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Leading
Change
- Overcoming the Ideology of Comfort and
the Tyranny of Custom
Jossey-Bass Publishers,
San Francisco, 1995 (282 pages in hardback)
Author James O’Toole
ISBN 1-55542-608-5
Author James O’Toole is definitely
not afraid of creating controversy. His book is a refreshing approach to
leadership in many ways. Stylistically and philosophically, Leading Change
is a different kind of book about leaders and the natural resistance of the
change process. O’Toole left a comfortable 20 year university chair in academia
to begin working with the Aspen Institute. This experience was a major
inspiration in writing this enterprising book.
Perhaps the most daring aspect of
Leading Change is O’Toole’s clear repudiation of the contingency
theories so prevalent today in leadership research and coaching programs. He
obviously did not come to this conclusion frivolously. This work includes his
observations and experience from over two decades of working with both corporate
leaders and with respected mentors such as Bennis, Drucker, Gardner, DePree and
others! O’Toole loudly proclaims that the contingency theories so revered today
simply don’t work in the long run. He maintains that by their very design they
typically destroy trust between leaders and followers. He then offers a
values-based alternative, which is a primary focus of the book.
Leading Change begins with O’Toole drawing a
number of deep analogies from a painting by James Ensor.
He immediately draws you into the books theme by probing a number of profound
leadership questions and scenarios analogous to paintings theme. As an author,
he seeks to answer three related questions:
1.
What are the major causes of
resistance to change?
2.
How can leaders effectively and morally
overcome that resistance?
3.
Why is the dominant philosophy
of leadership, based on contingency theory, neither an effective nor a moral
guide for people who wish to lead change?
To answer
these questions O’Toole divides the book into two halves. The first half deals
with leaders and the second half with followers. The main theme of his work is
to seriously question the validity of contingency theory and propose the
alternative of value-based leadership behavior. O’Toole writes, “Instead,
values-based leadership is an attitude about people, philosophy, and process.
To overcome the resistance to change, one must be willing, for starters, to
change oneself. In essence, then, values-based leadership is “unnatural.””
If you want
to read and digest a book that will challenge both you and much present
thinking about leadership, this book is definitely for you!
weLEAD rating highly recommended
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This Book at a Discounted Price Here!
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