Breaking the Zero-Sum Game: Transforming Societies Through Inclusive Leadership (Building Leadership Bridges)

In a world plagued by wicked problems, escaping the win-lose dynamics of zero-sum game approaches is crucial for finding integrated, inclusive solutions to complex issues. In this book, the reader will uncover real-life examples of inclusive leaders that have broken the zero-sum game. From Ivy League colleges to African villages, from the very top of the Catholic Church to anarchist conferences and meetings, inclusive leadership can be applied – and the protagonists will tell you how.
As the examples in the book demonstrate, inclusive leadership is not the privilege of a few gifted individuals with extraordinary human qualities. Inclusive leaders are not necessarily charismatic (like Nelson Mandela, Gandhi, or Martin Luther King, Jr). The vast majority of inclusive leaders are just regular everyday people. They only differ ― and what a difference it makes! ― in being able to turn what seem to be zero-sum problems into opportunities for inclusiveness.
Including a foreword from Edwin Hollander, a pioneering visionary of inclusive leadership, you will find concrete examples and tools in this book that you can start using from day one (and in your own way) as an inclusive leader.

"The ambition of this excellent whole volume coupled with the passion in the individual chapters provides a stunning journey from authenticity to Ubuntu, from building to transforming, from China to the Congo and from work in the academy to practice in the field. Resonating with both scholars and practitioners, the book carefully establishes inclusivity as a terrain and challenges leaders to take a stand, embrace the core message, and help bring about the transformations we all seek in our organizations and communities."
- Professor Mike Hardy CMG OBE, Centre for Trust, Peace and Social Relations at Coventry University UK, Professor and Executive Director

"In all my years as a public servant, I have been looking for the holy grail of getting an organizational consensus built and getting people rowing in the same direction to achieve a common vision. This cutting-edge volume provides a roadmap of constructing an inclusive and diverse culture in all sectors of society that both leaders and aspiring ones can profit from."
- Ambassador Eric M. Bost (Ret), Former US Ambassador to the Republic of South Africa, Associate Director of the Borlaug Institute at Texas A & M

"This book arrives at just the right moment for me: No amount of rejiggering the old theories of leadership offers solace or guidance to an increasingly dystopian and foreboding future. A new framework is needed, but what is it? This robust collection of international authors offers fresh new paradigms, yes, but also new pedagogy, practice, and possibilities for more inclusive, diverse, and democratic societies."
--Georgia Jones Sorenson, Ph.D., Churchill College, University of Cambridge, Møller Leadership Scholar and By Fellow

"The editors and authors of Breaking the Zero-Sum Game have created a persuasive case for inclusive leadership, mobilizing the many for shared purpose rather than a few for private gain. With an assemblage of studies, applications, and cases, Aldo Boitano, Raúl Lagomarsino Dutra, and H. Eric Schockman make a compelling case for leadership that speaks to all and seeks the common good, a vital calling at a time when the opposite seems ascendant in some quarters."
--Michael Useem, Leadership Center, Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania, Professor of Management and Director

Our world is in desperate need of a different leadership role model. This is a brilliant and important book for today's and tomorrow's leaders around the globe. Inclusive leadership, with its emphasis on humility, respect, and working together for the greater good, is the embodiment of a servant leadership culture. I believe it is the only way to create both great results and great human satisfaction. Read Breaking the Zero Sum Game, apply its unifying message to your life and work, and pass it along to others.
-- Ken Blanchard, coauthor of The New One Minute Manager® and Servant Leadership in Action

Contributors from leadership studies and other fields explore theories and best practices that can transform societies into more inclusive, diverse, and democratic entities. They cover pushing the boundaries of inclusiveness, trials of breaking the zero-sum game, spiritual inclusiveness, inclusiveness and diversity in higher education, and inclusiveness in the field. Among their topics are troubling and reconstructing the discourse of inclusion, harmony but not sameness: the inclusive leadership style of the Chinese profound persons, whether inclusive leadership is a Western concept or a strategy that will transform the world, building inclusive leaders: a critical framework for leadership education, and striving for horizontality by addressing power differentials in radical organizing. --Annotation ©2017 Ringgold Inc. Portland, OR (protoview.com)