderson and William A. Adams founded The Leadership Circle and Full Circle Group. You can take their Leadership Circle Profile (LCP) Self Assessment at: https://self-assessment.theleadershipcircle.com/welcome. 

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