A Leader's Legacy [Hardcover]

James M. Kouzes (Author), Barry Z. Posner (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: August 18, 2006 | ISBN-10: 0787982962 | ISBN-13: 978-0787982966 | Edition: 1

In this provocative book, leadership experts and authors of the best-selling The Leadership Challenge, Jim Kouzes and Barry Posner take on a unique challenge and explore the question of leadership and legacy. Kouzes and Posner examine in twenty-two chapters the critical questions all leaders must ask themselves in order to leave a lasting impact. These powerful essays are grouped into four categories: Significance, Relationships, Aspirations, and Courage. In each essay the authors consider a thorny and often ambiguous issue with which today’s leaders must grapple issues—such as how leaders serve and sacrifice, why leaders need loving critics, why leaders should want to be liked, why leaders can't take trust for granted, why it’s not just the leader’s vision, why failure is always an option, why it takes courage to “make a life,” how to liberate the leader in everyone, and ultimately, how the legacy you leave is the life you lead.

Editorial Reviews

Review

" …an often emotional but compelling book…offers a thoughtful and reassuring perspective that any leader or aspiring leader can use…" (Business Executive, June 2007)

Review

"Jim Kouzes and Barry Posner have done it again! In clear, concise essays filled with wisdom and insight, they set the standard of what leaders need to be in order to excel in the twenty-first century, starting with the legacy that they want to leave behind. A Leader's Legacy is a must-read, not just for those at the top of organizations but for anyone at any level who aspires to be a leader."
—Bill George, former chairman and CEO, Medtronic; author, Authentic Leadership

"This superb book defies conventional wisdom in favor of being truly wise. In chapters such as ‘Leaders Should Want to Be Liked’ and ‘Failure Is Always an Option,’ Kouzes and Posner portray leaders on a human scale, opening leadership to anyone who is willing to be fully human. That, of course, is a challenge! And yet the style of this book—with its stories of well-grounded leaders and its engaging conversational prose—encourages the reader to live into and up to that challenge. A Leader's Legacy will surely become key to the literary legacy that its authors have been leaving in their wake over the past twenty-five years."
—Parker J. Palmer, author, The Courage to Teach, A Hidden Wholeness, and Let Your Life Speak

"In their new book, Kouzes and Posner provide a badly needed supplement to all those other books on leadership. First, they don’t just say that everyone can be a leader—that oft-repeated bromide is little more than a cliché now. They demonstrate (with good examples) how true and important the idea is. And second (again with effective examples) they make ‘leadership’ something that will interest not just ‘organizational’ types but anyone who hopes to make a difference in the world."
—William Bridges, author, Transitions and Managing Transition

"A Leader’s Legacy is an indispensable daily reference for leaders at every level of every enterprise. Legacy is a gift to leaders of today, to leaders of the future."
—Frances Hesselbein, chairman, Leader to Leader Institute

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 208 pages
• Publisher: Jossey-Bass; 1 edition (August 18, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0787982962
• ISBN-13: 978-0787982966
• Product Dimensions: 5.8 x 0.8 x 8.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 7.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (23 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #63,236 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

14 of 14 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Wow! January 7, 2007

By Trish Corlew

Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase

I am in the midst of a serious crisis in our work environment. I purchased multiple books to help me evaluate our situation. This book was one of the best I read. It made me question why it's taken me so long to act on a problem that we have had for a while. Thank you for such a wonderful book that asked great questions to get me to realize how important this change is to our organization. This book will inspire you to be a better leader and it is quite easy to read. Some of my favorite passages are:

- "We're (leaders) presented with the chance to change a life."

- "Nothing really significant can ever be achieved unless people feel appreciated by their leader."

- "Extraordinary achievements never bloom in barren and unappreciate settings."

- "Leadership requires a resonant connection with others over matters of the heart."

- "Leadership is personal."

- "If you have people working for you in leadership roles who truly don't care if other people don't like them, THEN FIRE THEM." (emphasis I added)

My personal favorites, which just emphasized that my intuition was right along...

- "It's about intimacy. It's about familiarity. It's about empathy. The kind of communication needed to enlist others in a common vision requires understanding constiuents at a much deeper level than we normally find comfortable. It requires understanding others' strongest yearnings and their deepest fears. It requires a profound awareness of their joys and their sorrows. It requires experiencing life as they experience it."

- "When was the last time I fought for a value that I cherished? When was the last time I was resolute in the face of stern resistance? And we also have to ask ourselves am I ready for my next RPM (Rosa Parks Moment)?"

This is one of those books that should be in every new manager's library and every manager that has been leading for more than five years. It will give you great ideas to start and will bring you back to what made you successful. But, it also challenges you to try new ideas and learn from your mistakes, as well as others. BUY THIS BOOK!

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars A Leader's Legacy` September 18, 2006

By Jennifer Nichols

Format:Hardcover

I found the authors nailed it with this book. It's full of insights into being a leader. . . and in a conversational, easy to read format. The book is full of compelling stories, I read it in a couple of sittings.

I guess what I loved most about it was the common sense, no nonsense way leadership is viewed. Simple statements (not simplisitic) such as "We will work harder and more effectively for people we like. And we will like them in direct proportion to how they make us feel." As they point out we don't need to read mountains of studies on emotional intelligence to understand the truth of these words.

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars This book offers both a window and a mirror. August 30, 2007

By Robert Morris HALL OF FAMETOP 100 REVIEWERVINE™ VOICE

Format:Hardcover

In twenty-one separate but related essays that comprise this volume, James Kouzes and Barry Posner share their thoughts about the positive and enduring impact that an effective leader can have. The nature and extent of each effective leader's legacy, of course, varies from one to another. While reading the Introduction and then the first few chapters, I began to think about great leaders throughout history such as Jesus, Abraham Lincoln, Winston Churchill, and Mohandas Gandhi. Obviously, there are differences between and among them and other great leaders in terms of when and where they lived, the circumstances in which they were born and raised, and the challenges they faced. However, all of them had a vision of what ought to be as well as an absolute faith that it could be fulfilled, they attracted the support of others who shared their vision and their faith, and they possessed what Bill George characterizes as "authenticity."

Also as I read this book, I thought about the film It's a Wonderful Life in which George Bailey (portrayed by James Stewart) is given the opportunity to know what would have happened, and not have happened, had he not lived. He eventually realizes that the quality and value of his own life are best measured by the quality and value he gives to the lives of others. That is his "legacy," the core concept that Kouzes and Posner rigorously examine throughout their book. A simple idea? Yes and no. We are well-advised to remember Oliver Wendell Holmes' assertion, "I would not give a fig for the simplicity this side of complexity, but I would give my life for the simplicity on the other side of complexity."

Kouzes and Posner are persistent empiricists and diehard pragmatists. They devote almost all of their attention in this book - as they do in their previously published classic, The Leadership Challenge - to the practice of effective leadership. Their observations and insights are based on decades of research that included hundreds of interviews and responses to surveys from thousands of leaders within all manner of organizations throughout the world. What they learned is what they share in their two books, this one and the aforementioned The Leadership Challenge.

Here are two brief composite excerpts that, I hope, suggest the thrust and flavor of their thinking:

Not a week goes by "that we don't hear someone in an executive role say something to this effect: `I don't care if people like me. I just want them to respect me." Get real! This statement is utter nonsense - contrary to everything we know about leadership...people perform significantly more effectively when their leaders treat them with dignity and respect, listen to them, support them, recognize, make them feel important, build their skills, and show confidence in them. Likeability is a major factor in being successful in just about every endeavor in life."

"You can leave a lasting legacy only if you can imagine a brighter future, and the capacity to imagine exciting future possibilities is the defining competence of leaders. Today's leaders have to be concerned about tomorrow's world and those who will inherit it. They are the custodians of the future, and it's their job to make sure that they leave their organizations in better shape than they found them. We've surveyed thousands of people on what they want in leaders, and their tell us that being forward-thinking is second only to honesty as their most admired leader quality...Get everyone involved in asking, What's next?...Another crucial question is, What's better? What's better than what you're now doing or anticipate doing in the foreseeable future?...It's imperative that we spend less time on daily operations and more time on future possibilities."

If you think these remarks are simplistic, please read the Holmes quotation.

I wholly agree with James Kouzes and Barry Posner that, ultimately, a leader's "legacy" should be determined by the nature and extent of her or his positive and enduring impact on the lives of those with whom they have been associated as well as those with whom there may be only a brief and single encounter. "You just never know whose life you might touch. You just never know what change you might initiate and what impact you might have. You just never know when that critical moment might come. What you do know is that you can make a difference. You can leave the world better than you found it."

To those who read this commentary, I suggest asking the same question I ask myself each day: "What will my legacy be?"