Download an excerpt from "Leading for a change"

The job description of a leader often sounds like an advertisement for a superhero. Leaping tall buildings may be less daunting than the challenges of leading the modern organization. The market must be anticipated; employees need to overcome their resistance to change; the barriers between departments must be demolished; processes and the bottom line must be improved. In response to these challenges, leaders could seek insights from countless organization scholars and consultants. Despite insights from others, leaders are typically left wondering what they should do to achieve success.

Leading for a change moves the leader from theory to practice. The Leader's Map teaches the reader that there is an order to both the chaos and uncertainty they are experiencing. The Map lays out the five universal leadership challenges and shows how leaders may gain greater success by following a more prescribed order. The subsequent chapters first deepen the reader’s understanding of each of the challenges and then incorporate the advice of the best organizational thinkers into practical tools to address them. Each tool is presented with step by step instructions vastly simplifying their use. The tools encourage out of the box thinking and allow the leader to find greater success in working with their employees.

Within this book are tools that will help shape strategy, engage the commitment of employees, and encourage learning across the company. Leading for a Change helps leaders understand why they often experience "damned if you do and damned if you don't" and then describes how they might respond. This book encourages leaders to think of their roles in new ways. They need not be superheroes or emulate the hottest business leader or trend. Rather it encourages them to use their own talents and involve the people around them in ways that will more likely achieve success.

Table of Contents:

• Introduction
• The Five Universal Leadership Challenges
• Reframe the Future
• Build Commitment
• Teach and Learn
• Build Community
• Balance Paradox

Review of Leading for a Change by mgeneral.com
Leading for a Change nominated by mgeneral.com as one of the best business books for 2000 when it was originally published. Below is their review of the book:

Every good management book has a pulse. This is not the same as a table of contents, and this is not the same as an index. The "pulse" of a book is the main message planted by the author which recurs in chapter after chapter -- so much so that, no matter what the subject is on the page you're reading, the basic pulse of the book is felt nonetheless. In this book, the pulse is explained in the Preface: "The widespread dissatisfaction of employees with their leadership and the increased stress felt by leaders themselves suggest that a new paradigm of leadership is in order. We need to realize that no one person possesses all the talents to run an organization over the long term. Instead, we must see 'leader' as a person and 'leadership' as a critical organization function." Yes! Jacobson and his collaborative team never, ever, leave this thought as they offer up six tightly-wound chapters in this compact book. They insist, with heartfelt conviction that the chief tasks of any leader are to make leadership a self-generating power source. How a leader does this is a five-step process. He or she must reframe the future, develop commitment, teach and learn, build community, and balance paradox. But, again, Jacobson and his team are resolute that this is only a starter kit for creating company-wide leadership. "Leadership does not have to be a solo act," he says. To drive home the point, they show (time and again) that their thesis is not an academic one: by providing examples of leaders at work and by offering up tools, the authors force the reader to engage others in processing the major points of this book.

If you're looking for a book to encourage you just to think about leadership, go elsewhere. "[T]his book encourage[s] collaboration, dialogue, joint decision making, and action." Few books use such few pages to generate so much active learning about leadership. No matter where you are on the ladder of becoming the "ideal" leader, Jacobson, Setterholm, and Vollum have advice and ideas which can make you lead better by helping others to do the same.

Book Purchase Opportunity:
Leading for a Change - How to Master the Five Challenges Faced by Every Leader is now available online at Amazon.com and other fine book retailers. Just click the book's cover image below and you can purchase this book directly from Amazon.com.