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Sebastian Gebski's Reviews > Leadership BS: Fixing Workplaces and Careers One Truth at a Time
Leadership BS: Fixing Workplaces and Careers One Truth at a Time
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This one belongs to the category I call "Schrödinger's books" - because it's both right & wrong in the same time ;> But at least it makes the reader think on her/his own, which is already a great benefit.
Basically author tries to deal with what he calls "leadership industry" - a movement that tries to send unrealistic & non-verifiable, hippie vision of leadership based on inspirational speeches, aimed mainly for temporal high spirits boost. He writes a lot about leadership crisis we encounter, its reasons & ways to solve it - especially ones that are BELIEVED to solve it, but there's no proof they do. Actually, he spends a lot of time to show that many cases indeed prove otherwise - the most successful leaders are narcissistic (one would say "asshole") individuals.
Another interesting topic is the rift between actual behaviours & "official" statements, e.g. ones presented in various literature - Pfeffers goes through the reasoning of these differences, something I find particularly interesting.
Why is he right & wrong in the same time? Because situations he describes is usually clearly descended (with a full continuity) from the traditional, hierarchical models - these companies & their leaders have evolved for a long time, they have some cultural legacy & they've reached a scale that requires a lot of boldness & resoluteness. BUT it doesn't mean that this all is applicable to small units that emerge from nothing - smart start-up culture built from scratch under completely different conditions. These small cultures (with openness & transparency restricted only to <150 ppl groups) can be incredibly performing - IF proper (DIFFERENT!) leadership values are being applied.
But lets get back to the book itself. Basically - the further, the better. Initial ~15% is continuous whining, neither constructive, nor interesting. But then it gets much more interesting - obviously you shouldn't get it very directly, but rather "filter" with your own experience & judgement, but it's clearly a good food for you own thoughts ;)
If you're about to read just one leadership books this year, you should consider this one. It's not perfect, but it pops up the right issues.
Basically author tries to deal with what he calls "leadership industry" - a movement that tries to send unrealistic & non-verifiable, hippie vision of leadership based on inspirational speeches, aimed mainly for temporal high spirits boost. He writes a lot about leadership crisis we encounter, its reasons & ways to solve it - especially ones that are BELIEVED to solve it, but there's no proof they do. Actually, he spends a lot of time to show that many cases indeed prove otherwise - the most successful leaders are narcissistic (one would say "asshole") individuals.
Another interesting topic is the rift between actual behaviours & "official" statements, e.g. ones presented in various literature - Pfeffers goes through the reasoning of these differences, something I find particularly interesting.
Why is he right & wrong in the same time? Because situations he describes is usually clearly descended (with a full continuity) from the traditional, hierarchical models - these companies & their leaders have evolved for a long time, they have some cultural legacy & they've reached a scale that requires a lot of boldness & resoluteness. BUT it doesn't mean that this all is applicable to small units that emerge from nothing - smart start-up culture built from scratch under completely different conditions. These small cultures (with openness & transparency restricted only to <150 ppl groups) can be incredibly performing - IF proper (DIFFERENT!) leadership values are being applied.
But lets get back to the book itself. Basically - the further, the better. Initial ~15% is continuous whining, neither constructive, nor interesting. But then it gets much more interesting - obviously you shouldn't get it very directly, but rather "filter" with your own experience & judgement, but it's clearly a good food for you own thoughts ;)
If you're about to read just one leadership books this year, you should consider this one. It's not perfect, but it pops up the right issues.
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Reading Progress
January 22, 2017
–
Started Reading
January 22, 2017
– Shelved
January 31, 2017
–
Finished Reading
