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The Undefended Leader
This one-volume edition of Simon Walker's trilogy of books on 'undefended' leadership addresses leaders in all walks of from the home or pre-school to the corporate, academic, political or church offices. It combines the contents from his Leading out of Who You Are; Leading with Nothing to Lose; Leading with Everything to Give. In the first book he examines the formation of the leadership ego and shows how maintaining a front and back stage derails leaders. In the second book Simon looks at how power is used in leadership, based on eight case studies from history, and draws powerful guidelines for leaders today. In the final book he focuses on the leader's vision and examines what has caused the current failure of leadership in the West. He points out the direction in which we need to move if life is to flourish in the coming decades.
- GenresLeadershipTheology
476 pages, Paperback
First published May 9, 2010
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
August 31, 2020
Three books are included in this one volume, written over a course of about five years, but seemingly with the intention at the outset of writing a trilogy. The first volume, Leading Out of Who You Are, is the one that is studied on the leadership course at my nearby training college. It has some helpful discussions about front and backstage personalities and leadership styles, and introduces us to a series of dichotomies presenting/resevered, strong/weak, expansionist/consolidating which will then act as the Rosetta Stone for interpreting leadership styles in the subsequent volumes.
The second volume, Leading with Nothing to Lose, I found to be the most interesting. Taking eight different leaders, mostly from the Twentieth Century, Walker identifies their style according to the eight pairings (PWX, RSC, RWC etc.) that were introduced in the first volume. The analysis was for the most part good and incisive. I do however shy away from Newtonian language (every action has an equal and opposite reaction) when dealing with the complexities of human personalities and social organisations. Is it really true that a PWX leader will end up with an RSC organisation. Surely things are more complicated than that, especially when the leader is coming into an existing organisational culture which may respond differently to his or her leadership style. It was noticeable that all the eight leaders were men. I suspect that Walker realised this and may have tried to think of some female examples. It's a pity that he didn't.
The third volume, Leading with Everything to Give is the weakest of the three. At times it felt like a cross between a Daily Mail editorial and Prince's song Sign of the Times. It is not that Walker's analysis of the present state of Western Society is necessarily wrong, but he does seem to have a very rose-tinted view of the past. His background seems to have been one of affluent village life followed by top public school and Oxford, and this seems to have coloured certain views. To suggest that the UK has been historically good at integrating immigrants because of its strong national story and communitarian instincts feels very wide of the mark. His sources, which are wide ranging, do mostly back up a declinist story. There are other sources out there suggesting that, for instance, national well being hasn't changed as much as many people think. In any event, I rather suspect that the horse has long bolted from his idealistic view of a society in which a national story and a national faith is the bedrock of a confident society. We need to work with where we are, rather than trying to rebuild a past that has, rightly or wrongly, been conclusively pulled down over the past sixty years.
Grouches about the third volume aside, the first two are very good and incisive analyses of leadership styles and how, and when, to deploy them.
The second volume, Leading with Nothing to Lose, I found to be the most interesting. Taking eight different leaders, mostly from the Twentieth Century, Walker identifies their style according to the eight pairings (PWX, RSC, RWC etc.) that were introduced in the first volume. The analysis was for the most part good and incisive. I do however shy away from Newtonian language (every action has an equal and opposite reaction) when dealing with the complexities of human personalities and social organisations. Is it really true that a PWX leader will end up with an RSC organisation. Surely things are more complicated than that, especially when the leader is coming into an existing organisational culture which may respond differently to his or her leadership style. It was noticeable that all the eight leaders were men. I suspect that Walker realised this and may have tried to think of some female examples. It's a pity that he didn't.
The third volume, Leading with Everything to Give is the weakest of the three. At times it felt like a cross between a Daily Mail editorial and Prince's song Sign of the Times. It is not that Walker's analysis of the present state of Western Society is necessarily wrong, but he does seem to have a very rose-tinted view of the past. His background seems to have been one of affluent village life followed by top public school and Oxford, and this seems to have coloured certain views. To suggest that the UK has been historically good at integrating immigrants because of its strong national story and communitarian instincts feels very wide of the mark. His sources, which are wide ranging, do mostly back up a declinist story. There are other sources out there suggesting that, for instance, national well being hasn't changed as much as many people think. In any event, I rather suspect that the horse has long bolted from his idealistic view of a society in which a national story and a national faith is the bedrock of a confident society. We need to work with where we are, rather than trying to rebuild a past that has, rightly or wrongly, been conclusively pulled down over the past sixty years.
Grouches about the third volume aside, the first two are very good and incisive analyses of leadership styles and how, and when, to deploy them.
December 5, 2023
Has a lot of great view points and things to say about leadership. Felt a bit lengthly at times but over all a great read!
April 5, 2024
A layered ecology of personality and leadership in organisations and society as a whole anchored in a thorough study of exemplary leaders in society as a whole.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews