REINVENTING LEADERSHIP - STRATEGIES TO EMPOWER THE ORGANIZATION

Are organizations better controlled, guided and directed by leadership or by management? The title of this book gives the authors' answer. The distinction between leadership and management is presented in platitudes, e.g., "The manager maintains: the leader develops." Bennis (Why Leaders Can't Lead) and Townsend (Up the Organization) further state that militaristic, command-and-control leadership has become anachronistic, and that the current downsized, flat-management era requires a new leadership style. To help readers develop the desirable new leadership traits, "dialogue starters" are suggested at the end of each chapter. The book concludes with a 21-day plan to help readers apply the pithy principles. Perhaps some might benefit from such a plan, but readers should be as skeptical of that laudable goal as they would be of a big weight loss in so short a time.