Leadership Without Easy Answers

I read this book in 1994 when it was first published and then again recently. It is excellent and establishes a philosophical approach to leadership that is grounded in problem solving rather than visionary mission. The visionary hero is a threat to democracy as evidenced by such leaders as Adolph Hitler and Napoleon Bonaparte. Ronald Heifetz draws a portrait of the leader that is far different from the heroic leader who tries to convince society of easy answers and moves people to action through prejudice and stereotypes. The modern leader takes actions that allow people to adapt to challenge so as to survive. The modern leader recognizes that social problems are embedded in history, custom, special interests, and competing interests. This leads to the two analogies that Heifetz employs to draw a picture of his model. The first analogy is that of the balcony and the dance floor. Heifetz says the leader must emerse themselves in the lives and challenges of the people, experience the chaos and competing interests. They must dance on the floor. However the leader must also leave the dance floor and go to the balcony where they may observe the pattern of the waltz and thus reflect on the direction that the community/society is taking and how this may be adaptive or dangerous. The second analogy is the image of the pressure cooker. The leader must apply enough pressure to bring people together to solve problems even if they have competing interests and ideas. There must be enough pressure to bring people to the negotiation table and to keep them at the table while at the same time keeping the pressure from building to the point of blowing up. Adaptive leaderships is far different from visionary leadership. I especially enjoyed the sections on informal and formal leadership and the way these two forms of leadership may join forces to move society to more adaptive strategies. The example of LBJ and MLK was masterful. In some ways this book does support great men ideas of leadership in that there is considerable talent needed to reflect on adaptive strategies needed for societal survival and progress, bring opposing forces to the negotiation table, and play roles of informal or formal leadership.In other ways the book supports challenging times approaches to leadership theory in that challenging times call for societal adaptation, never an easy step for any society to make. If you come to this book with the idea that leadership is imposition of ideology on the masses; if you think Ronald Reagan or Lenin were great leaders, then this book is not for you. Leadership is messy business because it means solving real difficult problems in a world of conflicting interests.If you come to this book with the idea that leadership is based in the ability to motivate the masses with slogans and simplified answers to complex problems; if you think George W Bush is a great leader, then this book is not for you. Social problems are complex and slogans and simple answ

In The Inferno, Dante reserves the last and worst ring in Hell for those who, when faced with a moral crisis, preserve their neutrality. I thought about that as I recently re-read this brilliant book, first published in 1994. Those who assume leadership responsibilities frequently encounter stiff resistance and sometimes place themselves at great risk. Two of the three great leaders whom Heifetz examines in this book, Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King, Jr., were assassinated. (The third is Lyndon Baines Johnson.) There are seldom easy solutions to the most difficult problems and seldom easy answers to the most important questions. Heifetz acknowledges that great leaders are guided by non-negotiable values, to be sure, and sustained by a deep faith in a worthy cause but they are also realists. That is, they have a clear-headed understanding of the perils they face. Draw up a list of the 10-15 greatest leaders in history. How many of them died of natural causes? On my own list, only Winston Churchill and he was twice voted out of office amidst ridicule and even contempt.Heifetz organizes his material within Four Parts: Setting the Frame, Leading With Authority, Leading Without Authority, and Staying Alive. The book's final section is intended to be a "theoretical framework for understanding leadership and authority in the context of adaptive change." It is important to understand that Heifetz views the subject of leadership in a much wider and deeper context than one normally encounters in a business book. The world has never before needed leaders as much as it does today, in large measure because never before has the world been as dangerous as it is today. (Weapons of mass destruction can accomplish in only a few hours what once took plagues years and even decades to accomplish.) We desperately need effective leaders in all areas of human activity. According to Heifetz, such leaders will probably be ignored, at first, and then ridiculed. When they begin to attract others to their cause, they will be rigorously opposed. If and when they become sufficiently dangerous, either to their opponents or (yes) to those who once supported them, they will be "eliminated" in one way or another. Have we learned nothing from the past? Heifetz obviously has. After almost 15 years of research on those who provide leadership in all manner of organizations and institutions, he shares what he has learned. I wish a higher rating were available. Readers who share my high regard for this book are urged to check out the more recently published Leadership On the Line which Heifetz co-authored with Marty Linsky; also David Maister's Practice What You Preach, James O'Toole's Leading Change, and Larry Bossidy and Ram Charan's Execution: The Discipline of Getting Things Done.

If you're tired of the quick leadership fad books (10 steps to becoming a great leader, Leadership Lessons of So and So, etc) then this book is for you. We all take it for granted that we know what Leadership is. Heifetz does an excellent job of questioning our traditional assumptions of leadership by making a distinction between leadership and positions of authority. Too often we mistaken positions of authority as being leaders but in reality we all know many people who are leaders who aren't in positions of authority as well as people who are in positions of authority that we would never consider to be leaders.Authority is confered power to perform a service - it's an expectation or a series of expectations. In this way, authority can be given and taken away. Heifetz describes two different kinds of authority: formal and informal. Formal authority is given to a person through a contract, job description, legislation, etc. Informal authority is given or taken away by the community to the person in authority - often its unspoken expecations. You can see this interaction all the time - for instance a teacher has the formal authority to instruct the class but students may not give the teacher the authority (informal) to do that and will not pay attention. Often you have to increase your informal authority in order to exercise your formal authority. In the work place you can see this play out too where a person may have positional authority but the subordinates don't respect that authority.Heifetz explores leadership with a number of psychology tools. For instance, he makes constant reference to a "holding environment" which has it orgins in psychoanalysis. A holding environment consists of any relationship in which one party has the power to hold the attention of another party and facilitate adaptive work.This is crucial in Heifetz's view of leadership in that a leader is someone who mobilizes a person or community to confront difficult issues/problems and to determine solutions. Often, people or a community will look to the leader to solve a problem but rarely are clear answers and solutions available. A leader must facilitate the community wrestling with the deeper issues rather than just simply trying to fix everything with simple answers. The issue of violence in schools is an example. While people look to positions of authority to solve the problem through gun control, school safety programs, etc. - those are all technical answers for something that is truly an adaptive problem for the community. It is a challenge to have the community question its own attitudes, actions, behavior, or beliefs.Heifetz uses the rest of the book to describe adaptive leadership with examples ranging from civil rights to political decisions leading to war. It is an amazing exploration of leadership with Heifetz articulating different aspects of leadership that haven't been described before.Again, this is not a step by step approach to leadership, but rather taking

Heifetz creates a psychological-social-political theory of leadership, which he defines as "an activity" that allows for "adaptive work." Leadership is the work that points out discrepancies beetween what we say we do, and what we actually do; or between our values (democracy, inclusion) and our actions. Leadership ultimately involves reconciling our values to our behavior. Leadership is not merely finding "technical" solutions to "adaptive problems," but, instead, is about finding more congruence (for both leaders and followers) between what they say and hope, and what they do.The author's writing is very clear.I most liked his simple phrasing of complex issues; how the threads through the incomplete theories of leadership (Carlyle, James MacGregor Burns); his practical orientation; his emphasis on followers' responsibility; his way of describing how leadership fails; and his notions of leadership succession. I also liked that this is not a "how to do" leadership book (the "ten best ways to be a leader" genre) aimed at a particular audience (business leaders, educational leaders), but, instead, is a thought-provoking discussion of ideas about leadership.