I have had a long career as a professor of organizational behavior. My view is that the most ignored and undervalued aspect of leadership is the development and implementation of political skills. Any leader who claims, “I don’t do politics” or “I’m not political,” is not serving themselves very well and, in fact, may be setting themselves up for failure. Whether in organizational life, in the sphere of public policy, or in daily life, we need to overcome the obstacles that impede our capacity to implement agendas and ideas and achieve our aspirations. Dreamers who lack political skills remain dreamers, not leaders.
I wrote...
The Agenda Mover: When Your Good Idea Is Not Enough
Innovation and ideation are both very popular, given the current business climate. These alone are insufficient without pairing them with the ability to work great ideas through the maze of the organization.
According to Sam Bacharach, real leaders have the capacity not simply to come up with ideas but also have the capacity to move ideas forward. There are plenty of great ideas, but a great idea is not enough. Ideas remain dreams unless you have the skills to move your agenda. In this book, Bacharach focuses on the leadership skills of politically competent leaders. That is, they mobilize support, overcome resistance, negotiate for resources, pitch ideas, and go the distance.
This book has become a classic. It’s a brilliant book.
Doris Kearns Goodwin gives specific examples of how Abraham Lincoln was a master in creating coalitions and mobilizing support in the face of continuous resistance. His cabinet was made up of senior and ambitious individuals, many of whom were strong leaders in their own right.
Lincoln had to figure out how to get them on his side and create viable coalitions in order to move his key agenda—win the war and ensure the passage of the 13th Amendment. In many ways, he was not simply a visionary but a master of balancing persuasion and authority—which is a desirable leadership skill.
One of the most influential books of the past fifty years, Team of Rivals is Pulitzer Prize–winning author and esteemed presidential historian Doris Kearns Goodwin’s modern classic about the political genius of Abraham Lincoln, his unlikely presidency, and his cabinet of former political foes.
Winner of the prestigious Lincoln Prize and the inspiration for the Oscar Award winning–film Lincoln, starring Daniel Day-Lewis, directed by Steven Spielberg, and written by Tony Kushner.
On May 18, 1860, William H. Seward, Salmon P. Chase, Edward Bates, and Abraham Lincoln waited in their hometowns for the results from the Republican National Convention in Chicago.…
Any book by Robert Caro is a worthy read. His quadrilogy on LBJ is a study of the ultimate, driven pragmatist.
Johnson, in pursuit of his agenda, was the epitome of the deal-maker, sweet-talker, persuader, and sometime-bully. In the work of Caro, Johnson may not be the most lovable of leaders, but certainly, he ranks among one of the most calculating and determined. He understood that achieving consensus, while essential, is not everything.
Furthermore, he had an appreciation that the appropriate use of power is a leadership skill. With that framework, Johnson had an innate understanding of the structural and legal limitations of the use of power. He recognized the rules of the Senate and realized the limitations of the presidency. Within these constraints, he was indeed the master of the influence game and truly the “Master of the Senate.”
There are lessons to learn and warnings to heed for all leaders who study Johnson.
'The greatest biography of our era ... Essential reading for those who want to comprehend power and politics' The Times
Robert A. Caro's legendary, multi-award-winning biography of US President Lyndon Johnson is a uniquely riveting and revelatory account of power, political genius and the shaping of twentieth-century America.
Winner of the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award, Master of the Senate takes Johnson's story through one of its most remarkable periods: his twelve years, from 1949 to 1960, in the United States Senate. Once the most august and revered body in politics, by the time Johnson arrived the Senate…
This book by Graham Allison (revised and expanded with Philip Zelikow) examines how leaders frame problems, gather information, and arrive at decisions and actions in times of crisis and pressure.
The volume examines closely the Cuban Missile Crisis and the processes which led to its resolution. It was a time of immense tension, and the template used by leaders to make their decisions was critical.
While this book is clearly an examination of how government and political leaders operate in arriving at decisions in times of crisis, there are immense implications for any organizational leader.
Allison offers a number of decision-making lenses that are available to leaders: the rational model, based on goal analysis and utility and best payoff; the bureaucratic or organizational process model, based on making decisions embedded in preexisting lines of authority, precedent, repertoires, and templates that have been used before; or the political model, based on the political, negotiation, and coalition-formation skills of the top leaders—that is, the capacity to mobilize support.
Looking through each of these lenses has utility, but in a crisis, the question is: What type of leader are you?
One of the most influental political science works written in the post World War II era, the original edition of Essence of Decision is a unique and fascinating examination of the pivotal event of the cold Cold War. Not simply revised, but completely re-written, the Second Edition of this classic text is a fresh reinterpretation of the theories and events surrounding the Cuban Missle Crisis, incorporating all new information from the Kennedy tapes and recently declassified Soviet files. Essence of Decision Second Edition, is a vivid look at decision-making under pressure and is the only single volume work that attempts…
We always look at the positive aspect of leadership—the ability to motivate, enhance commitment, and focus others on a core dream or mission. We aspire to the charismatic aspect of leadership.
But, all too often, leadership can also lead to the abyss, to an obsession. It can take your organization or your world in a singular direction—undaunted by reality, dominated by obsession. These are the leaders who aspire but never adjust. These are the leaders who may motivate but, in their commitment and obsession, destroy everything around them.
Ahab is such a leader, and Moby Dick is the greatest book ever written on the obsessive charismatic leader.
Melville's tale of the whaling industry, and one captain's obsession with revenge against the Great White Whale that took his leg. Classics Illustrated tells this wonderful tale in colourful comic strip form, offering an excellent introduction for younger readers. This edition also includes a biography of Herman Melville and study questions, which can be used both in the classroom or at home to further engage the reader in the work at hand.
This book is a must-read for anyone concerned with any form of change.
While focusing on the advancement of science, Kuhn, in his brilliant analysis, brings attention to the distinction between paradigmatic and incremental change. His is the key analysis between disruption and slow progression. In this day and age, when so many corporate leaders are obsessed with being disruptive, we often fail to realize that much of our progress is based on slow and steady incrementalism—one piece built upon another.
Paradigmatic change or total disruption has its benefits and its negative aspects, but it’s an outlier. All too often, leaders become obsessively driven toward disruption while the rest of their organization—their tech leaders, their scientists, their front-line, understand that incrementalism often has to proceed paradigmatic disruption.
Thomas Kuhn is the foremost thinker in introducing this distinction, and he understands the need to balance paradigmatic change and incremental change well. Unfortunately, these distinctions are rarely understood by many contemporary leaders—and specifically in the corporate world, are tossed about by leaders as random cliches.
Simply put, if you haven’t read this book, you don’t understand the difference between paradigmatic and incremental change. This book is intellectually challenging but critically important.
A good book may have the power to change the way we see the world, but a great book actually becomes part of our daily consciousness, pervading our thinking to the point that we take it for granted, and we forget how provocative and challenging its ideas once were-and still are. "The Structure of Scientific Revolutions" is that kind of book. When it was first published in 1962, it was a landmark event in the history and philosophy of science. And fifty years later, it still has many lessons to teach. With "The Structure of Scientific Revolutions", Kuhn challenged long-standing…
Two women, a century apart, seek to rebuild their lives after leaving their homelands. Arriving in tropical Singapore, they find romance, but also find they haven’t left behind the dangers that caused them to flee.
Haunted by the specter of terrorism after 9/11, Aislinn Givens leaves her New York career and joins her husband in Southeast Asia when he takes a job there. She acquires several paintings by a colonial-era British artist that she believes are a warning.
The artist, Elizabeth Pennington, tells her own tumultuous story through diary entries that end when World War I reaches the colony with catastrophic results. In the present, Aislinn and her husband learn that terrorism takes many shapes when they are ensnared by local political upheaval and corruption.
"Aislinn Givens leaves a settled life in Manhattan for an unsettled life in Singapore. That painting radiates mystery and longing. So does Clifford Garstang's vivid and simmering novel, The Last Bird of Paradise." –John Dalton, author of Heaven Lake and The Inverted Forest
Two women, nearly a century apart, seek to rebuild their lives when they reluctantly leave their homelands. Arriving in Singapore, they find romance in a tropical paradise, but also find they haven't left behind the dangers that caused them to flee.
In the aftermath of 9/11 and haunted by the specter of terrorism, Aislinn Givens leaves her…
