Description
Author: Jennifer Gervès-Keen
ISBN: 978-1-91-5529-48-0
Published: 26 April, 2026 by Ideas for Leaders Publishing
98 pages;
Description:
Organizations everywhere look to their leaders to inspire them and show the way, yet many still struggle to attract and keep the right ones. Often the problem lies less with the individuals than with the systems used to select and develop them. It also lies with a lasting ‘hero fantasy’ that expects one person to do it all without a single misstep.
Too many organizations still choose leaders for their confidence and first impressions rather than their substance. They reward their best technical performers with management roles those people neither want nor suit. Leadership development, meanwhile, is too often transactional at best. Hybrid working and the arrival of AI have raised the stakes further.
Jennifer Gervès-Keen founded JGK Consulting in 2008 and is an award-winning executive coach, facilitator and speaker. For more than twenty years she has coached senior leaders and executive teams across a wide range of sectors. That work has given her a close view of why leaders succeed or fail, and of the organizational practices that make the difference.
This concise and practical guide sets out four shifts in how we think about leadership:
- moving from a single leader at the top to collaborative leadership
- selecting leaders for their inner substance rather than their outward presentation
- offering specialist as well as management career tracks
- developing leaders in a way that is intentional and built into the organization
Gervès-Keen draws on vivid stories from her own coaching practice. One is the brilliant engineer promoted into a management role she never wanted. Another is the partner who replaced a command-and-control predecessor with genuinely shared leadership. She also offers practical tools such as behavioural grids and teaming agreements. Throughout, she shows how organizations can take incremental steps towards lasting change. Written in the direct, honest voice for which she is known, the book is a valuable guide for anyone who selects, develops or simply aspires to be a leader.
