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Book Review

Managing Leadership

iUniverse, Inc. —2004 (174 pages in paperback)

Author Jim Stroup

ISBN 0-595-31551-8

Author Jim Stroup brings his military and civilian experience together to provide a dogmatic and bold indictment of the modern leadership industry. In his book Managing Leadership he challenges the status quo and forces the reader to look at leadership from a different perspective. Stroup believes the typical definition of “leadership” used by most organizations should be “scrapped”. He believes real leadership should not be centered on individuals. The end result of this single-leader approach includes unnecessary burdens placed on the individual leader, surrender of the stakeholders and organization to “the leaders” vision, a distorted view of managerial functions and loss of control. We are all familiar with the public crimes and business failures of many individuals formerly praised by the media as “leaders”. Managing Leadership offers an alternative approach to what leadership essentially is.

Instead, Stroup observes that leadership is a characteristic of the organization and that it arises naturally from inside it. He writes in chapter 6, “Leadership from within the organization is a perfectly natural and ordinary occurrence. It has been remarked upon for centuries, but has not achieved the critical attention it deserves.” Therefore Stroup believes it should be managed like any other vital resource. He opines that leadership should be allowed to come from virtually anyone in the organization and be welcome at any time. The task of the senior executives should be to manage the leadership that is inherently within the organization.

Managing Leadership is organized into 3 parts broken down into 9 informative chapters. In part 1, the author introduces the reader to the problems that now exist within the study of leadership because of poor definition, false expectations and ineffective leadership theories. Within Part 2, Stroup applies some military examples (with caution) to the non-military environment to demonstrate that organizational leadership is not the characteristic of an individual, but of the organization. Chapter 7 provides helpful analysis on how to manage the assets of organizational leadership from the proper perspective. Concluding with part 3, the author discusses the differences between traditional ideas and approaches toward leadership, and the model of organizational leadership he has been proposing. Stroup applauds the “half steps” made by previous consultants like McGregor, Burns, Blanchard and Follett. He then provides a compelling case on why it is time to take a “full forward step” toward complete development of organizational leadership. He concludes with a brief discussion of the benefits of this achievement.

Managing Leadership achieves its stated purpose. It was Jim Stoup’s hope that “I will have convinced enough readers to begin a debate on this topic that redirects the attention of professional students and practitioners of management back to the line of thinking begun by Mary Follett so long ago.” This well-written and challenging book is just what was needed. Let the debate begin!

weLEAD rating – highly recommended

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