Leadership Without Easy Answers
Ronald A. Heifetz, professor at the John F. Kennedy School of Government, presents clear, concrete strategies for anyone who needs to take charge--no matter what the organizational conditions. Drawing on a dozen years of research among business leaders and politicians, Heifetz demonstrates what one must do--and avoid doing--to be a leader in an age without easy answers.Product Details
Editorial Reviews
From Library Journal
Heifetz (Kennedy Sch. of Government, Harvard Univ.) presents a new theory of leadership for both public and private leaders in tackling complex contemporary problems. Central to his theory is the distinction between routine technical problems, which can be solved through expertise, and adaptive problems, such as crime, poverty, and educational reform, which require innovative approaches, including consideration of values. Four major strategies of leadership are identified: to approach problems as adaptive challenges by diagnosing the situation in light of the values involved and avoiding authoritative solutions, to regulate the level of stress caused by confronting issues, to focus on relevant issues, and to shift responsibility for problems from the leader to all the primary stakeholders. The theory is applied to an analysis of historical accounts of local, national, and international events. An innovative and thoroughgoing work; highly recommmended for graduate and undergraduate collections.
Jane M. Kathman, Coll. of St. Benedict Lib., St. Joseph, Minn.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Review
Leadership Without Easy Answers is a masterwork of great subtlety, and of punch and practicality. Leadership is not value-free, Mr. Heifetz writes...[The author puts] soul and values squarely back into a vital topic, leadership.
--Tom Peters (New York Times Book Review )
Ronald Heifetz brings knowledge of an astonishingly wide range of disciplines to this study of leadership...As a musician, a cellist, he understands that the quality of a performance depends on the audience as well as on the instrumentalist...As a psychiatrist, Heifetz understands that communities cannot be pushed beyond their capacity to adapt...These insights give to Heifetz's book an originality and vivacity one rarely associates with studies on leadership. He illustrates his theses with an extraordinary range of cases and examples...Leadership Without Easy Answers reminds us of democracy's rich potential. It is a bold book and an encouraging one. I hope some of our leaders are out there learning.
--Shirley Williams (Times Higher Education Supplement )
This pioneering study constitutes one of the most insightful and innovative approaches to leadership studies in over a decade...Heifetz masterfully presents his new leadership model by intertwining general theory and prescriptive practical guidance through fertile historical and work-place case studies. Heifetz's goal is nothing less than a summoning for a new social contract that seeks to revitalize America's civic ethos by adopting leadership strategies to empower the citizenry rather than to merely enhance the authority of the leader...The upshot of this study should place it in the front line in leadership historiography for years to come.
--R. J. Lettieri (Choice )
Heifetz presents a new theory of leadership for both public and private leaders in tackling complex contemporary problems. Central to his theory is the distinction between routine technical problems, which can be solved through expertise, and adaptive problems, such as crime, poverty, and educational reform, which require innovative approaches, including consideration of values. Four major strategies of leadership are identified: to approach problems as adaptive challenges by diagnosing the situation in light of the values involved and avoiding authoritative solutions, to regulate the level of stress caused by confronting issues, and to shift responsibility for problems from the leader to all the primary stakeholders. The theory is applied to an analysis of historical accounts of local, national, and international events. An innovative and thoroughgoing work; highly recommended. (Library Journal )
Ronald Heifetz has written an interesting and timely book, in which he moves away from the idea of leaders as visionaries and saviors to stressing leadership as an activity as opposed to a position of authority or a set of personal charcateristics.
--Robert Hooijberg (Journal of Leadership Studies )
A superb book for any age, but particularly for our current one, where society is so desperately in need of its wisdom and expertise. Leadership without Easy Answers should be required reading for top managers in all sectors--private, public, and nonprofit. I hope it will also be widely read by the citizenry that is so much in need of an attitude shift on the nature of authority. This book is also very much about citizenship.
--M. Scott Peck, Author of The Road Less Traveled
Alive with insights, concepts, new ideas, just teeming with the kind of creative approach to the study of leadership that I and of course many others esteem. In a field in which there has been a great deal of repetitious work, Heifetz strikes out in ground-breaking directions.
--James MacGregor Burns, Author of Leadership
Remarkably thoughtful, provocative, and useful. This book will be seen as a major contribution that provides a rare interdisciplinary view of leadership in context. Leaders as well as serious students of the process of leadership and the development of leaders need to have this book on their shelves.
--General Walter Ulmer, U. S. Army (Ret.), President and CEO, Center for Creative Leadership, Greensboro, North Carolina
Heifetz turns out to be one of the most thoughtful scholars on leadership. His direct and relevant concepts are pathbreaking.
--James David Barber, Author of Presidential Character
Original and penetrating in its analysis of leadership. This is an excellent book. Important and valuable.
--John Gardner, former Secretary HEW, Founder of Common Cause
Leadership without Easy Answers should go a long way toward clearing up many confusions about leadership. Long a master teacher of leaders, Heifetz's courses and Harvard's Kennedy School of Government have been standing-room only for years. Read this book and see why.
--Peter Senge, author of The Fifth Discipline
About the Author
Ronald Heifetz directs the Leadership Education Project at the John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University.
Customer Reviews
McKinsey's Marvin Bower's own recommendation...
The late Marvin Bower (McKinsey & Company's mastermind) was an avid reader of leadership books, and lost no opportunity to coach his partners with memos focusing on different aspects of personal leadership and professional values. He was very fond of Heifetz work, and with occasion of the donation of his personal library, I had a rare opportunity to review his own copy. Marvin had scribbled many ideas on its margins while reading... Later I learned he would only do that to volumes that he would deem credible, and from which he could borrow ideas worth the try.
Needless to say, I bought the book as soon as I could and I must say it is the most credible leadership volume that I have read so far.
Classic leadership text
Heifetz' definition of leadership revolves around the concept of influence rather than subordination or coercion. Using contrast to sharpen his own definition of leadership, he wrote that there is an important difference between imagining that a leader influences a community to follow her vision and influencing a community to face its problems.
In the first instance, influence is the mark of leadership; a leader gets people to accept his vision, and communities address problems by looking to him. If something goes wrong, the fault lies with the leader. In the second, progress on problems is the measure of leadership; leaders mobilize people to face problems, and communities make progress because leaders challenge and help them do so. If something goes wrong, the fault lies with both leaders and the community (pp. 14-15.
It is the second description that Heifetz defined as leadership, which is simply put as "mobilizing people to tackle tough problems" (p. 15). Heifetz was less willing than Peck (1977/2002) to say that the task of leadership is spiritual growth of self and others. Rather, he put the problem into a depth psychology perspective with practical organizational implications, and he used "four criteria to develop a definition of leadership that takes values into account":
"First, the definition must sufficiently resemble current cultural assumptions so that, when feasible, one's normal understanding of what it means to lead will apply. Second, the definition should be practical, so that practitioners can make use of it. Third, it should point toward socially useful activities. Finally, the concept should offer a broad definition of social usefulness"(p. 19).
By inserting values, Heifetz argued, he created a "prescriptive concept of leadership" (p. 19) rather than a descriptive or proscriptive one. Using his four criteria, Heifetz was able to state that Hitler, for example, was not a leader because he "exercised leadership no more than a charlatan practices medicine when providing fake remedies" (p. 24).
Later in his book, he defined the task of addressing "tough problems" in the clearest terms:
"Leadership, as used here, means engaging people to make progress on the adaptive problems they face. Because making progress on adaptive problems requires learning, the task of leadership consists of choreographing and directing learning processes in an organization or community. Progress often demands new ideas and innovation. As well, it often demands changes in people's attitudes and behaviors. Adaptive work consists of the process of discovering and making those changes. Leadership, with or without authority, requires an educative strategy" (p. 187).
Heifetz identified the principal limitation of his book when he wrote that his book was concerned with the "short-run task of making progress on an adaptive challenge" and not about the "long-term task of leadership--developing adaptive capacity" (p. 129). This is a fruitful area to explore for scholars of servant-leadership because a major focus of Greenleaf's was precisely the development of this adaptive capacity.
Heifetz also provided leaders with a "seven practical suggestions for bearing the responsibility that comes with leadership without losing one's effectiveness or collapsing under the strain. These included "getting on the balcony"; separating yourself from your role; externalizing conflict; utilizing partnerships; listening; "find a sanctuary"; and keeping your purpose clear (p. 252). Leaders under stress would do well to remember to read through these pages, which essentially offer some tips about resilience.
The following includes several key concepts through direct quotation.
* The concept of adaptation arises from efforts to understand biological evolution. Applied to the change of cultures and societies, the concept becomes a useful; if inexact, metaphor. Species change as the genetic program changes; cultures change by learning. Evolution is a matter of chance--a fortuitous fit between random variation and new environmental pressures' societies by contrast, can respond to new pressures with deliberation and planning. Evolution has no "purpose"--survival is our only measure of its success; societies generate purposes beyond survival. (pp. 30-31)
* The mix of values in a society provides multiple vantage points from which to view reality. Conflict and heterogeneity are resources for social learning. . . . Leadership will not consist of answers or assured visions but of taking action to clarify values. (p. 35)
* I define authority as conferred power to perform a service. This definition will be useful to the practitioner of leadership as reminder of two facts: First, authority is given and can be taken away. Second, authority is conferred as part of an exchange. (p. 57)
* A holding environment consists of any relationship in which one party has the power to hold the attention of another party and facilitate adaptive work. [italics original] (pp. 104-105)
* Attention is the currency of leadership. (p. 113)
* The pitfall of charisma, however, is unresolved dependency. (p. 247)
Thought provoking
I thought the book was good when I read it first. It took me a second read to realize how exceptional it is. The book's reviews on Amazon site range from 5 star to 1 star, from people who were amazed by its brilliance to those who could not despise it enough. I think this is the best accolade that a leadership book can ever get - it takes a stance, it provides direction, and it chooses to be for a great cause irrespective of whether it is loved or hated. This book cannot and must not be ignored.
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