The Leader of the Future 2: Visions, Strategies, and Practices for the New Era

1. The leader can create a new organization with new procedures, but the formation of culture requires collective learning and repeated experiences of success or failure. 2. It is no accident when a "turn around manager" arrives, the top layers of management are usually replaced and massive reorganization occurs. These drastic measures destroy old culture and initiate a new culture building process by removing the people who carry and represent the old culture. The destruction of culture is extremely costly on human level. The new people have to start building process all over and it is not even clear whether this is possible. 3. An organization built on individual incentives cannot become a set of teams simply because the CEO announces that teamwork is now necessary and launches a team-building program. However, if the CEO understands culture dynamics, he or she will begin to reward individuals for helping others and for contributing to other projects, thereby acknowledging the deep individualism of the organization but broadening the concept of individual competence to increasingly include "working with others". 4. Leaders cannot arbitrarily change culture in the sense of eliminating dysfunctional elements. Leaders can evolve culture by building on its strength while letting its weaknesses atrophy over time. If an organization is successful over time and has evolved mental models based on these methods, they will not abandon the mental model. The leader jobs is too broaden the Mental models. Focus should include developing new standards of judgment and evaluation so that competitive behavior is viewed as more negative and cooperative behavior more positive. 5. Management development is typically very function in young organizations. For example, the organization may promote the people most likely to be entrepreneur or who are technically the most competent, rather than seek out people who have managerial talent. Founder builders often glorify the technical functions such as research and development, manufacturing, and sales and demean managerial functions such as finance, planning, marketing, and human resources. Potential successors may be blocked from taking over and gaining learning experiences. Successful leaders at this stage grow with the organization and change their own outlook or recognize their own limitations and permit other forms of leadership to emerge. 6. The leader builds culture in one of three ways: a) by hiring and keeping subordinates who think and feel the way they do; b) by indoctrinating and socialize subordinates to think and feel as they do; c) by establishing a role model that encourages subordinates to identify with them and thereby internalize their beliefs, values, and assumptions. Additional Thoughts about building culture: 1. Culture is not arbitrarily changed. Culture is evolved by building on strengths, broadening mental models of successful methods and processes 2. Get back to understanding what the

Once again, Marshall Goldsmith and Frances Hesselbein have provided readers with an essential guide to the biggest challenges and the best thinking of thought leaders and practitioners in the field of leadership. In a world in great need of leadership, this book provides an array of outstanding contributions from those who have shaped and inspired this field. This book provides a superb addition to the libraries of all those who care deeply about leadership -- and who among us does not (or should not)? Rachelle J. Canter, Ph.D.

An awesome collection! Jim Kouzes, Peter Senge, Edgar Schein. A great list of contributors. Some of the very best thinking on leadership, strategic thinking, and change. Senge's article on the basic fundamentals for sound leadership in a changing world is nearly worth the price of the book on its own. If that article isn't enough, Edgar Schein's contribution on leadership competencies is just excellent. You'll find yourself rethinking a number of assumptions about what leaders do.

The Leader to Leader Institute, formerly known as the Peter F. Drucker Foundation, pioneered the field of Leadership with its first book, The Leader of the Future. Ten years have gone by but the world faces even more daunting challenges--from war on terror to natural disasters to enormous demographic shifts--and we more than ever witness failures in leadership as the main culprit for many social ills. The Leader of the Future 2 revisits the subject of leadership with many returning thought leaders--such as Charles Handy, Stephen Covey, Peter Senge--and introduces many new thought leaders including General Eric Shinseki and Joseph Maciariello. Each chapter is concise and leadership is viewed from many different aspects--from Jan Masaoka's view as women executive director of color to Jeff Pfeffer's leaders as professors--and is meant to be ready without any particular order. For the new challenges our complex organizations face today, we need new set of ideas. The Leader of the Future 2 is a book leaders at every level should read as the definitive text on Leadership.

As someone who has been a leader at a nonprofit organization for over fifteen years, I can attest to the difficulty of finding leadership books that are relevant beyond the corporate sector. The editors have filled a critical gap by producing this book. The range of contributors in this book is phenomenal, and each article provides information that is pertinent for every leader, regardless of industry. If you want to understand the challenges and opportunities of leading an organization in today's world, pick up this book. For those in the nonprofit world (or the social sector, as it is called in the book), this book features articles from heavyweights like Jan Masaoka and Brian O'Connell. It's rare to see nonprofit leaders listed alongside primarily business thinkers like Noel Tichey and Peter Senge, but it should happen more often. But this book really is for all leaders. Being who I am, I am grateful that someone has finally recognized that nonprofit leaders belong alongside these other management luminaries. However, I will recommend it to all of our board members, senior management, and corporate partners. Great book!