by Richard E. Neustadt (Author), Ronald A. Heifetz (Author)
Drawing on a dozen years of research among managers, officers and politicians in the public realm and the private sector, among the non-profits, and in teaching, Heifetz presents clear, concrete prescriptions for anyone who needs to take the lead in almost any situation, under almost any organizational conditions, no matter who's in charge. His strategy of leadership applies not only to people at the top but also to those who must lead without authority - activists as well as presidents, managers as well as workers on the frontline. Here are Lyndon Johnson, Martin Luther King Jr., and Mahatma Gandhi, in triumph and in tragedy. Here too are military officers and soldiers, doctors and patients, college students, and local civic groups.
Format: Hardcover
Pages: 348
Publisher: Harvard University Press
Published: 02 Nov 1994
ISBN 10: 0674518586
ISBN 13: 9780674518582
Book Overview: A superb book for any age, but particularly for our current one, where society is so desperately in need of its wisdom and expertise. Leadership without Easy Answers should be required reading for top managers in all sectors--private, public, and nonprofit. I hope it will also be widely read by the citizenry that is so much in need of an attitude shift on the nature of authority. This book is also very much about citizenship. -- M. Scott Peck, Author of The Road Less Traveled Alive with insights, concepts, new ideas, just teeming with the kind of creative approach to the study of leadership that I and of course many others esteem. In a field in which there has been a great deal of repetitious work, Heifetz strikes out in ground-breaking directions. -- James MacGregor Burns, Author of Leadership Remarkably thoughtful, provocative, and useful. This book will be seen as a major contribution that provides a rare interdisciplinary view of leadership in context. Leaders as well as serious students of the process of leadership and the development of leaders need to have this book on their shelves. -- General Walter Ulmer, U. S. Army (Ret.), President and CEO, Center for Creative Leadership, Greensboro, North Carolina Heifetz turns out to be one of the most thoughtful scholars on leadership. His direct and relevant concepts are pathbreaking. -- James David Barber, Author of Presidential Character Original and penetrating in its analysis of leadership. This is an excellent book. Important and valuable. -- John Gardner, former Secretary HEW, Founder of Common Cause Leadership without Easy Answers should go a long way toward clearing up many confusions about leadership. Long a master teacher of leaders, Heifetz's courses and Harvard's Kennedy School of Government have been standing-room only for years. Read this book and see why. -- Peter Senge, author of The Fifth Discipline