What do you think?
Rate this book
Why Leaders Can't Lead: The Unconscious Conspiracy Continues
A Selection of the Executive Program and Fortune Book Clubs
Leaders beware. There's an unconscious conspiracy afoot, aiming to sabotage your plans and undermine your vision. Entrenched bureaucracy, ominous social trends, and mind-numbing routine are among its members?and their proliferation is an unfortunate sign of our times. But take heart. In this highly acclaimed work, legendary management consultant Warren Bennis unmasks the culprits, analyzes their tactics, and offers new insights for change agents struggling to take charge in an era that conspires against effective leadership.
The best book on how leaders can lead.
--Peter Drucker
Bennis teaches leaders to maximize their virtues, correct their faults, face change successfully, and love their work. Leaders will win, but so will their organizations: Bennis advocates a collaborative leadership that empowers employees and enhances organizational effectiveness.
A priceless gift to those seeking to be accountable leaders.
--Max De Pree, author of Leading Without Power
So learn why leaders can't lead. Then learn how they can lead. This book--alive with warmth and wisdom--is essential reading both for leaders and for the human resource professionals who teach them.
Leaders beware. There's an unconscious conspiracy afoot, aiming to sabotage your plans and undermine your vision. Entrenched bureaucracy, ominous social trends, and mind-numbing routine are among its members?and their proliferation is an unfortunate sign of our times. But take heart. In this highly acclaimed work, legendary management consultant Warren Bennis unmasks the culprits, analyzes their tactics, and offers new insights for change agents struggling to take charge in an era that conspires against effective leadership.
The best book on how leaders can lead.
--Peter Drucker
Bennis teaches leaders to maximize their virtues, correct their faults, face change successfully, and love their work. Leaders will win, but so will their organizations: Bennis advocates a collaborative leadership that empowers employees and enhances organizational effectiveness.
A priceless gift to those seeking to be accountable leaders.
--Max De Pree, author of Leading Without Power
So learn why leaders can't lead. Then learn how they can lead. This book--alive with warmth and wisdom--is essential reading both for leaders and for the human resource professionals who teach them.
192 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1976
About the author
Warren Bennis
102 books124 followersWarren Gamaliel Bennis is an American scholar, organizational consultant and author, widely regarded as a pioneer of the contemporary field of Leadership Studies. Bennis is University Professor and Distinguished Professor of Business Administration and Founding Chairman of The Leadership Institute at the University of Southern California.
“His work at MIT in the 1960s on group behavior foreshadowed -- and helped bring about -- today's headlong plunge into less hierarchical, more democratic and adaptive institutions, private and public,” management expert Tom Peters wrote in 1993 in the foreword to Bennis’ An Invented Life: Reflections on Leadership and Change.
Management expert James O’Toole, in a 2005 issue of Compass, published by Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of Government, claimed that Bennis developed “an interest in a then-nonexistent field that he would ultimately make his own -- leadership -- with the publication of his ‘Revisionist Theory of Leadership’ in Harvard Business Review in 1961.” O’Toole observed that Bennis challenged the prevailing wisdom by showing that humanistic, democratic-style leaders better suited to dealing with the complexity and change that characterize the leadership environment.
“His work at MIT in the 1960s on group behavior foreshadowed -- and helped bring about -- today's headlong plunge into less hierarchical, more democratic and adaptive institutions, private and public,” management expert Tom Peters wrote in 1993 in the foreword to Bennis’ An Invented Life: Reflections on Leadership and Change.
Management expert James O’Toole, in a 2005 issue of Compass, published by Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of Government, claimed that Bennis developed “an interest in a then-nonexistent field that he would ultimately make his own -- leadership -- with the publication of his ‘Revisionist Theory of Leadership’ in Harvard Business Review in 1961.” O’Toole observed that Bennis challenged the prevailing wisdom by showing that humanistic, democratic-style leaders better suited to dealing with the complexity and change that characterize the leadership environment.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
February 9, 2015
READ FEB 2015
The style of this book was more random and conversational. The focus of a lot of the stories were from an academic or political organizational standpoint. That being the case, I still found it helpful and many of the ideas transferable to any organization. May not be for everyone, but I liked it. Below are some of the quotes that jumped out to be:
"As individuals, we need dreams in the way we need air, and as a society, we need true leaders--uncommon men and women who, having invented themselves, can reinvent America and restore the collective dream by expressing for and to us that irreverent, insouciant, peculiarly American spirit" (p. 39); "[leaders] surround themselves with people smart enough to know the truth and independent enough to speak it--especially when it's at apparent odds with their own perceptions" (p. 91); "there isn't a company in America that wouldn't benefit from a little less efficiency and a lot more inspiration" (p. 109); and "each employee is, to a remarkable extent, the organization in miniature" (p. 156).
The style of this book was more random and conversational. The focus of a lot of the stories were from an academic or political organizational standpoint. That being the case, I still found it helpful and many of the ideas transferable to any organization. May not be for everyone, but I liked it. Below are some of the quotes that jumped out to be:
"As individuals, we need dreams in the way we need air, and as a society, we need true leaders--uncommon men and women who, having invented themselves, can reinvent America and restore the collective dream by expressing for and to us that irreverent, insouciant, peculiarly American spirit" (p. 39); "[leaders] surround themselves with people smart enough to know the truth and independent enough to speak it--especially when it's at apparent odds with their own perceptions" (p. 91); "there isn't a company in America that wouldn't benefit from a little less efficiency and a lot more inspiration" (p. 109); and "each employee is, to a remarkable extent, the organization in miniature" (p. 156).
March 6, 2008
A classic of business management in the 1980s.
October 8, 2014
I love Warren Bennis but other works of his have spoken to me more than this one. It also feels a bit dated.
January 3, 2018
It is hard to imagine that Bennis was not prescient. Reading this book, written in 1989, is like walking into today world.
March 23, 2025
At times a little dated but overall very good and the specific leadership content has stood the test of time. Worth a look.
February 29, 2012
A good book would have been great if I had read it when published but now it is getting a bit dated
June 16, 2013
Had some good stuff in it. I would love to read an updated version of it. Some of it just doesn't hold up after the savings and loan crash. Read it for a class.
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews