Real Leadership: Helping People and Organizations Face Their Toughest Challenges by Dean Williams

Real Leadership: Helping People and Organizations Face Their Toughest Challenges by Dean Williams

Too many organizations today play follow the leader: the commander articulates a "vision" and people uncritically go along with it. But this type of leadership--what Dean Williams calls "counterfeit leadership"--generates an unhealthy dependence on an authority figure and relies on dominance, control, and group seduction to get things done. By hampering people's ability to anticipate and react to changing circumstances, it creates a self-limiting cycle. And if the leader's vision is flawed, the entire organization suffers.

The true task of a leader, Williams argues, is to get people to face the reality of any situation themselves and develop strategies to deal with problems or take advantage of opportunities. Real leaders don't dictate; they help people face their challenges and make adjustments in their values, habits, practices, and priorities to ensure the enterprise is given its best chance to succeed.

Williams details how to apply this new approach to the challenges every organization or community faces. Throughout, he demonstrates the practical application of real leadership in the real world through examples from his own experiences working with organizations as diverse as the government of Singapore, Aetna Life and Casualty, and the nomadic Penan tribe in Borneo, as well as historical examples and the insights gleaned from his many interviews with presidents, prime ministers, and business leaders. At a time when so many "visionary" leaders have led their organizations to disaster, Real Leadership offers a needed, proven alternative.

Dean Williams is the director of the World Leaders Interview Project, the program's chair, and a professor at Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government. He is also the director of the Social Leadership Singapore program and served as the president of Madagascar's chief adviser for six years. He is the author of Real Leadership: Helping People and Organizations Overcome Their Toughest Problems, which he did research in India, Europe, Australia, Africa, Asia, South America, the Middle East, and the United States.

SKU	Unavailable
ISBN 13	9781576753439
ISBN 10	1576753433
Title	Real Leadership: Helping People and Organizations Face Their Toughest Challenges
Author	Dean Williams
Condition	Unavailable
Binding Type	Hardback
Publisher	Berrett-Koehler
Year published	2005-10-16
Number of pages	312
Cover note	Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary.