John P. Kotter on What Leaders Really Do (Harvard Business Review Book) [Hardcover]

John P. Kotter (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 18, 1999 | ISBN-10: 0875848974 | ISBN-13: 978-0875848976 | Edition: 1

A Harvard Business Review Book. Widely acknowledged as the world's foremost authority on leadership, John Kotter has devoted his remarkable career to studying organizations and those who run them, and his bestselling books and essays have guided and inspired leaders at all levels. Here, in this collection of his acclaimed Harvard Business Review articles, is an astute assessment of the real work of leaders, as only John Kotter can offer. To complement the HBR articles, Kotter also contributes a new piece, a thoughtful reflection on the themes that have developed throughout his work. Convinced that most organizations today lack the leadership they need, Kotter's mission is to help us better understand what leaders--real leaders--do. True leadership, he reminds us, is an elusive quality, and too often we confuse management duties and personal style with leadership, or even mistake unworthy leaders for the real thing. Yet without leadership, organizations move too slowly, stagnate, and lose their way. With John Kotter on What Leaders Really Do, readers will learn how to become more effective leaders as they explore pressing issues such as power, influence, dependence, and strategies for change.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

"After conducting fourteen formal studies and more than a thousand interviews, directly observing dozens of executives in action, and compiling innumerable surveys, I am completely convinced that most organizations today lack the leadership they need," contends John P. Kotter, the Konosuke Matsushita Professor of Leadership at Harvard Business School. "And the shortfall is often large. I'm not talking about a deficit of 10%, but of 200%, 400%, or more in positions up and down the hierarchy," he writes in the opening essay to John P. Kotter on What Leaders Really Do, a collection of his most notable articles on the topic for the Harvard Business Review. Kotter isn't known to pull punches, and these pieces--falling into two categories, those concerned with "Leadership and Change" and those focusing on "Dependency and Networks"--are no exception. The articles in the book sensibly point out the difference between management and leadership; they advocate setting a direction rather than planning and budgeting, and motivating people rather than controlling them. They are tied together effectively by the aforementioned new essay, in which Kotter presents his "Ten Observations About Management Behavior" to summarize the concepts he has developed over a 30-year career. --Howard Rothman

Review

"Offers a convenient one-volume resource to this noted expert's views on leadership." -- Choice, October 1999

"This book is thankfully short on theory and is instead filled with practical, often common-sensical, advice. For anyone who wants to be a leader when they grow up, Kotter's book is required reading." -- CIO, June 15, 1999

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 192 pages
• Publisher: Harvard Business Review Press; 1 edition (March 18, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0875848974
• ISBN-13: 978-0875848976
• Product Dimensions: 8.6 x 5.9 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 13.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (15 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #212,947 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Professor John P. Kotter

John P. Kotter is internationally known and widely regarded as the foremost speaker on the topics of Leadership and Change. His is the premier voice on how the best organizations actually achieve successful

transformations. The Konosuke Matsushita Professor of Leadership, Emeritus at the Harvard Business School and a graduate of MIT and Harvard, Kotter's vast experience and knowledge on successful change and leadership have been proven time and again. Most recently, Kotter has been involved in the creation and co-founding of Kotter International, a leadership organization that helps Global 5000 company leaders develop the practical skills and implementation methodologies required to lead change in a complex, large-scale business environment.

When speaking to groups, Kotter draws on the history of recent successes and failures in the business world. He explores the new rules of leadership and the importance of lifelong learning in the post-corporate world. Kotter offers the leadership tools necessary to achieve success in a business world that reinvents itself every day. He continues to speak at Harvard Business School Executive Education Programs, including the prestigious Advanced Management Program (AMP). These highly competitive professional seminars were created by Kotter to teach the important steps needed for successful leadership and change. When John Kotter speaks to an audience he speaks with one and only one goal: to motivate action that gets better results.

Kotter has authored 17 books, twelve of them bestsellers. His works have been printed in over 120 languages and total sales exceed two million copies. His latest book, A Sense of Urgency, focuses on what a true sense of urgency in an organization really is, why it is becoming an important asset and how it can be created and sustained. Just released in September of 2008, Urgency reached #7 on the New York Times bestseller list in early October.

John Kotter's international bestseller Leading Change--which outlines an actionable eight-step process for implementing successful transformations--has become the change bible for managers around the world. Our Iceberg Is Melting, the New York Times bestseller, puts the eight-step process within an allegory, making it accessible to the broad range of people needed to effect major organizational transformations. His books are in the top 1% of sales on Amazon.com.

John Kotter's articles in The Harvard Business Review over the past twenty years have sold more reprints than any of the hundreds of distinguished authors who have written for that publication during the same time period. Kotter has been on the Harvard Business School faculty since 1972. In 1980, at the age of 33, he was given tenure and a full professorship, making him one of the youngest people in the history of the University to be so honored.

The many honors won by Professor Kotter include an Exxon Award for Innovation in Graduate Business School Curriculum Design, a Johnson, Smith & Knisley Award for New Perspectives in Business Leadership, and a McKinsey Award for Best Harvard Business Review Article. Professor Kotter's Leading Change was named the #1 Management Book of the Year by Management General. In 1998, his Matsushita Leadership won first place in the Financial Times, Booz-Allen Global Business Book Competition for biography/autobiography. In 2003, a video version of a story from his book The Heart of Change won a Telly Award. In 2006, Kotter received the prestigious McFeely Award for "outstanding contributions to leadership and management development." In 2007, his video "Succeeding in a Changing World" was named best video training product of the year by Training Media Review and also won a Telly Award.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

44 of 45 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars A useful collection of Kotter's articles, December 6, 1999

By 

Bill Godfrey (Mt Stuart, TAS Australia) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: John P. Kotter on What Leaders Really Do (Harvard Business Review Book) (Hardcover)

Six of Kotter's articles published between 1979 and 1997 are prefaced by a substantial introduction under the title of Leadership at the Turn of the Century. The six articles are arranged in two groups of three, the first three grouped under Leadership and Change and the second under the heading Dependency and Networks. The first part contains the famous articles "What Leaders Really Do" and "Leading Change: Why Transformation Efforts Fail", which was the article behind the author's subsequent book "Leading Change".

I seem to be in a minority in thinking that Kotter's views of leadership are over-rated. Although his commentary recognises complexity, his prescriptions seem to me to be instrumental, linear and unduly inwardly focused. He takes a very analytical view of an intensely human art. One of the central features of successful leadership is passion, and another is a strong and well articulated sense of values. The author recognises both, but does not appear to be engaged by them. They appear to be treated as merely two more ingredients in the mix. Above all, it does not ask the questions that are becoming so dominant - questions about societal values, about balancing the need for profit with issues of sustainability and even about the role of the corporation in a globalised world.

Having said that, there is a lot of good material available. His '8 steps' are sufficiently well known not to need repetition, and the article "What Leaders Really Do" is a good summary of the distinction between leadership and management concerns.

The introduction is written largely around ten 'observations', which add up to saying that leadership and management are different, that high complexity and high rates of change make leadership increasingly important, with a large part of the leadership role being concerned with building vision, providing inspiration and building networks of relationship.

56 of 59 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars The analytical person's guide to leadership, June 8, 2000

By A Customer

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: John P. Kotter on What Leaders Really Do (Harvard Business Review Book) (Hardcover)

I look at the other reviewers comments and realize that there's another perspective. One that I think I may share with others who are not the other reviewers.

There's a niche of people out there who are "intuitive / analytical" people. The works of other leadership / management "gurus" seem, well, mystical or overwhelmingly positive.

I personally understand and practice the passion of leadership but personally had a hard time understanding the framework of human relationships and motivations that lead to most management hierarchies. In traditional management hierarchies, passionate people are also labelled as "over the edge". immature, unrealistic.

From an analytical engineering / scientist approach, what occurs in executive management just doesn't seem to make sense. Frankly, I'm blown away by the rampant "peter principle" in executive management. I've not understood why I who have significant leadership skills haven't made it into "the higher echelons".

John Kotter is the first author I've encountered who has been able to layout for me the framework of human interactions. He's the first author who feels to me like he is looking over my shoulder giving me useful guidance, not just pumping me up.

The article on "Leading Change, Why Transformation Efforts Fail" included in the book landed in my lap at a time when I'm attempting to lead cultural changes.

The chapter on "Managing and Power" helped me understand how my independent / contra-dependent leanings might actually be hindering me in a management hierarchy of over dependent managers.

I've gotten more condensed information from Kotter than from any other source to date. However, in this case, I must concur with one of the other reviewers: I'd like greater depth of information on how to better adapt.

Still, Kotter's terse, analytical perspective has been phenomenally valuable in giving me insights into my behaviors (that I'm not the only person who acts, feels, or believes in the things that I do) and a framework for understanding the behaviors of others.

Only time will tell if I've been able to take away anything of any real value and apply it successfully.

14 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A MUST Read for Anyone in Management, January 21, 2002

By A Customer

This review is from: John P. Kotter on What Leaders Really Do (Harvard Business Review Book) (Hardcover)

I bought this book on second thought because I was also buying "Leading Change" by Kotter. However, I picked up this book and could not put it down. As a long-time leader, this book validates much of what I already know and do. However, it also brings a lot of insight into the differences between leadership and management. The author really analyzes the complexity and interdependency and interrelationships that are faced by, and must be overcome or managed by leaders and managers. I liked what and how Kotter says it in this book that I bought one for each of my managers (I'm a CEO). I am hoping that this easy-to-read, and understandable book brings a lot of insight to them. I highly recommend this book to all current leaders and managers, and anyone hoping to go into leadership or management or both.