Martin Linsky | Ronald A. Heifetz
Climbing Mount Everest: dangerous. Hitchhiking in Colombia: very dangerous. Leading through change: perilous. Perilous but possible, say Heifetz and Linsky in their encouragingly practical guide to putting yourself on the line and negotiating the hazards of leadership. As the authors acknowledge, many leadership books are "all about inspiration, but downplay the perspiration." This one doesn't. Leadership is always a risky business, but those risks can be understood and reduced. Effective leadership comes from doing more than the technical work of routine management; it involves adaptive work on the part of the leader, and a willingness to confront and disturb people, promote their resourcefulness, and engage their ability to adjust to new realities. But adaptive change always encounters resistance. Heifetz and Linsky examine four forms of resistance--marginalization, diversion, attack, and seduction--before presenting a number of practical resistance-response skills to nurture and employ. Some are fairly obvious (like developing and maintaining perspective, and holding steady in the midst of change), and others more complex (like thinking politically when dealing with friends, foes, and fence sitters), but shimmering nuggets of insight and practical wisdom can be found in each. The dangers of leadership also spring from within, however, and the book's final section addresses ways to recognize and manage competing "hungers" and learn to distinguish one's roles from one's self. The authors' points are illustrated by the experiences of leaders from all walks of life, making this a useful and inspiring manual for anyone hoping to put themselves on the line and make a difference in the lives of others.
--S. Ketchum
1 Exercise your leadership!
This book you may change your definition of "leadership" slightly. In this book we can see not only how Presidents exercised their leadership but also that middle management class people are on the line as well to achieve their goals and they definitely used their leadership. Those people are analyzed in the same manner regardless of their social status.
Same people, both famous and anonymous, appear in the book again and again in different occasions as different examples. The authors weaved them into the narrative story. Sometime they failed, the other time they succeeded. You would feel them closely, even Presidents.
Further more, we need to be our own master and for that sake we need to be able to manage ourselves. It means you must exercise leadership for yourself! Since same people and story appeared several times, it might bother you. But finally the message of this book would be embedded in you.
2 Great guide to dangers of leadership
I've liked the book. It is well organized with plenty of good examples. It really helps new and may be not that new leader in recognizing dangers of the trade. Unfortunately if you are looking for the answers how to prevail, you won't find it easily. Still major part of fighting the danger is recognizing it and the authors did it skillfully.
3 Finally, a book on the risks of normal leadership
Some may find this read difficult, with strained examples and perhaps a hidden agenda. At first I did too, but in reading the last chapter, I became convinced that the authors, Ron Heifetz and Marty Linsky, are sincere and have a genuine concern for the risks of leadership.
The book is written in three sections: 1) the dangers of leadership, 2) advice on how to handle those dangers, and 3) how leaders contribute "to their own demise."
These days many leaders conduct their craft without an awareness of the dangers of the position. This book will make the reader well aware of these dangers. In order to get things done leaders have to cause change, problem solve, if you will. The authors define a critical difference between the technical and adaptive aspects of problems.
Changing the technical aspects of a situation are easy, but when a leader seeks to cause an adaptive change, all heck breaks out and the risk to the leader increases exponentially. An adaptive change requires a change in attitude, values, and/or customs. Many of the difficult problems leaders face require a change in long held beliefs, tradition, and sometime security-the result, resistance.
This book alerts the leader to the perils of real leadership and provides solid advice on how to survive in the hostile environment sometimes created by real leadership.
4 This book shows things that open the view of leadership
I recomend this book to everyone who needs a good understanding of leadership and its implications. This book helps to analise day to day cases, implement changes or new ideas, and many others things. It uses simple and efective examples. I consider it a must have book.
5 Excellent!
Thank you for the line of survival. I am better able to comprehend the mind set and behaviors that contribute to a persons inhibitions to lead. I am now better equipped to lead in the midst of an ever changing environment.
6 One of the best
This book is not neccessarily comprehensive on the topic of leadership. As a person who has read around 10 books on leadership, I am beggining to realize the topic is far more complex to be contained in a single book. This book addresses on aspect of leadership, change managment, better than any book I have read. As the book points out, leadership is about change (which is too categoric for me to totally agree). A good leader brings change only at a rate which the stakeholders of the change can absorb it, and failure to do so will result in the ousting of the leader. This simple concept was quite revealing to me and deserving of the price of this book.
7 No-nonsense guide to the art of leadership
This book educates to inspire and lead. It is a motivated effort of describing individual challenges and strategic problems that crop up while attempting to put forth a positive sway. It is crucial to anyone attempting massive changes in the approach their company does business. Unlike many books about leadership, this is more pragmatic about the risks and rewards linked to reform an organization. Ability & Courage to innovate despite of a conventional ladder,is all about true leadership. This is a no-nonsense guide to the art of leadership combining vibrant stories with logical conclusions. Vivek Dixit, Stanford.edu
8 a helpful reminder to leaders within political environment
Net, I love this book, because it has a few conceptual key points to make me re-think about leadership, and that's very valuable for me.
Before reading this book, I knew leadership is hard, but I never realize leaderhip is dangerous, and that's the most valuable lesson for me. The authors used quite many political examples to show why leadership is dangerous and in what aspects. At the end, the authors also provide some solution to address the danger. I agree some criticism that the solution is somehow vague and not thorough, but I think I can figure out the solution myself because now I've known what issue to handle.
I recommend this book to new leaders and leaders within a very political environment.
9 About the leadership -- poignantly
"Leadership on the Line" appends and fulfils Ron's original framework first presented in the "Leadership Without Easy Answers". If you didn't study the framework closely, learn it and come back.
While "Leadership Without Easy Answers" explains bit by bit the perils of adaptive change and the importance of orchestrating the conflict, giving the work back, managing appropriate pace and keeping the holding environment, it gives only a quick (not quite sufficient) glance at getting on the balcony, finding partners and distinguishing allies from confidants.
The first six chapters of the "Leadership on the Line" are purposed to complete the framework.
Chapters seven to nine is a highly practical cookbook: how to take the heat and hold steadily, how to manage your hungers and keep sanity, how to deal with sexual and intimacy issues, how to distinguish role from self.
The final, very provocative chapters are philosophical and spiritual. Poignantly, they raise a question: what is this all for? Devote a thought to love, innocence, curiosity and compassion -- the virtues of an open heart.
10 Mandatory Reading for Leaders
No matter what you lead or who you lead, this book is mandatory reading. It is concise and highly readable, and there is not a chapter that fails to add to the reader's knowledge.
I usually don't mark up books but I found myself dogearing and underlining. This is an absolutely valuable addition to the literature on leadership.
11 A starter's guide only.
I was after a book on business leadership with serious analysis of what works backed up by case examples - this is NOT it.
This is a good book for new leaders - it tells all the things that can go wrong and how you can work your way through the maze of other people and other agendas.
Its definitely not a new "Make It Happen" (John Harvey Jones) which is what I wanted and expected.
It is heaps of sociology and everyday examples, not a guide to the insights that make people follow you through those long entrepreneurial days and nights of hard work, near zero pay and share options in the distant future. Leadership where constant danger lurks rather than "nice" ways to get people to come along with you.
Sorry but it is a nice book for nice leaders.
12 A new, Improved, & User-Friendlier incarnation
Serious scholars of leadership will already be well-acquainted with the path-breaking work of Ron Heifetz. His "Leadership W/out Easy Answers" and other significant contributions to "The Harvard Business Review," for instance, have already established him as one of the foremost authorities in the field. I believe that "Leadership W/out Easy Answers" is one of the top 5 works on leadership. I recommend it highly to any and all leaders, managers, and students with professional aspirations. "Leadership on the Line" reiterates several of the previous book's compelling themes--but with a more informal, user-friendlier tone. I'd recommend that discerning readers sample this (more recently published) one first, and then proceed to Heifetz's earlier title (publ'd in 1994) if they're curious to read more.
In their "Introduction" to this new volume, Heifetz and Linsky explain that "We wanted this second book to be more focused, more practical, and more personal [than "L'ship W/out Easy Answers"]. We hope this book will be accessible, eminently usable, and inspiring in your work and life." Happily, they've accomplished their mission this time around, too!
This narrative is even more readable, more anecdotal, and less jargon-laden than its "more academic" predecessor. It should thus reward an even broader audience of readers (including more committed "generalists").
If one of James MacGregor Burns's seminal contributions to the field was the distinction between transactional and transformational leadership, Heifetz's elucidation here of "adaptive vs. technical leadership" merits similar distinction, in my view. "Leadership on the Line" speaks to the heart and soul as well as the mind. Most of us are likely to have plenty to glean from the incisive leadership insights it offers.
13 "Staying in the game"...and then winning it
Those who read Heifetz's previously published Leadership Without Easy Answers will be interested to know that the final section in that brilliant book ("Staying Alive") led to the development of this book which Heifetz co-authored with Linsky. "We wanted this second book to be more focused, more practical, and more personal. We hope this book will be accessible, eminently usable, and inspiring in your life and work." The material is presented within three Parts: The Challenge (which explains "why leadership is so dangerous and how people get taken out of the game"), The Response (which provides "a series of action steps designed to reduce the risk of getting pushed aside"), and Body and Soul ("which discusses "ways that people contribute to their own demise"), followed by a Notes section filled with especially informative annotations. Pogo once said "we have met the enemy and he is us." More often than not, I think that is true. I also think that most human limits are self-imposed. That is probably what Henry Ford had in mind when he observed "Whether you think you can or think you can't, you're right."
According to Heifetz and Linsky, "To lead is to live dangerously because when leadership counts, when you lead people through difficult change, you challenge what people hold dear -- their daily habits, tools, loyalties, and ways of thinking -- with more to offer perhaps than a possibility. Moreover, leadership often means exceeding the authority you are given to tackle the challenge at hand. People push back when you disturb the personal and institution equilibrium they know. And people resist in all kinds of creative and unexpected ways that can get you taken out of the game: pushed aside, undermined, or eliminated." Throughout human history, most of the greatest leaders were "eliminated" precisely because they were perceived to be intolerable threats to what James O'Toole calls "the ideology of comfort and the tyranny of custom." Draw up a list of the 10-15 greatest leaders in history. How many of them died of natural causes? On my own list, only Winston Churchill and he was twice voted out of office amidst ridicule and even contempt. One of this book's greatest value-added benefits is the brief summary of key ideas which concludes each chapter. I strongly recommend that the book be re-read within 2-3 weeks; also, that at least the chapter summaries be reviewed weekly thereafter.
It is important to understand that Heifetz and Linsky view the subject of leadership in a much wider and deeper context than one normally encounters in a business book. Consider these brief remarks with which they conclude: " Opportunities for leadership are available to you, and to us, every day. But putting yourself on the line is difficult work, for the dangers are real. Yet the work has nobility and the benefits, for you and for those around you, are beyond measure. We have written this book out of admiration and respect for you and your passion. We hope that the words on these pages have provided both practical advice and inspiration; and that you have better means now to lead., protect yourself, and keep your spirit alive. May you enjoy with a full heart the fruits of your labor. The world needs you."
Those who share my high regard for this book are urged to read Heifetz's previous book, Leadership Without Easy Answers. Also David Maister's Practice What You Preach, James O'Toole's Leading Change, and Larry Bossidy and Ram Charan's Execution: The Discipline of Getting Things Done.
14 The Single Greatest Literary Work of Our Time? Joke
The Single Greatest Literary Work of Our Time?At least the authors should try to look a little impartial when reviewing their own work.
I guess after Harvard's ethical flexibility re: Jack Welch - this kind of thing is tolertated.
15 The Single Greatest Literary Work of Our Time
Leadership on the line, a compelling text complete with touching personality and gripping emotional exploration, is a must buy for anyone involved in business - nay - anyone. Period. And let us not forget the wonderful introduction in which the authors graciously reveal the true genius behind their work.....their children.
