Reinventing Leadership: Strategies to Empower the Organization - Hardcover

Bennis, Warren G.; Townsend, Robert

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0688126707 ISBN 13: 9780688126704

Publisher: William Morrow & Co, 1995

Synopsis

In Reinventing Leadership, Bennis and Townsend compare and contrast their leadership beliefs. Bennis predicts an end to the military-style management of the past. He expects leaders to acknowledge and reward the accomplishments of others. Townsend wants to see empowered workers have fun while they overcome obstacles. His experience as CEO of Avis Rent-a-Car led him to look for unusual solutions when faced with the daunting task of reengineering a major corporation.

About this title

About the Author

Warren Bennis is Distinguished Professor of Business Administration at the University of Southern California.

Reviews

Are organizations better controlled, guided and directed by leadership or by management? The title of this book gives the authors' answer. The distinction between leadership and management is presented in platitudes, e.g., "The manager maintains: the leader develops." Bennis (Why Leaders Can't Lead) and Townsend (Up the Organization) further state that militaristic, command-and-control leadership has become anachronistic, and that the current downsized, flat-management era requires a new leadership style. To help readers develop the desirable new leadership traits, "dialogue starters" are suggested at the end of each chapter. The book concludes with a 21-day plan to help readers apply the pithy principles. Perhaps some might benefit from such a plan, but readers should be as skeptical of that laudable goal as they would be of a big weight loss in so short a time.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.

The names on the cover virtually ensure this collection of conversations will appeal to the business crowd. Bennis, author of On Becoming a Leader, and Townsend, who wrote Up the Organization, chat about the qualities that should characterize today's corporate leaders. The conversations, albeit witty and wise, reveal little that previous writings and prior authors haven't already explored. The appendix, a 21-day plan for becoming a more effective leader, is definitely no substitute for years of experience and introspection. But there are important messages shared here: the next century's emphasis on intellectual capital, the principle of empowerment, and the transformation of COP (control, order, and predict) into ACE (acknowledge, create, and empower), among others. Barbara Jacobs

Edition details

• Publisher: William Morrow & Co
• Publication date: 1995
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0688126707
• ISBN 13: 9780688126704
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 187