Customer Reviews

Creating Leaderful Organizations: How to Bring Out Leadership in Everyone

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Raelin's "leaderful" practice is about how anyone, in any role in any organization, can exercise leadership. Drawing from a wide array of current leadership theory, Raelin builds a new model that invites us to think and act differently. He challenges formal leaders to identify the values underpinning their leadership, to be explicit about their goals, intentions and strategies, and to truly collaborate with others to create new solutions. And he encourages those without formal authority to find their own leaderful voice.
This book has the added advantage of including a brief self-assessment and then being structured such that you can easily find what you think will be of greatest value to you.

This is a very strong book on leadership that is much needed for our current challenges in the field. Current thought of what leadership means to organizations and leaders in most companies is no longer sufficient in our journey to become better social and organizational systems. Joe Raelin's book clearly identifies the necessary paradigm that we all need to be thinking about when we hear the word, "leadership." Leadership is for everyone - at all levels of the organization - and not just for those who lead at the top. Total cultural engagement, corporate citizenship, respectful and open communication, listening for others wisdom and truth, and collaboration define Joe's version of a leaderful organization, and it should be celebrated for years to come. Non-hierarchical ways of leadership is no longer an option - it is a strategic imperative that Joe Raelin thoughtfully and clearly articulates in this valuable addition to our leadership library.
From Chapter 1, "Leaderful practice is unique compared to empowerment models that have become popular in recent years in that it does not merely present a consultative model wherin leaders in authority allow "followers" to participate in their leadership. Nor does it equate to stewardship appraoches that see the leader step aside to allow others to take over when necessary. Instead, it offers a true mutual model that transforms leadership from an individual property into a new paradigm that redefines leadership as a collective practice."

"Creating Leaderful Organizations" is a refreshing, articulate, intelligent, and inspiring book. At the same time, this book is practical, immediately applicable and handy to revisit as needed. Raelin's book has the potential to resonant with readers of all levels within organizations as well as OD/HRD professionals, consultants and teachers.

Raelin's Leaderful concept is an important lens to consider as we make decisions about our behavior and role as formal leaders and as individual contributors. Do we assess our behavior, at work and in our personal lives, as "leadership" only if we occupy a formal leadership position? Can't we all be leaders in our actions? Raelin impactfully challenges the reader's thinking about leadership with a new paradigm for leadership, positioned as a continuum: from conventional leadership approaches to four new Leaderful tenets. Raelin proceeds to expertly integrate historically rooted theories and practices with new ideas to move the reader along in their quest for applying the Leaderful concept in their work and personal settings. Self-assessments, examples, skills and checklists for getting started are thorough.

The argument for why people and organizations today need to consider Leaderful practices is presented in a genuine and authentic tone that warrants a close examination of values in the workplace while keeping in mind productivity and meaning. Important is the fact that this book is not simply espousing a new concept but truly integrates theory with practice. The reader is guided and supported throughout the book, including realistic scenarios, reflective questions, and whether an organization is ready and supportive for such actions.

This is a text book for a graduate course I took. I received an A- in the course and found the content of the text very useful in the course and the writing style very easy to read and comprehend.

Creating Leaderful Organizations presents a paradigm of mutual - rather than heroic - leadership. It transforms leadership from an individual property to a collective responsibility. Raelin details how 'leaderful' practice can accomplish the critical processes of leadership more effectively than any existing approach. At the heart of the book is observation of success of self-organizing teams in which no one person appears to be exercising hierarchical control. Raelin argues that, so far from being 'leaderless', these teams or groups are 'leaderful', a term that he then overuses in an apparent attempt to give it wide currency.

The great feature of this book is its demonstration that leadership is not just about what those at the top do. Raelin's realizes that leadership today needs to be seen as dispersed throughout the organization. In his account, all employees can show some leadership, seen as collaborative, concurrent action involving a number of team members showing leadership at the same time on similar or different matters. The problem I have with this way of describing dispersed leadership is that it isn't clearly enough differentiated from management and, for this reason, does not sound sufficiently different from informal leadership, an idea that has been around for decades. Granted, Raelin introduces shades of difference, such as arguing that leadership is not just something individuals do. But his concept of leadership is vague - it seems to include anything any team member does to support colleagues, make decisions or take initiative. In other words, the same confusion that infects our attempts to differentiate leadership from management is preventing us from properly accounting for leadership that is dispersed throughout organizations. For me, it is far better to sharply separate leadership and management such that leadership is simply challenging the status quo to promote new directions while management takes care of getting things done. On this view, Raelin is mainly talking about shared management, not leadership.