The Leadership Challenge Workbook / Edition 3

by James M. Kouzes

Overview

The new edition of the classic change leader's workbook

A blend of leadership development, project management, and execution, this perfect companion to the bestselling The Leadership Challenge has been refreshed in time for the 25th Anniversary of this trusted leadership development program. Updated with a new global perspective and new research, it is the ultimate change leader's workbook.

Based on Jim Kouzes and Barry Posner's classic book The Leadership Challenge, this workbook is a hands-on guide for improving your ability to put into action the Five Practices of Exemplary Leadership® model and become a leader who Models the Way, Inspires a Shared Vision, Challenges the Process, Enables Others to Act, and Encourages the Heart.

• Significantly updated, with a new global focus
• Features the latest research and refer to new case studies, including international examples
• Can be used as a project-planning, change-creating, and personal-best-making tool

More relevant and effective than ever the Third Edition of The Leadership Challenge Workbook will help leaders in every organization improve their ability to communicate a vision, strengthen co-worker commitment, build trust among fellow employees, maintain employee satisfaction, and much more.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781118182703
Publisher:	Wiley
Publication date:	07/31/2012
Series:	J-B Leadership Challenge: Kouzes/Posner Series , #263
Pages:	160
Product dimensions:	7.90(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.50(d)

About the Author

James M. Kouzes is chairman of the Tom Peters Group/Learning Systems, which makes leadership work through practical, performance-oriented learning programs, including the Leadership Challenge Workshop and Leadership Is Everyone's Business. In 1993 the Wall Street Journal cited him as one of the twelve most requested "nonuniversity executive-education providers" to U.S. companies.

Barry Z. Posner, Ph.D, is dean of the Leavey School of Business, Santa Clara University, and professor of organizational behavior. He has received several outstanding teaching and leadership awards, has published more than eighty research and practitioner-oriented articles, and currently is on the editorial review boards for the Journal of Management Education, the Journal of Management Inquiry, and the Journal of Business Ethics. He also serves on the board of directors for Public Allies-Silicon Valley and for the Center for Excellence in Nonprofits.

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Table of Contents

Preface: Getting Extraordinary Things Done in Organizations     xi
What Leaders Do and What Constituents Expect
The Five Practices of Exemplary Leadership     3
Leadership Opportunities Are Everywhere
The Five Practices of Exemplary Leadership
Leadership Is a Relationship
The Ten Commitments of Leadership
Credibility is the Foundation of Leadership     27
What People Look For and Admire in Leaders
Putting It All Together: Credibility Is the Foundation
Model the Way
Clarify Values     45
Find Your Voice
Affirm Shared Values
Reflection and Action
Set the Example     73
Personify the Shared Values
Teach Others to Model the Values
Reflection and Action
Inspire a Shared Vision
Envision the Future     103
Imagine the Possibilities
Find a Common Purpose
Reflection and Action
Enlist Others     130
Appeal to Common Ideals
Animate the Vision
Reflection and Action
Challenge the Process
Search for Opportunities     161
Seize the Initiative
Exercise Outsight
Reflection and Action
Experiment and Take Risks     188
Generate Small Wins
Learn from Experience
Reflection and Action
Enable Others to Act
Foster Collaboration     221
Create a Climate of Trust
Facilitate Relationships
Reflection and Action
Strengthen Others     248
Enhance Self-Determination
Develop Competence and Confidence
Reflection andAction
Encourage the Heart
Recognize Contributions     279
Expect the Best
Personalize Recognition
Reflection and Action
Celebrate the Values and Victories     307
Create a Spirit of Community
Be Personally Involved
Reflection and Action
Leadership for Everyone
Leadership is Everyone's Business     337
You Are the Most Important Leader in Your Organization
Leadership Is Learned
Leaders Make a Difference
First Lead Yourself
Moral Leadership Calls Us to Higher Purposes
Humility Is the Antidote to Hubris
Leadership Is in the Moment
The Secret to Success in Life
Notes     352
Acknowledgments     369
About the Authors     373
Index     377

Interviews

Challenge Is the Opportunity for Greatness

Take out a piece of paper and draw a line down the middle. Think of a few well-known historical figures you consider exemplary leaders. Think about the men and women who you believe have led organizations, communities, states, nations, or the world to greatness. Write their names in the left-hand column. In the right-hand column opposite each name, record the events, circumstances, or historical contexts with which you identify each of these individuals.

Now review the list. Cover the names, and look only at the right-hand column listing the events, circumstances, or contexts. Is there any pattern in these leadership situations? What do they have in common?

We predict that your list will consist of leaders you identify with the creation of new institutions, the resolution of serious crises, the winning of wars, the organization of revolutionary movements, protests for improving social conditions, political change, innovation, or some other social transformation.

The following are a few examples of the historical leaders people have mentioned when we've asked this question. See if you don't agree with the observation.

Historical Leaders: Situation or Context

1. Susan B. Anthony -- Women's rights
2. Mahatma Gandhi -- National independence
3. Abraham Lincoln -- Civil War
4. Florence Kelly -- Fought for child labor laws
5. Martin Luther King Jr. -- Civil rights
6. Nelson Mandela -- National liberation movement
7. Rosa Parks -- Civil rights
8. Mother Teresa -- Served the poorest of the poor

Consistently over time, we've found that when we ask people to think of exemplary leaders, they recall individuals who served during times of turbulence, conflict, innovation, and change. They think of people who triumphed against overwhelming odds, who took the initiative when there was inertia, who confronted the established order, who rose to the challenge of adversity, who mobilized people and institutions in the face of strong resistance. They think of people who generated momentum in society and then guided that energy toward a more fulfilling future.

When times are stable and secure, we’re not severely tested. We may perform well, we may get promoted, we may even achieve fame and fortune. But certainty and routine breed complacency. In times of calm, we don’t take the opportunity to burrow inside and discover the true gifts buried down deep. In contrast, personal, business, and social hardships have a way of making us come face-to-face with who we really are and what we’re capable of becoming. Only challenge produces the opportunity for greatness. And given the daunting challenges we face today, the potential for greatness is monumental.

You may also notice something else about this list. The leaders we admire are also the ones who have the courage of their convictions. Not only do they have a clear set of principles and a vision which guides them, they also stand up for those beliefs during times of intense challenge and radical change. Of course, that's one of the reasons we admire them, but it's also a highly significant leadership lesson. It's only when are beliefs are tested in the trials of adversity that we know whether a leader has the "right stuff."

Skeptics might say that this is true only for those few great leaders who've made their mark on history, and it can't be true for those less famous. Absolutely not so. When my coauthor, Barry Posner, and I analyzed the initial set of personal-best cases in our leadership research, we discovered exactly the same thing. The challenges faced by the leaders we studied may have been less grand, but even so the situations they chose to discuss were about major change that had a significant impact on their organizations. This remains true today: regardless of function, field, economic sector, organizational level, or national boundary, the leaders in our study talk about times when they lead adventures into new territory. They tell us how they turned around losing operations, started up new plants, installed untested procedures, or greatly improved the results of poorly performing units. And these weren’t 10, 25, or even 50 percent improvements in products and processes; in many cases, the magnitude of changes was in the hundreds of percent. The personal-best leadership cases were about firsts, about radical departures from the past, about doing things that had never been done before, about going to places not yet discovered.

What’s significant about the emphasis on innovation in our leadership cases is that we don’t ask people to tell us about change; we ask them to tell us about personal-best leadership experiences. They can discuss any leadership experience they choose: past or present, unofficial or official; in any functional area; in any community, voluntary, religious, health care, educational, public-sector, or private-sector organization. Our respondents elected to talk about times of change, not time of stability and the status quo. Their stories underscore the fact that leadership demands changing the business-as-usual environment.

Whether we're reflecting on historical leaders or reviewing personal best leadership experiences, the study of leadership is the study of how men and women guide us through adversity, uncertainty, hardship, disruption, transformation, transition, recovery, new beginnings, and other significant challenges. It's also the study of how men and women, in times of constancy and complacency, actively seek to disturb the status quo and awaken to new possibilities.

In recent years the phrase "change leadership" has been popping up more and more frequently, perhaps in recognition of the role leaders play in turbulent times. While we understand the currency of the phrase, we think "change leadership" is redundant. Based on our evidence, change is what leadership is all about. What else would you call it -- "keep-things-the-same leadership"? There's just leadership, and then there's something else.

You need only look in the dictionary to understand the meaning. The word lead, at its root, means “go, travel, guide.” Leadership has about it a kinesthetic feel, a real sense of movement. Leadership is about going places, about travel and adventure, about stepping out into unknown territory. Leaders are pioneers. They begin the quest for a new order. They venture into unexplored territory and guide us to new and unfamiliar destinations. Leaders “go first.” They actively search for opportunities to change, grow, innovate, and improve.

Stuff happens in organizations and in our lives. Sometimes we choose it; sometimes it chooses us. It's unavoidable. People who become leaders don’t always seek the challenges they face. Challenges also seek leaders. Opportunities to challenge the process and introduce change open the door to doing one’s best. Challenge is the motivating environment for excellence. Challenging opportunities often bring forth skills and abilities that people don’t know they have. Given opportunity and support, ordinary men and women can get extraordinary things done in organizations. It's not so important whether you find the challenges or they find you. What is important are the choices you make when stuff happens. The question is, When opportunity knocks are you prepared to answer the door? James M. Kouzes

Editorial Reviews

From the ten commitments of leadership to the emphasis on actions and relationships, this valuable book is full of enduring wisdom and practical insights essential for success in challenging times. (Harvard Business School, best-selling author of "Evolve! Succeeding in the Digital Culture of Tomorrow")

Rosabeth Moss Kanter

For twenty-five years I have written about and taught leadership. The Leadership Challenge is one of the five best books I have ever read. I continually recommend it to others. (founder, The INJOY Group, and author, "The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership")

John C. Maxwell

The first edition was seminal and totally original. It became a modern classic on leadership practically overnight. With this new edition, with new cases and concepts and action steps that are even riper and more important, Kouzes and Posner go way beyond their earlier work and have made yet another brilliant contribution to leadership studies. This new book, a product of an unusual collaboration, is essential reading for everyone involved or concerned with leading. (distinguished Professor of Business Administration, University of Southern California, and coauthor, "Geeks and Geezers: How Era, Values, and Defining Moments Shape Leaders")

Warren Bennis

This book is one of the very best on the topic of leadership, offering extraordinary stories from leaders at various ages and stages of their lives. Whether you're now in a leadership role and want to further strengthen and hone your skills, or you simply have the desire to learn to make a difference and help guide your company—or even friends and family members—to higher levels of success, you'll benefit by reading The Leadership Challenge. (president & CEO, The Charles Schwab Corporation)

David S. Pottruck

An inspirational and practical handbook, this expanded revision of a bestselling manual originally published in 1987 offers sound advice to corporate leaders and entrepreneurs, to managers and employees and to aspiring leaders in retail, manufacturing, government, community, church and school settings. Drawing on interviews and a questionnaire survey of more than 3000 leaders, the authors identify five fundamental practices of exemplary leadership: challenge the status quo; inspire a shared vision; enable others to act; model the way forward by setting an example; tap individuals' inner drives by linking rewards and performance. Kouzes, chairman and CEO of TPG/Learning Systems, and Posner, managing partner of Santa Clara University's Executive Development Center in California, write insightful, down-to-earth, jargon-free prose. This new edition has been substantially updated to reflect the challenges of shrinking work forces, rising cynicism and expanded telecommunications. An appendix includes the author's Leadership Practices Inventory, a tool for assessing leadership behavior. 75,000 first printing; Executive Program Book Club main selection; author tour. (Sept.)

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly

Kouzes gives workshops in executive development and managing growth companies; Posner conducts seminars in communication, group dynamics, etc. Their excellent book on leadership for business executives covers identifying and developing leadership qualities, building commitment into action, and other important topics. In addition to discussing the theoretical foundations of leadership, the authors use many examples from work situations to demonstrate application. In a field in which many books are available, this one is readable, interesting, and up-to-date. Highly recommended for collections serving business executives and students. Grace Klinefelter, Ft. Lauderdale Coll. Lib., Fla.

Library Journal