Leadership Without Easy Answers

The economy uncertain, education in decline, cities under siege, crime and poverty spiraling upward, international relations roiling: we look to leaders for solutions, and when they don't deliver, we simply add their failure to our list of woes. In doing do, we do them and ourselves a grave disservice. We are indeed facing an unprecedented crisis of leadership, Ronald Heifetz avows, but it stems as much from our demands and expectations as from any leader's inability to meet them. His book gets at both of these problems, offering a practical approach to leadership for those who lead as well as those who look to them for answers. Fitting the theory and practice of leadership to our extraordinary times, the book promotes a new social contract, a revitalization of our civic life just when we most need it. Drawing on a dozen years of research among managers, officers, and politicians in the public realm and the private sector, among the nonprofits, 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 is in charge, His strategy 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 front line.

Table of Contents:
* Foreword by Richard L. Neustadt * Introduction Part I. Setting the Frame * Values in Leadership * To Lead or Mislead? * The Roots of Authority Part II. Leading with Authority * Mobilizing Adaptive Work S Applying Power * On a Razor's Edge * Failing Off the Edge Part III. Leading Without Authority * Creative Deviance on the Frontline * Modulating the Provocation Part IV. Staying Alive * Assassination * The Personal Challenge * Notes * Acknowledgments * Index

About the Author :
Ronald A. Heifetz is King Hussein bin Talal Senior Lecturer in Public Leadership and Founder of the Center for Public Leadership at the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University.

Review :
Leadership Without Easy Answers is a masterwork of great subtlety, and of punch and practicality. Leadership is not value-free, Mr. Heifetz writes… [The author puts] soul and values squarely back into a vital topic, leadership. Ronald Heifetz brings knowledge of an astonishingly wide range of disciplines to this study of leadership… As a musician, a cellist, he understands that the quality of a performance depends on the audience as well as on the instrumentalist… As a psychiatrist, Heifetz understands that communities cannot be pushed beyond their capacity to adapt… These insights give to Heifetz’s book an originality and vivacity one rarely associates with studies on leadership. He illustrates his theses with an extraordinary range of cases and examples… Leadership Without Easy Answers reminds us of democracy’s rich potential. It is a bold book and an encouraging one. I hope some of our leaders are out there learning. Ronald Heifetz has written an interesting and timely book, in which he moves away from the idea of leaders as visionaries and saviors to stressing leadership as an activity as opposed to a position of authority or a set of personal characteristics. This pioneering study constitutes one of the most insightful and innovative approaches to leadership studies in over a decade… Heifetz masterfully presents his new leadership model by intertwining general theory and prescriptive practical guidance through fertile historical and workplace case studies. Heifetz’s goal is nothing less than a summoning for a new social contract that seeks to revitalize America’s civic ethos by adopting leadership strategies to empower the citizenry rather than to merely enhance the authority of the leader… The upshot of this study should place it in the front line in leadership historiography for years to come. Heifetz presents a new theory of leadership for both public and private leaders in tackling complex contemporary problems. Central to his theory is the distinction between routine technical problems, which can be solved through expertise, and adaptive problems, such as crime, poverty, and educational reform, which require innovative approaches, including consideration of values. Four major strategies of leadership are identified: to approach problems as adaptive challenges by diagnosing the situation in light of the values involved and avoiding authoritative solutions, to regulate the level of stress caused by confronting issues, and to shift responsibility for problems from the leader to all the primary stakeholders. The theory is applied to an analysis of historical accounts of local, national, and international events. An innovative and thoroughgoing work; highly recommended. 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. 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. 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. Heifetz turns out to be one of the most thoughtful scholars on leadership. His direct and relevant concepts are pathbreaking. Original and penetrating in its analysis of leadership. This is an excellent book. Important and valuable. 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.