Harvard Business Review on What Makes a Leader

I purchased this book because it was a required text for one of my organizational leadership classes. It has some good anecdotal discussions about leadership, which facilitates understanding the practical applications of leadership.

This is one in a series of several dozen volumes which comprise the "Harvard Business Review Paperback Series." Each offers direct, convenient, and inexpensive access to the best thinking on the given subject in articles originally published by the Harvard Business Review. Presumably two of the criteria for determining which articles to include are (a) frequency of reprint requests and (b) significance of the article in relation to the author(s)'s subsequent work. I strongly recommend all of the volumes in the series. The individual titles are listed at this Web site: www.hbsp.harvard.edu. The authors of various articles are among the world's most highly regarded experts on the given subject. All of the volumes have been carefully edited. An Executive Summary introduces each selection. Supplementary commentaries are also provided in most of the volumes, as is an "About the Contributors" section which usually includes suggestions of other sources which some readers may wish to explore. In this volume, we are provided with eight previously published articles which, from a variety of perspectives, examine an especially important business subject: How to achieve breakthrough leadership. In the first, Harris Collingwood shares leaders' remembrances of moments and others who have shaped them. The core concepts in the next article, "Primal Leadership: The Hidden Driver of Great Performance," were later developed in several books co-authored by Daniel Goleman, Richard Boyatzis, and Annie McKee. Collingwood then reappears as co-moderator with Julia Kirby of a roundtable discussion during which six experts (e.g. Frances Hesselbein who is chairman of the Peter F. Drucker Foundation and Frederick Smith who is chairman and CEO of FedEx. For me, one of the most thought-provoking articles is the one in which Richard S. Tedlow explains why and how "a handful of simple principles" followed by seven "titans of industry" (i.e. Carnegie, Eastman, Ford, Noyce, Revson, Walton, and Watson, Sr.) can also be applied by others to achieve breakthrough results. The material in the remaining five articles is also worthy careful consideration. Of course, the value of each article will largely be determined by its reader's own interests and (especially) needs. I have read and reviewed almost all of the volumes which comprise the "Harvard Business Review Paperback Series." This is one of the best but the same benefits are offered by all of the others: Cutting-edge ideas which can have the greatest impact for about 30% of the cost, were the articles ordered separately as reprints. Better yet, they are grouped by common business topic but their authors approach that topic from significantly different perspectives. Most executives should own and then read all of the volumes in this series. Once having done so, my guess is that they will frequently return to specific articles for guidance whenever an unexpected problem or opportunity appears. hence the importance of highlighting

This is one in a series of volumes of articles which previously appeared in the Harvard Business Review. They offer direct and relatively inexpensive access to cutting-edge thinking on a major business subject. This volume provides eight essays, each preceded by an "Executive Summary." The first selection "What Makes a Leader?") was written by Daniel Goleman, author of Emotional Intelligence, Working with Emotional Intelligence, and the most recently published Primal Leadership. After years of wide and deep experience with all manner of executives, Goleman has found that "the most effective leaders are alike in one crucial way: they all have a high degree of what has come to be known as emotional intelligence [which Goleman asserts] is the sine qua non of leadership." He then identifies and briefly discusses what he calls "The Five Components of Emotional Intelligence at Work": Self-Awareness. Self-Regulation, motivation, empathy, and Social Skill." These are the titles and authors of the other seven essays:"Narcissistic Leaders: The Incredible Pros, the Inevitable Cons" (Michael Maccoby)"Leadership That Gets Results" (Goleman)NOTE: Those especially interested in this subject are urged to check out Bossidy and Charan's Execution: The Discipline of Getting Things Done (June 2002)."Getting the Attention You Need" (Thomas H. Davenport and John C. Beck)NOTE: Davenport and Beck later developed their ideas in much greater depth in The Attention Economy. "The Successor's Dilemma" Dan Ciampa and Michael Watkins)"The Rise and Fall of the J. Peterman Company" (John Peterman)NOTE: To "Seinfeld" fans, yes, he is that Peterman."Why Should Anyone Be Led by You?" (Robert Goffee and Gareth Jones)"Leading Through Rough Times: An Interview with Novell's Eric Schmidt" (Bronwyn Fryer)No brief commentary such as this can do full justice to the rigor and substance of the articles provided. It remains for each reader to examine the list to identify those subjects which are of greatest interest to her or him. My own opinion is that all of the articles are first-rate. A majority were later developed into books. For me, one of this volume's greatest benefits is derived from sharing a variety of perspectives provided by several different authorities on the same general subject. In terms of value, if all eight articles were purchased as an individual reprint, the total cost would be $56.00.

This book contains a collection of essays about the makings of a great leader. Some essays, particularly the one about emotional intelligence, I found invaluable. Others, were interesting, but not new news.