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The Leadership Challenge

James M. Kouzes,

Barry Z. Posner

4.05 · Rating details · 12,043 ratings · 433 reviews

The most trusted resource on becoming a leader has been completely updated and revised for a new generation. This new edition includes the latest research and case studies, and offers inspiring new and relevant stories of real people achieving extraordinary results.

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Hardcover, Fourth Edition, 351 pages

Published August 1st 2007 by Jossey-Bass (first published October 1987)

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Sep 18, 2013 Carol rated it it was ok

I had to read this for work, which must qualify as some kind of cruel and unusual punishment. Anyway:

The Leadership Challenge – A review in clichés and idioms.

The Leadership Challenge describes itself as an evidence-based primer on the near-universal qualities of excellent leaders. Its authors state that they have conducted years of research on leadership, and have distilled the data into what they have identified as the five practices of successful leaders.

Each of the five practices is then se ...more

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Aug 05, 2017 Trevor rated it it was ok

Shelves: economics, psychology

Yet another book on leadership that doesn’t really define what leadership is - other than by a series of anecdotes related to people who are presumably successful leaders. The main problem here for me is that it is never clear that the remarkably positive stories being told reflect something other than the story the leaders might want other people to hear or to tell about themselves. As someone who quite likes to read fiction - even if I haven’t for far too long - the one thing such reading has Yet another book on leadership that doesn’t really define what leadership is - other than by a series of anecdotes related to people who are presumably successful leaders. The main problem here for me is that it is never clear that the remarkably positive stories being told reflect something other than the story the leaders might want other people to hear or to tell about themselves. As someone who quite likes to read fiction - even if I haven’t for far too long - the one thing such reading has taught me is that stories can be dangerous things. They can uncover the truth, highlight it, or they can do as much to hide the truth – they can be incredibly self-serving. And that isn’t always just because the person telling the story is nasty in some way. You see, a story demands a narrative arc and that requires a kind of directionality that is often only able to be understood after the event. And we like to shine the best of all possible lights upon ourselves. We don’t want to be remembered as fools or nasty. Rather, it is only after the event that we see what felt at the time like false starts were necessary learnings or incremental steps towards ultimate victory. So, when a book is basically a series of happy stories about success - well, I am left more than a little cold.

Central to this book is the idea that leadership is about change. Having worked in too many organisations where change was more or less randomly imposed - or rather, change was something that was about improving the CEOs CV and proving them a ‘change leader’ than being necessary to the organisation itself - I found this central vision particularly problematic. As soon as someone is convinced that one side of any tension is the only side worth worrying about (change, in this instance) then you just know that ‘consolidation’ is a trap about to come and bite them on the bum. But if success is something that is ultimately defined by where a leader leads you – then they have to lead you somewhere other than where you currently are – no matter how nice that current place is.

So much of this book was about how great leaders find ways to empower those they are leading. And this is something I also found particularly interesting. Not least because it implies very particular kinds of workplaces - workplaces where there is the opportunity for the majority of the workers to actively contribute to the overall success of the company in potentially innovative ways. Now, overwhelmingly, when this kind of ‘leadership as inspiration’ was discussed the people being inspired were mostly people at the top levels of the organisation – second-tier managers, that sort of thing. Only once that I can remember was a ‘lowest-level staff member’ mentioned as someone whose contribution needed to be recognised - and even then only in a patronising sense - you know, we all need to remember the important job the driver does… Yeah, of course. Though, how this person might contribute to the overall direction of the company wasn’t as clear.

The point is that our world is composed of essentially two types of employees. One sort of employee has a series of skills that are costly to reproduce and are not generally available. These employees are often treated remarkably well. Their opinions are highly regarded and they are constantly asked their opinions, the organisation finds as many ways as possible to make the jobs of these employees as pleasant an experience as it can. It offers multiple reward systems, high wages, stock options and god knows what else. The rarity of the skills these employees hold make such considerations essential - and these, I’ve found, are the types of employees who are mostly discussed in books on leadership like this one – that is, employees the company needs to keep and attract.

However, there are a whole class of other employees who are just as invariably never discussed in books like this - and they are the employees whose jobs face the neo-Taylorism of ‘scientific management’. Their jobs are standardised to the point where the employees themselves probably don’t even do all of any single job per se. And their jobs are measured to within an inch of their lives. The division of labour enacted upon these people makes much of what they do personally meaningless to the person doing the work and they have no say in the type, pace or quality of the work they do. Often this lack of voice is quite literal - and with the increasing casualisation of employment this is increasingly true - that is, often these employees are ‘on call’ (yet another ‘just in time’ resource the real employees of the organisation need to manage) and therefore are never available for workplace meetings – neither invited nor welcome. The fact that books like this never make any mention of such employees presumably implies that leading such people requires no skills at all. And this is probably true. The other uncomfortable fact here is that such jobs are on the increase – in fact, the precariousness of most current employment is precisely due to the increase in these ‘gig’ jobs. The course of history seems to be pointing toward either the elimination of most jobs through automation or the increasing automation of the jobs that remain so that they become endlessly mindless and deskilled. This is, after all, the path of Capitalism. That books on leadership make no mention of this makes them read more like moral myths that need to be learnt in theory and disregarded in practice.

It is now about a week since I read this book - and I’m struggling to remember any of the little stories here used to justify the 12 of this and the 5 principals of that. I come away from these books basically wanting to hear about Hitler - you know, a counter-example of leader. I want someone to tell me the negative side of leadership and, if it has a negative side, then how might an organisation (or society more generally) go about defending itself from that side of leadership. I also want to hear some discussion of why we need our workplace organisations to be quite so anti-democratic. Why is democracy such a good idea for a nation, but a terrible idea for a company? Are there any examples of democratic organisations that have been successful - oh, I don’t know - like cooperatives in the UK or even small family businesses called something like ‘I Quattro Fratelli’ or something, where there is no ‘leader’ as such, but rather a more democratic means of making key decisions. The primary assumption is always that what we need is a great leader - but as someone who has watched on in horror at US politics over the last few decades - a nation that has prided itself in laying entire nations to waste (think Vietnam, Cambodia, Iraq…) a nation that spends more on its military than all other nations on the planet combined (I think that is right, but won’t even bother checking) and that is currently lead by a madman - then maybe it is time to question putting infinite power into the hands of one person.

And don’t get me wrong - Obama was better than the current loon, but only a little better. Before he was elected he spoke of disarming and reducing the US nuclear weapons arsenal. He went on to dedicate something like a trillion dollars to upgrading those very weapons. We really need to rethink ‘leadership’ in all its forms. It isn’t at all clear to me that we have much time left on this planet - our addiction to ‘leaving the big decisions’ to ‘leaders’ seems to be at least part of the problem we face and one that is leading us to our doom.

None of these problems are discussed in any way here - this is, instead, a book on the glories of leadership. It suffers from the simple mindedness you might expect from such a book.
...more

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May 07, 2013 Loy Machedo rated it really liked it

Great Content, Numerous Personalities being Quoted, Very Apt Anecdotes, Easy to Understand Principles and Universal Application is how I would describe what the book ‘The Leadership Challenge’ is all about.

What is this book about?

PART 1
What Leaders do and What Constituents Expect
1. The Five Practices of Exemplary Leadership:
1) Model the way
2) Inspire a shared vision
3) Challenge the process
4) Enable others to act
5) Encourage the heart

2. Credibility Is The Foundation of Leadership:
For people to ...more

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Sep 22, 2020 Nilguen rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: business-leadership, coaching

Having gained insights into the complex interpersonal dynamics and best practices to cultivate great workplaces, I have been fascinated by the set of skills proposed by Kouzes and Posner (2007) on transformational leadership, which comprises the following five aspects:
1. Challenging the Process
2. Inspiring a Shared Vision
3. Enabling Others to Act
4. Modelling the Way
5. Encouraging the Heart
The role of values in organizations is a highly researched topic by Kouzes and Posner (2007), whilst th ...more

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Jun 26, 2013 Alex Duncan rated it it was amazing

Fun and engaging book on leadership.

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Feb 24, 2015 Pete H rated it did not like it

A cliched and trite trudge. It is somewhat shocking that this book is in its 4th edition, and is mostly composed of common sense platitudes; being required to read this for grad school is some sort of punishment, surely. To be fair, some of the author's points about the dangers of micromanagement and engaging employees on a personal level are well-founded, but perhaps not a lesson that required 350 pages to convey. ...more

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Feb 08, 2020 Ioana rated it really liked it

Really handy and relevant leadership book, but I disagree with the comment that this is a good read for everyone, regardless of where they are in their career. The content is solid, it brings in excellent and evidence-based points, but these are all things that the experienced leader will already be familiar with. I would argue with those reviewers who said that this book doesn't explain the concept of leadership - it does so simply and encouraging heart and sentiment, which reflects its message ...more

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Feb 16, 2014 Michael rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: finished-collection, read-in-2014

I received more from this book then I could have hoped for. Jim Kouzes and Barry Posner wrote the original version of this book in 1987 but that shouldn't scare you because they are on their 5th edition of this book in which they add new case studies, more interviews with other leaders, and other updates.
Every time I read a book like this I check the credibility of the authors and if you do your own research you'd know that these two are more then credible to write a book on leadership. Wheneve ...more

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Jul 26, 2018 Austin Vosler rated it liked it · review of another edition

A lot the points made are similar and super long-winded. I feel like I could have learned the same in 30 pages.

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Apr 15, 2017 Michael rated it really liked it

This is a good leadership book. I am tempted to give it a five after reading the last chapter, but the bulk of the book is four-star material. The last chapter is absolutely leadership gold? Intrigued? Pick it up and read it!

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Oct 28, 2017 Lindsay Bowley rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: 2017-read-books, leadership-development

A lot of practical application based on research - much different than a John Maxwell type of book

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Jan 16, 2018 Daniel Zaltsman rated it really liked it

The book is great in that it covers a lot of real-life examples of leadership exhibited in organizations of all sizes and industries all around the world. The principles in it are also key to success. I probably could have skimmed the whole book and gotten a similar level of output. Glad I learned that for future similar texts.

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Nov 10, 2020 Martha Souder rated it liked it

Assigned reading for a business school class. Thought it was fine, but lots of themes I’ve heard before

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Aug 02, 2017 Randolph Breschini rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

A great, great book...very practical advice...I thoroughly enjoyed it...Dr. Pozner was one of my professors at SCU Graduate Business School...I advise this book for all my colleagues, especially my friends in Sri Lanka...read it...noodle on what is revealed...look around...look inside...you will know in your hearts who are the leaders! Enjoy!

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Jun 22, 2013 Seth rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Great ideas and insights from within the book:
Clarify values
Good exercise – write a tribute to yourself:
1. What do you stand for?
2. What do you believe in?
3. What are you discontent about?
4. What brings you suffering?
5. What makes you weep and wail?
6. What makes you jump for joy?
7. What are you passionate about?
8. What keeps you awake at night?
9. What’s grabbed hold and won’t let go?
10. What do you want for your life?
11. What is it you really care about?

Write your credo. “This I believe.”

Share t ...more

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Nov 10, 2018 Jeff rated it really liked it

This framework for understanding leadership is by far the simplest, fully comprehensive approach I have come across.

While most leadership tactics and thought schools have value, even the most valuable is not likely to allow for remembering all 21 or more leadership traits. True, each of these 5 leadership behavior categories is broken down into two other and then six other behavior types in the LPI survey, but the understanding surrounding the 5 core value behaviors remains constant.

The book i ...more

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Feb 04, 2009 Jeff rated it really liked it

Shelves: leadership

When I posted the review on Warren Bennis' "On Leadership", I mentioned that books I had started since I had started Bennis' text had caused me to re-think whether or not I found Bennis' text informative. "The Leadership Challenge" was the book that spurred the re-thinking.

Pretty good insight as to how to become a better leader. Lots of good stories and examples. Many of the tricks they offer are easy to implement - being a better leader is as simple as choosing to be a better leader. This book ...more

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Dec 31, 2011 Tina rated it liked it

I had to read this as part of a group project (for a class in the nonprofit management certificate program).

While I think this book provides some great ideas and insight for leaders, I think it could be shorter. It's a little repetitive and redundant at times. I don't think it provided me with much information that I hadn't heard before--though some of the examples were nice illustrations.

Honestly, I've just read half of it--and will only read one more chapter (the chapter I'm responsible for pr ...more

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Mar 05, 2011 Bruce Flanagan rated it it was amazing

I consider Leadership Challenge by Jim Kouzes and Barry Posner to be the best research-based book ever written in the field of leadership.

What I love about this book is that it is actually written for its readers!

Let's face it--very few readers of business books are CEO's of multi-billion corporations. Yet many business books follow the same over-used formula--interviewing CEOs--talking about what they are doing so well--and suggesting that you do the same thing.

Leadership Challenge is based upo ...more

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Dec 25, 2012 Tom rated it it was amazing

Kouzes, James, and Barry Posner (1987, 1995, 2002, 2007, 2012), The Leadership Challenge, Jossey-Bass, San Francisco, CA. A very readable, well-researched, and practical book about leadership, now in its fourth edition. It includes interesting insights about what followers expect of their leaders, and rich descriptions of how to accomplish the five leadership challenges in contemporary organizations: challenging the process, inspiring a shared vision, enabling others to act, modeling the way, an ...more

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Aug 10, 2014 Tanja Berg rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: business, non-fiction

I had a three-day course once, called "the leadership challenge". I thought the book would be similar - that the course was based on the book - and in some sense it was. This book gave me a lot to reflect upon. It also gave me support in affirming that some of the ideas I have been nurturing during summer holiday are worthy of implementation. I've mulled over the content and taken notes. Whether this book deserves a five star rating is something I expect I'll find out eventually. ...more

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Jul 01, 2014 Alaeddin Hallak rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: leadership, all-time-favorite-books

Absolutely the most comprehensive leadership book I've ever read. Packed with insightful practical tips for becoming a better leader, this is a must-have for anyone who finds himself in a leadership role or anticipates doing so. Will be re-reading this time and again. ...more

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May 13, 2012 Larissa added it · review of another edition

supplemental read for my first grad course. excellent. loved the examples

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Feb 18, 2013 Blake Kanewischer rated it it was ok · review of another edition

Shelves: business, leadership

This book was too academic to be really engrossing. As an academic treatise on leadership, it was fine. As a practical manual on leadership, it was lacking in specifics.

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Sep 28, 2019 David Gross rated it liked it · review of another edition

Required by COL Brown. Not a great start.

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Jan 12, 2014 Omar Halabieh rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Below are key excerpts from the book that I found particularly insightful:

1- "Whether in their early twenties, late seventies, or anywhere between, leaders told us that the fundamentals of leadership are the same today as they were in the 1980s, and they've probably have been the same for centuries. Yet the leaders were quick to add that while the content of leadership has not changed, the context—and, in some cases, it has changed dramatically. What is this new context, and what are the implica ...more

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Oct 02, 2016 Justin Tapp rated it really liked it

Shelves: business, leadership

Goodreads' algorithm had this on my "recommended" list for a long time, so I knocked it out. All leadership books overlap or draw from each other; occasionally one, like this one, cites a particular survey. The survey in this book identifies "characteristics of admired leaders" and was done internationally, but the majority of responses were from the US. It was updated in each edition from 1987-2007, without much significant change between the initial survey and the latest. This book reminded me ...more

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Mar 26, 2020 Steve Brown rated it it was amazing

Please note that my reviews aren't really review, they are more like my cliff notes that I take while reading books.

Really liked this book.

Leadership Challenge requires
Practice
Reflection
Humility
Commitment to making a difference

5 Practices of Exemplary Leadership
Model the Way - behavior earns you respect. Clarify values by finding your voice.
Clarify values by finding your voice and affirming shared values
Set the example by aligning actions with shared values
Inspire a Shared Vision - ...more

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May 12, 2017 Roman Kurys rated it liked it

So it was time to invest in myself some more. This was the book I went with this time.

Overall a very solid 3 stars.

Good content, although very basic. Do not expect many revelations, more of a refresher, unless you are new to the craft, in that case might be a mix of revelations and common sense.

What I found very effective for me, was the examples of the concepts the authors talk about. It was not so much high levels stuff as every day situations. It might, at first glance, seem like common sens ...more

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Jul 05, 2018 George Slade rated it really liked it

Shelves: 2018

I really enjoyed this book on leadership practices. It is not and does not claim to be a one size fits all approach to leadership, as one does not exist. This book does a great job of taking you through five proven methods of improving you leadership potential. Although you can never fully engage 100% of the people with any group of techniques, the practices taught in this book will improve your overall quality of leadership no matter the circumstances.

If you want all of the answers, then no boo ...more

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About James M. Kouzes

James M. Kouzes

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“Exemplary leaders know that if they want to gain commitment and achieve the highest standards, they must be models of the behavior they expect of others.” — 8 likes

“Recognition is the most powerful currency you have, and it costs you nothing,” — 6 likes

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