A New Definition of Leadership

Books Worth Reading

February / March 2010 By: Rolf Dobelli Volume 8 Number 1

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Leadershift
During the past few decades, the business world has become increasingly collaborative. Today's leaders aren't the people on the top of the hierarchy; they're the people who contribute most to the community. Leadership has given way to "leadershift," in which leaders are members of nonhierarchical groups.
Emmanuel Gobillot, a senior leadership consultant, is an author for thoughtful readers. His books are smart, subtle and nuanced. He insists that you look at established truths in new ways. In some cases, Gobillot demolishes old verities and substitutes new realities, as you will see in his examination of leadership. He shows why the old leadership paradigm, based on "experience, expertise and control," is defunct.
According to Gobillot, modern leaders must change their mindsets if they wish to stay relevant. getAbstract recommends his provocative book to executives and managers who want their organizations to succeed in the new collaborative work environment.

Emmanuel Gobillot. Leadershift: Reinventing Leadership for the Age of Mass Collaboration. Kogan Page, 2009. 256 pages. List Price: $29.95. ISBN-13: 978-0749455316.

The IT Value Stack
Many business people think their information technology colleagues are geeks who speak a language no one else understands. Conversely, many IT people think they are above their technologically ignorant business colleagues.
Ade McCormack, IT advisor and columnist for the Financial Times, is convinced that bridging the gap between IT and business is crucial if you want your company to be able to compete in the future. He says IT will continue to become a more and more important competitive factor. He urges business people to learn more about IT and vice versa.
We recommend this step-by-step plan for integrating your company's IT functions into its strategic and tactical business operations. In every chapter, McCormack analyzes the status quo, the obstacles and the steps you need to take and includes contributions from leading players in the end user, technology and advisory arenas.
Meanwhile, he sets a good example by writing in a style—€”including some tongue-in-cheek asides—€”that IT and non-IT people will find equally accessible.

Ade McCormack. The IT Value Stack: A Boardroom Guide to IT Leadership. John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 2008. 320 pages. List Price: $66.25. ISBN-13: 978-0470018538.

Innovation Tournaments
This is one of the better recent books on innovation, although it has a slightly misleading title. Yes, Wharton professors Christian Terwiesch and Karl T. Ulrich define and discuss innovation tournaments and their possible role in making organizations more successful at innovating. But the title is too limiting; tournaments are really only a portion of what it offers.
In addition to being written in an easy style and being full of examples, the book is rich with tips, models and guidelines to help readers navigate all stages of the innovation process. The authors discuss the necessity of failure and the costs of developing innovations, but they're also realistic when they describe the benefits. They delve into the nature of opportunity: how to identify the right opportunities to pursue in terms of your corporate strategy, how to give employees the opportunity to foster innovation as a regular part of doing business, and how to know when a "far horizon" opportunity is right—€” or too dangerous. We recommend their practical book to managers who are responsible for fostering innovation.

Christian Terwiesch and Karl T. Ulrich. Innovation Tournaments: Creating and Selecting Exceptional Opportunities. Harvard Business Press, 2009. 304 pages. List Price: $35.00. ISBN-13: 978-1422152225.

Immunity to Change
The core concept of this fascinating, important book—€”that people and organizations want to change but often fail because they get in their own way—€”is simple and clear. Many of the stories of how individuals and groups have changed are inspiring. However, some are so attenuated that they fail to capture subtleties, such as exactly how the subjects identified and overcame the beliefs that blocked them. That said, Robert Kegan, who teaches at Harvard's Graduate School of Education, and Lisa Laskow Lahey, the associate director of Harvard's Change Leadership Group, address a problem many people encounter daily, and their synthesizing discussion of learning theory provides a useful framework for thinking about change. They are perceptive about the fundamental mismatch between how people attempt to change and what they really need to do. We recommend this book to managers and executives who must guide their organizations through transformations or crises, and to individuals who want to remain open-minded and flexible.

Robert Kegan and Lisa Laskow Lahey. Immunity to Change: How to Overcome It and Unlock the Potential in Yourself and Your Organization (Leadership for the Common Good). Harvard Business Press, 2009. 272 pages. List Price: $29.95. ISBN-13: 978-1422117361.