When leading change in organizations, the primary role for leadership is to unbalance the force. Leaders need to influence followers to see the reasons to change, strengthen the helping forces in the process. If leaders fail to unbalance the force, the change effort simply will not occur.

Lewin, K. (1951). Field Theory in Social Science. New York, NY: Harper & Row.

• July 21, 2010 -- How Strengths-Based Leadership Affects Teams (4)
• July 20, 2010 -- Book Review: Start With Why (0)
• July 19, 2010 -- Ronald Heifetz on Adaptive Leadership (0)
• July 16, 2010 -- What Makes a Great Leadership Team? (0)
• July 14, 2010 -- EBM: Transformational Leadership (0)

The book itself is organized into ten chapters, each chapter covering a different quality. The chapters are organized around standardized questions: “What is it?” “How do you know it when you see it?” and “How do I get it?” This format makes the content very easy to absorb, a plus for time-strapped leaders. While the book cites a wealth of leadership and theory, it does so in order to expound upon these ten qualities. No real indication of how the research methods behind the creation of this list is given. It’s unclear whether this is a definitive list, or the author’s opinion on which qualities matter most.

To the well-read leader, there is not much new in this book. However, the book presents a useful review of the literature surrounding leadership which serve as a primer or reminder. Overall, The Intangibles of Leadership, is worth a read either to learn or relearn the subtleties of leadership excellence.

• July 20, 2010 -- Book Review: Start With Why (0)
• July 13, 2010 -- Book Review: Multipliers (0)
• June 8, 2010 -- Book Review: Delivering Happiness (0)
• June 1, 2010 -- Book Review: Classic Wisdom for the Professional Life (2)
• May 25, 2010 -- Book Review: Open Leadership (0)

LeaderSkilz – ‘Trust’ from The Soderquist Center on Vimeo.

• July 19, 2010 -- Ronald Heifetz on Adaptive Leadership (0)
• July 12, 2010 -- Alan Dershowitz’s Big Question (0)
• June 28, 2010 -- LeaderSkilz “Encouragement” – VideoMonday (0)
• June 22, 2010 -- Maritz Study on Employee Distrust for Leadership (0)
• June 21, 2010 -- David Logan on tribal leadership (0)

Why I Put My Employees Ahead of My Customers – Forbes.com.

• July 16, 2010 -- What Makes a Great Leadership Team? (0)
• July 9, 2010 -- Competitive Theory and Business Legitimacy (0)
• July 2, 2010 -- Does Leadership Matter? (0)
• June 25, 2010 -- Leadership is a Process, not a Role (0)
• June 18, 2010 -- Leading or Managing (3)

If you have bought the prevailing wisdom that managing the strengths of individual group members is the best way to manage your group, you could be making a big mistake. This study found that if you provide highly differentiated leadership to each member of your group, you will indeed increase the individual self-efficacy of those individual members. But the increased individual self-efficacy had a negative effect on the group’s collective efficacy, and a negative effect on the group’s effectiveness.

Group collective efficacy, on the other hand, had a significant positive effect on group effectiveness. The researchers measured collective efficacy with items that assessed the all kinds of tasks the group might perform, not specific tasks any single group member might perform.

Group collective efficacy resulted from group-focused rather than individual focused leadership. Group focused leadership produced group identification, which in turn produced a collective sense of efficacy among group members.  This is the type of leadership where group leaders specify the importance of group members having a strong sense of collective purpose and mission in working with the group as a whole.

Popular thinking on leadership asserts that effective leaders must not only inspire the group as a whole, but must also be attentive to the unique needs of each and every individual in the group. The results of this research suggest “that leaders who attempt to satisfy both individual and group needs may inadvertently compromise group processes and group outcomes” (p. 101).

If your individualized approach to leadership creates a group full of members where some have high self-efficacy and see themselves as “high potentials” while others do not, you are likely sub-optimizing the performance of your group as a whole. The differences in individual efficacy among group members affects how they feel about each other and their ability to accomplish things together. This is especially critical when group tasks require extensive interdependence among members.

When group performance matters, and people need to work closely together for the group to be effective, the belief that “we can do it” is more important than any individual’s belief that “I can do it.” If you lead a group like this, you probably want to keep that strength-based snake oil on the shelf.

• Bret Simmons is a business professor at the University of Nevada, Reno.
• This post is a repost from his website at http://www.bretlsimmons.com.

• July 16, 2010 -- What Makes a Great Leadership Team? (0)
• April 9, 2010 -- Strengths-Based Leadership Theory (0)
• July 28, 2010 -- Leaders Unbalance the Force (0)
• July 20, 2010 -- Book Review: Start With Why (0)
• July 19, 2010 -- Ronald Heifetz on Adaptive Leadership (0)

Why is the organization’s purpose – not the “create a customer” purpose that Drucker would tell us, but the real motivation behind what the organization wants to do to change the world. Once a why is established, Sinek advises to place is squarely instead the “Golden Circle,” a model he uses to describe how once a core purpose is established, only then are instructions of what actions to take and how to take them well received by followers.

While positioned at current and aspiring leaders, Start With Why, reads more like a marketing book. Indeed, the majority of Sinek’s examples are of market leading products or companies, not leaders within those companies or movements. Occasionally, he does add renown leaders to his case. Nonetheless, the book gives insight into the human mind and, with considerable reflection, Start With Why, can teach leaders how to more effectively inspire and motivate their followers.

• March 29, 2010 -- Book Review: Greater Than Yourself (0)
• July 14, 2010 -- EBM: Transformational Leadership (0)
• May 10, 2010 -- VideoMonday: Simon Sinek on How great leaders inspire action (0)
• March 18, 2010 -- Transformational Leadership Theory (0)
• January 12, 2010 -- Book Review: Leadership & The One Minute Manager (0)

• May 10, 2010 -- VideoMonday: Simon Sinek on How great leaders inspire action (0)
• July 28, 2010 -- Leaders Unbalance the Force (0)
• July 26, 2010 -- Trust – LeaderSkilz (5)
• July 21, 2010 -- How Strengths-Based Leadership Affects Teams (4)
• July 20, 2010 -- Book Review: Start With Why (0)

What Makes a Great Leadership Team – GMJ

• July 21, 2010 -- How Strengths-Based Leadership Affects Teams (4)
• July 2, 2010 -- Does Leadership Matter? (0)
• June 11, 2010 -- Building Leadership “Bench Strength” (0)
• June 4, 2010 -- Inside the US Navy’s Leadership School (0)
• May 28, 2010 -- Can GE reinvent leadership development? (0)

Transformational Leadership is a relatively new approach to leadership that focuses on how leaders can create valuable and positive change in their followers. James MacGregor Burns first introduced the concept of transformational leadership when studying political leaders, but this term is now used when studying organizations as well. Burns described two leadership styles: transactional and transformational.

Transactional leaders focus on gaining compliance by giving and withholding rewards and benefits. Managers are typically transactional leaders, charged with gaining productivity and compliance from workers. Transformational leaders, instead, focus on “transforming” others to support each other and the organization as a whole. Followers of a transformational leader respond by feeling trust, admiration, loyalty and respect for the leader are more willing to work harder than originally expected. Another researcher, Bernard M. Bass, added to the work of Burns by explaining the psychological mechanisms that underlie transformational and transactional leadership. Bass’ work established that transformational leaders demonstrate four factors: individual consideration, intellectual stimulation, inspirational motivation (charismatic leadership) and idealized influence. If you’re called on to manage, then transact. If you’re called on to lead, then learn to be transformational.

• July 20, 2010 -- Book Review: Start With Why (0)
• May 10, 2010 -- VideoMonday: Simon Sinek on How great leaders inspire action (0)
• March 29, 2010 -- Book Review: Greater Than Yourself (0)
• March 18, 2010 -- Transformational Leadership Theory (0)
• July 28, 2010 -- Leaders Unbalance the Force (0)

The other serious flaw is the authors don’t really introduce any new concepts. The things they discuss in the book are concepts that I’ve been teaching for over a decade in my leadership and organizational behavior classes, which means others were talking about them well before that. They have sexy new labels – multipliers and diminishers – but the things they describe these folks doing is really nothing new.

Despite its flaws, it is a good book. It will make the list of optional readings for my MBA class this fall because I think it will have an impact on the students that read it. The book is very well written with excellent organization and a very conversational style. The best thing about the book is the numerous excellent examples Liz gives to support her points, coming from her years of experience as a top executive and consultant.

My copy is full of yellow highlights, which means that I found a lot of value in what the authors had to say and hope to share some of it with others. Here are some of my favorite short quotes from the book:

• It isn’t how much you know that matters. What matters is how much access you have to what other people know. It isn’t just how intelligent your team members are; it is how much of that intelligence you can draw out and put to use. (p. 10).
• Leaders rooted in the logic of multiplication believe: 1) most people are underutilized; 2) All capability can be leveraged with the right kind of leadership; 3) Therefore, intelligence and capability can be multiplied without requiring a bigger investment. (p. 17).
• …Multipliers look at the complex opportunities and challenges swirling around them and assume: there are smart people everywhere who will figure this out and get even smarter in the process. Therefore, they conclude that their job is to bring the right people together in an environment that liberates people’s best thinking and then to get out of their way. (p.20).
• Diminishers tell you what they know; Multipliers help you learn what you need to know (p. 173).
• Multipliers generate independence. They create organizations that can sustain performance without their direct involvement. When the organization is truly autonomous, they have earned the right to step away. When they leave, they leave a legacy. (p. 181)
• Can you be a Multiplier while working for a Diminisher boss?…I believe you can. Give yourself permission to be better than your boss. And then watch the organization take notice. (p. 201).

I love this stuff, but many of you will be able to see that there is nothing here that your favorite authors on leadership and organizational learning (e.g. Chris Argyris, W.E. Deming, Bob Sutton, Jeff Pfeffer, Peter Senge, Warren Bennis, Peter Drucker, etc.) have not already said. I fault the authors for not doing a better job of acknowledging the work others have done before them, but I also forgive them. The points they make are valuable and if new readers get these points in this new package, then as Martha Stewart would say “It’s a good thing.”

Liz was lucky enough to have known and worked with C.K. Prahalad, who I consider a giant among management thinkers. This book probably went to press before Prahalad’s recent passing, but it is a fitting tribute to the brilliance of his influence.

(Disclosure: My copy of the book was provided free of charge by the publisher).

• Bret Simmons is a business professor at the University of Nevada, Reno.
• This post is a repost from his website at http://www.bretlsimmons.com.

• July 27, 2010 -- Book Review: The Intangibles of Leadership (0)
• July 20, 2010 -- Book Review: Start With Why (0)
• June 8, 2010 -- Book Review: Delivering Happiness (0)
• June 1, 2010 -- Book Review: Classic Wisdom for the Professional Life (2)
• May 25, 2010 -- Book Review: Open Leadership (0)