5/15/2008

Leading Leaders - review

Leading Leaders by Jeswald W. Salacuse is about how to lead people who are leaders in their own right. The book provides good, but concise explanations, with chapter summaries, making it an easy read.

Salacuse begins by laying some groundwork as to the issue of leading people that are normally not used to being lead, people that are leaders or very skilled in their own right (like doctors, professors, executives, etc.). He isolates seven tasks the leader of leaders needs to confront:
1) Direction - How do you negotiate a vision for the organization that other leaders will buy into?

2) Integration - How do you make stars a team?

3) Mediation - How do you resolve conflicts over turf and power among other leaders so the organization can move forward?

4) Education - How do you educate people who think they are already educated?

5) Motivation - How do you move other leaders who already seem “to have everything” to do the right thing for the organization?

6) Representation - How do you lead your organization’s outside constituents while still leading leaders inside?

7) Trust Creation - How do you gain and keep other leaders’ trust, the vital capital that your own leadership depends on?
I appreciated the simplicity and clarity Salacuse gives on this issue. If you really want people on board, nothing supplants the hard work of spending time in personal interactions with others.

If you are short on time and see this in the library, you can just go to the chapter conclusions and have a good sense of this book. Sometimes that sort of simplicity is nice too.


This was an interesting tidbit:
Many languages, including French and Spanish, have no precise equivalent for the English words "leader" or "leadership." As a result, the English words for these terms have found their way into those languages. So French books and articles on politics and management often refer to "le leader" (p 20)
Sweet, I learned a French word without really learning any French.

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