Flexible Leadership: Creating Value by Balancing Multiple Challenges and Choices [Hardcover]

Gary Yukl (Author), Richard Lepsinger (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0787965316 | ISBN-13: 978-0787965310 | Publication Date: May 5, 2004 | Edition: 1

If you are a manager or a training and development professional, you need concrete suggestions for guiding your organization through rapidly changing conditions and difficult challenges. Flexible Leadership offers a comprehensive theory that integrates findings from different disciplines and more than a half century of research and explains how leaders can effectively enhance the bottom-line performance of their organizations. The authors provide illustrative examples of effective and ineffective leadership, including some from their own consulting experiences over the past 30 years in private and public sector organizations. The book includes information about

• Leadership and management behaviors that can be used to enhance organizational performance.
• Improvement programs, management systems, and structural forms that can be used to enhance organizational performance.
• Integrating direct and indirect forms of leadership.
• Balancing tradeoffs and competing demands related to performance.
• Adapting leadership to changing situations.
• Integrating leadership processes at different levels of an organization.
• Competencies relevant for effective leadership.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"Flexible Leadership ‘connects the dots’ between Leadership and Management and provides the insight to appreciate both. With practical examples, applications and behavioral tools, this is a road map for emerging and experienced leaders alike."
—Mary Eckenrod, vice president, World Wide Talent Management, Cisco Systems, Inc.

"Yukl and Lepsinger present the full range of direct and indirect behaviors required to be an effective leader in a practical manner that is easy to understand and apply."
—Vijay Govindarajan, Earl C. Daum 1924 Professor of International Business and Founding Director, William F. Achtmeyer Center for Global Leadership, Tuck School of Business, Dartmouth College

"One of the most sophisticated examinations of leadership to date.  Moving beyond the all too prevalent simple recipes, Flexible Leadership paints a rich picture of the realities of leading. A wonderful resource for those who wish to become masterful leaders."
—Jay A. Conger, professor, London Business School

“If you want to learn what leadership is really all about, this is the book for you. It is about three core leadership tasks that can be learned by ordinary managers and integrated in accordance with the nature of your business and situation. This book provides a new and very useful framework for understanding what leaders must do to create sustainable performance."
—Michael Beer, professor emeritus, Harvard Business School, and chairman, Center for Organizational Fitness

"A leadership book that captures the complexity of a leader’s role while providing specific guidelines and tools that help you realize that being an effective leader is not out of your reach."
—Peter Voss, president and CEO,CDC IXIS Asset Management North America, L.P.

“I have always believed that a significant part of my job as a senior executive was to help develop effective leaders at all levels of my organization. Flexible Leadership provides an indispensable guide that will help leaders respond effectively to the challenges and choices they face on the job.”
—Bill Sheldon, president and CEO, Eisai, Inc.

From the Back Cover

"Flexible Leadership ‘connects the dots’ between leadership and management and provides the insight to appreciate both. With practical examples, applications, and behavioral tools, this is a road map for emerging and experienced leaders alike."
–Mary Eckenrod, vice president, World Wide Talent Management, Cisco Systems, Inc.

"Yukl and Lepsinger present the full range of direct and indirect behaviors required to be an effective leader in a practical manner that is easy to understand and apply."
–Vijay Govindarajan, Earl C. Daum 1924 Professor of International Business and founding director, William F. Achtmeyer Center for Global Leadership, Tuck School of Business, Dartmouth College

"One of the most sophisticated examinations of leadership to date. Moving beyond the all too prevalent simple recipes, Flexible Leadership paints a rich picture of the realities of leading. A wonderful resource for those who wish to become masterful leaders."
–Jay A. Conger, professor, London Business School and University of Southern California

"If you want to learn what leadership is really all about, this is the book for you. It is about three core leadership tasks that can be learned by ordinary managers and integrated in accordance with the nature of your business and situation. This book provides a new and very useful framework for understanding what leaders must do to create sustainable performance."
–Michael Beer, professor emeritus, Harvard Business School, and chairman of the Center for Organizational Fitness

"A leadership book that captures the complexity of a leader’s role while providing specific guidelines and tools that help you realize that being an effective leader is not out of your reach."
–Peter Voss, chairman and chief executive officer, CDC IXIS Asset Management North America, L.P.

"I have always believed that a significant part of my job as a senior executive was to help develop effective leaders at all levels of my organization. Flexible Leadership provides an indispensable guide that will help leaders respond effectively to the challenges and choices they face on the job."
–Bill Sheldon, president and chief executive officer, Eisai, Inc.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 288 pages
• Publisher: Pfeiffer; 1 edition (May 5, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0787965316
• ISBN-13: 978-0787965310
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.2 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 15.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #836,074 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Management in disguise of leadership, January 6, 2007

By 

Benno D. Hoffmann "PROSIL" (Hamburg) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Flexible Leadership: Creating Value by Balancing Multiple Challenges and Choices (Hardcover)

This book tells the reader more about manangement than about leadership, based on the trivial recognition that no perosn cannot exert successful leadership without having sufficient expertise in management. Ten years ago, when management titles "hyped", this book's title might have been Flexible Management: Prerequisites for successful entrepreneurship.
Benno D. Hoffmann

3 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Dr. Ed Piccolino writes:, July 2, 2004

By 

Ed &Tina Piccolino (Westport, CT USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Flexible Leadership: Creating Value by Balancing Multiple Challenges and Choices (Hardcover)

Lepsinger & Yukl have written a highly readable book that very effectively integrates the most recent and important research findings about effective leadership practices and competencies. The book provides a very useful, pragmatic framework for executives (and consultants who assess and coach leaders) -- it really offers a roadmap for balancing competing demands and trade-offs that are critical to success, and very effectively makes the point that one needs to consider processes and supporting systems -- in addition to behavioral skills, to ensure success. I especially like the way the authors emphasize what can and can't be learned about leadership, and how they resolve the historical debate about the relative importance of leadership vs. managership -- arguing effectively that "leaders need to be good managers, and managers need to be good leaders."

3 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A practical guide to leadership, June 23, 2004

By 

Dalene M. Foster, Ph.D. (bethel, ct United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Flexible Leadership: Creating Value by Balancing Multiple Challenges and Choices (Hardcover)

The Flexible leader finally demystifies the notion of leadership. In my work, I often hear that "leaders are born", and you're out of luck if you don't get the gene. Unfortunately this doesn't provide most of us with any guidance on how to be a better leader and manager. The Flexible leader provides a practical roadmap to the kinds of behaviors that make leaders successful. This isn't an esoteric, psychological look at the personality or charisma of great leaders; it's about what successful leaders do, say, and how they manage -- and those are things we all have control over. This book is empowering for those of us trying to learn how to be better leaders and managers. It is also chock full of potent case studies demonstrating that strong leadership throughout the organization, not just at the top, makes a successful company!