An Educational Bridge for Leaders: 60 brief passages on leadership through history

ISBN-13: 9780473179786 / Angielski / Miękka / 2012 / 210 str.

Andre Van Heerden

Opis

This book is not a leadership manual, but an effort to remedy the inadequacies of leadership manuals. Peter Drucker once referred to Xenophon's The Education of Cyrus as "Still the greatest book on leadership," and he made a very good point. Over many years, I have become convinced that a book like Orwell's Homage to Catalonia, on his experiences in the Spanish Civil War, or Simon Schama's Citizens, on the French Revolution, will teach you more about human nature and motivation, human perversity and potential, and therefore leadership, than any of the thousands of business leadership texts that flood our bookstores and libraries. That is why I believe that reading sixty short excerpts from history and classic literature will be of immense benefit to people who lead. In a sense, "An Educational Bridge for Leaders" is an attempt to put my money where my mouth is. After a decade of coaching leaders in business and government organisations along lines that clearly run against the grain of much that is being purveyed in the field of leadership development, I have found a chasm in the lives of most leaders I work with that I believe needs bridging. This chasm lies between them and the well-rounded education that alone will enable them to become effective leaders. This book does not pretend to be a multi-lane suspension bridge across to the Promised Land, a convenient, once and for all 'solution' to the 'problem' of their education, but merely a modest, even tenuous, rope-bridge that will help them get across the chasm to where the on-going educational development essential to effective leadership can be pursued. The book can be read cover to cover, or by dipping in wherever, or by following a daily reading plan. There are sixty pieces drawn from classic literature and history, and also from contemporary authors, providing one reading a day for about two months. Everyone should be able to find the five minutes a day for the reading, but naturally, re-reading and reflection on the texts will pay additional dividends. Each piece is a door into another world, which you may wish to explore in the book from which it is taken, or in related books. Christopher Lasch told us long ago that "denial of the past, superficial and optimistic, proves on closer analysis to embody the despair of a society that cannot face the future." Leadership is about building a better future, and we can't do that without a firm grasp of the past. "An Educational Bridge for Leaders" is indispensible if we are to overcome the crisis of leadership afflicting our civilisation.