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 Location:  Home » Books » Harvard Business Review » The Work of Leadership (HBR OnPoint Enhanced Edition)December 1, 2008  
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The Work of Leadership (HBR OnPoint Enhanced Edition)
The Work of Leadership (HBR OnPoint Enhanced Edition)
Authors: Ronald A. Heifetz, Donald L. Laurie
Publisher: Harvard Business Review
Category: Book

Buy New: $6.50
Avg. Customer Rating: 3.0 out of 5 stars(1 reviews)
Sales Rank: 882399

Format: Download: Pdf
Language: English (Published)
Media: Digital
Pages: 14

ASIN: B00005REHG

Publication Date: February 1, 2000
Release Date: October 25, 2008
Availability: Available for download now

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Editorial Reviews:

Product Description
More and more companies today are facing adaptive challenges: changes in societies, markets, and technology around the globe are forcing them to clarify their values, develop new strategies, and learn new ways of operating. And the most important task for leaders in the face of such challenges is mobilizing people throughout the organization to do adaptive work. The authors offer six principles for leading adaptive work: "getting on the balcony," identifying the adaptive challenge, regulating distress, maintaining disciplined attention, giving the work back to people, and protecting voices of leadership from below.


Customer Reviews:

3 out of 5 stars Six principles for leading adaptive change and challenges   February 21, 2002
  1 out of 1 found this review helpful

Ronald A. Heifetz is codirector of the Center for Public Leadership at Harvard University's JFK School of Government; Donald L. Laurie is founder and managing director of management-consulting firm Laurie International. Laurie is the author of 'Venture Catalyst' (2001). This article, published in the January-February 1997 issue of Harvard Business Review, is based on Heifetz's book 'Leadership Without Easy Answers' (1994).

According to authors the tougest task for leaders is often mobilizing people throughout the organization to do adaptive work. Solutions to adaptive challenges reside in the collective intelligence of employees at all levels, and it requires those emplpyees to take on new rules, new relationships, new values, new behaviors, and new approaches to work. The authors provide six principles for leading adaptive work: (1) "Business leaders have to be able to view patterns as if they were on a balcony." This should provide them with a context for change, which they should then translate into responsibilities for their organization and their people. (2) The leader then has to identify the essential adaptive challenge(s), which will depend on the leader, their people, and the potential sources of conflict. (3) "A leader must strike a delicate balance between having people feel the need to change and having them feel overwhelmed by change." In order to maintain the urgency, the leader must create a holding environment, be responsible for direction, protection, orientation, managing conflict, and shaping norms, plus he need to have presence and poise. (4) "A leader must get employees to confront tough trade-offs in values, procedures, operating styles, and power", and they, in return, require help to maintain their focus on the tough questions. Heifetz and Laurie believe this requires disciplined attention. (5) Getting people to take greater responsibility and the initiative in defining and solving problems means that management needs to learn to support rather than control. (6) Leaders have to rely on others in the organization to indicate impending adaptive challenges. In fact, "giving a voice to all people is the foundation of an organization that is willing to experiment and learn." The authors use an adaptive change at KPMG Netherlands, a professional-service firm, as an example. The authors conclude that leadership has to take place every day, which means that it essentially requires a learning strategy. The role for the leader then is to engage people in confronting the challenge, adjusting their values, changing perspectives, and learning habits.

Good article into the role of leaders/leadership in change. Although it is an important leadership role, I believe it is only part of leadership. Leadership is more and I would like to draw attention to John Kotter's article 'What Leaders Really Do', who discusses other important issues of leadership. The principles are simple and understandable, but it is too academical to me. The article is written in simple business US-English.

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