While the focus in Barbara Banda’s book is on black leaders, the stories shared are not entirely unlike the experiences endured by other communities in the workplace. As a reader, expect to learn the following from stories shared in The Model Black: The Model Black is a rich source of practical advice, both for leaders […]
At the start of this short book Grint explores the old saw, the difference between leadership and management. He is quite direct in tackling this. Leaders are there to resolve emerging, unknown problems, most probably ‘wicked’ ones. That is those which do not have clear, linear solutions. If there is a known resolution to a problem, if […]
The route to hubris a beguiling and the authors depict that in an all too familiar mini case study, which is worth repeating in full here: In times of crisis, high-risk or a threat from external forces, such as a sudden hostile takeover bid, a company will look to the CEO to step up to […]
At the heart of this book is Parkes’s distinction between ‘single-site’ leaders and ‘multi-site’ leaders. If we are to track a leader’s career progression at some point fairly early on in their leadership journey they will move from managing and leading a team that is close to them, to one which is more dispersed, at […]
Tett applies a three-part set of principles of the anthropologist’s mindset to structure the book: Make the ‘strange’ familiar – cultivate a mindset of emapthy for strangers and value diversity Make the ‘familiar’ strange – question and explore our own environment and context with fresh eyes to identify what is strange about our own worlds – […]
Joly is one of those business people who has more depth than we tend to expect in corporate leaders these days. His shift from hard, accounting-led corporate strategy to a more holistic, purpose-led approach started quite early on in his career, through conversations with the French businessman, Jean-Marie Descarpentries who held leadership roles at Danone […]
The authors have identified eight core traits that factor how much messaging power people have. Four of these are grouped as traits of Hard Messengers, and four of Soft Messengers. Hard messengers are those with status, whether that be through being the boss (hierarchical), successful (rich or famous) or lucky (attractive in some respect). The […]
Economic growth in the last two centuries has been based upon the concept that business and the economy are a ‘perfectible machine’, which with ever-more finely calibrated tweaks will increase prosperity for the majority (the middle-classes) as well as the poor and the rich. In the four decades since the US bicentennial in 1976 (his […]
Bureaucracy according to the authors 'grants excessive credence to the views of precedent-bound leaders, discourages rebellious thinking, creates lags between sense-and-respond, frustrates the rapid deployment of resources, discourages risk-taking, politicizes decision-making, undermines frontline capability and blinds silo-dwelling leaders to new opportunities,' and yet it is very firmly embedded. So how do you get rid of […]
In a leadership world that is increasingly focused on the idea that leaders need to be focused on the people (a view Ideas for Leaders is generally in strong support of), Trevor throws a rock in the pond, and causes some necessary ripples (dissenting voices is something leaders need to listen out for). He posits that Enterprise […]
