HBR's 10 Must Reads on Leadership 2-Volume Collection

Harvard Business Review

• Publisher: Harvard Business Review Press
• Year: 2020
• ISBN:
  9781633699380
• Topic: Betriebswirtschaft
• Subtopic: Leadership

If you read nothing else on leadership, read these definitive articles from Harvard Business Review.

Leadership skills are not innate--they can be acquired and honed. HBR's 10 Must Reads on Leadership 2-Volume Collection provides enduring ideas and practical advice on how to harness inspiring, transformational leadership qualities and spearhead change. Bringing together HBR's 10 Must Reads on Leadership, Vol. 1 and HBR's 10 Must Reads on Leadership, Vol. 2, this collection includes twenty articles selected by HBR's editors and features the indispensable article "What Makes an Effective Executive" by Peter F. Drucker.

From timeless classics to the latest game-changing ideas from thought leaders Jim Collins, Daniel Goleman, John Kotter, and more, HBR's 10 Must Reads on Leadership 2-Volume Collection will inspire you to:

• Identify areas for personal growth
• Develop a more dynamic and sophisticated communication style
• Transform yourself from a problem solver to an agenda setter
• Embrace the challenges of adaptive work
• Draw strength from adversity
• Build trust with and among your fellow employees
• Inspire others to give their all

HBR's 10 Must Reads paperback series is the definitive collection of books for new and experienced leaders alike. Leaders looking for the inspiration that big ideas provide, both to accelerate their own growth and that of their companies, should look no further. HBR's 10 Must Reads series focuses on the core topics that every ambitious manager needs to know: leadership, strategy, change, managing people, and managing yourself. Harvard Business Review has sorted through hundreds of articles and selected only the most essential reading on each topic. Each title includes timeless advice that will be relevant regardless of an ever?changing business environment.

On
Leadership

HARVARD BUSINESS REVIEW PRESS

Boston, Massachusetts

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

HBR’s 10 must reads on leadership

p. cm.

Includes index.

ISBN 978-1-4221-5797-8 (pbk. : alk. paper) 1. Leadership. I. Harvard business review. II. Title: HBR’s ten must reads on leadership. III. Title: Harvard business review’s 10 must reads on leadership.

HD57.7.H3914 2010

658.4'092—dc22

2010031617

eISBN: 9781422172025

Contents

What Makes a Leader?

Daniel Goleman

What Makes an Effective Executive

Peter F. Drucker

What Leaders Really Do

John P. Kotter

The Work of Leadership

Ronald A. Heifetz and Donald L. Laurie

Why Should Anyone Be Led by You?

Robert Goffee and Gareth Jones

Crucibles of Leadership

Warren G. Bennis and Robert J. Thomas

Level 5 Leadership: The Triumph of Humility and Fierce Resolve

Jim Collins

Seven Transformations of Leadership

David Rooke and William R. Torbert

Discovering Your Authentic Leadership

Bill George, Peter Sims, Andrew N. McLean, and Diana Mayer

In Praise of the Incomplete Leader

Deborah Ancona, Thomas W. Malone, Wanda J. Orlikowski, and Peter M. Senge

About the Contributors

Index

What Makes a Leader?

by Daniel Goleman

EVERY BUSINESSPERSON KNOWS a story about a highly intelligent, highly skilled executive who was promoted into a leadership position only to fail at the job. And they also know a story about someone with solid—but not extraordinary—intellectual abilities and technical skills who was promoted into a similar position and then soared.

Such anecdotes support the widespread belief that identifying individuals with the “right stuff” to be leaders is more art than science. After all, the personal styles of superb leaders vary: Some leaders are subdued and analytical; others shout their manifestos from the mountaintops. And just as important, different situations call for different types of leadership. Most mergers need a sensitive negotiator at the helm, whereas many turnarounds require a more forceful authority.

I have found, however, that the most effective leaders are alike in one crucial way: They all have a high degree of what has come to be known as emotional intelligence. It’s not that IQ and technical skills are irrelevant. They do matter, but mainly as “threshold capabilities”; that is, they are the entry-level requirements for executive positions. But my research, along with other recent studies, clearly shows that emotional intelligence is the sine qua non of leadership. Without it, a person can have the best training in the world, an incisive, analytical mind, and an endless supply of smart ideas, but he still won’t make a great leader.

In the course of the past year, my colleagues and I have focused on how emotional intelligence operates at work. We have examined the relationship between emotional intelligence and effective performance, especially in leaders. And we have observed how emotional intelligence shows itself on the job. How can you tell if someone has high emotional intelligence, for example, and how can you recognize it in yourself? In the following pages, we’ll explore these questions, taking each of the components of emotional intelligence—self-awareness, self-regulation, motivation, empathy, and social skill—in turn.

Evaluating Emotional Intelligence

Most large companies today have employed trained psychologists to develop what are known as “competency models” to aid them in identifying, training, and promoting likely stars in the leadership firmament. The psychologists have also developed such models for lower-level positions. And in recent years, I have analyzed competency models from 188 companies, most of which were large and global and included the likes of Lucent Technologies, British Airways, and Credit Suisse.

In carrying out this work, my objective was to determine which personal capabilities drove outstanding performance within these organizations, and to what degree they did so. I grouped capabilities into three categories: purely technical skills like accounting and business planning; cognitive abilities like analytical reasoning; and competencies demonstrating emotional intelligence, such as the ability to work with others and effectiveness in leading change.

To create some of the competency models, psychologists asked senior managers at the companies to identify the capabilities that typified the organization’s most outstanding leaders. To create other models, the psychologists used objective criteria, such as a division’s profitability, to differentiate the star performers at senior levels within their organizations from the average ones. Those individuals were then extensively interviewed and tested, and their capabilities were compared. This process resulted in the creation of lists of ingredients for highly effective leaders. The lists ranged in length from seven to 15 items and included such ingredients as initiative and strategic vision.

Idea in Brief

What distinguishes great leaders from merely good ones? It isn’t IQ or technical skills, says Daniel Goleman. It’s emotional intelligence: a group of five skills that enable the best leaders to maximize their own and their followers’ performance. When senior managers at one company had a critical mass of EI capabilities, their divisions outperformed yearly earnings goals by 20%.

The EI skills are:

• Self-awareness—knowing one’s strengths, weaknesses, drives, values, and impact on others

• Self-regulation—controlling or redirecting disruptive impulses and moods

• Motivation—relishing achievement for its own sake

• Empathy—understanding other people’s emotional makeup

• Social skill—building rapport with others to move them in desired directions

We’re each born with certain levels of EI skills. But we can strengthen these abilities through persistence, practice, and feedback from colleagues or coaches.

When I analyzed all this data, I found dramatic results. To be sure, intellect was a driver of outstanding performance. Cognitive skills such as big-picture thinking and long-term vision were particularly important. But when I calculated the ratio of technical skills, IQ, and emotional intelligence as ingredients of excellent performance, emotional intelligence proved to be twice as important...