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On Leadership

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This is a book that can rightly be called a classic to those who study the subject of leadership. It is now over ten years old but is still used by many universities as a textbook for their leadership or business classes. Gardner can truly be called a renaissance man due to his many talents and achievements. With a formal education in psychology he has been a teacher, corporate officer, public-servant in the government, respected author, and military officer. He was awarded the Presidential Metal of Freedom in 1964. Through these experiences he has learned much about leaders and the subject of leadership. On Leadership is written from the heart and discusses the author's philosophy and personal reflections on what it takes to lead others. He defines leadership as "the process of persuasion or example by which an individual (or leadership team) induces a group to pursue objectives held by the leader or shared by the leader and his or her followers".

Gardner begins by stressing the lack of leadership in the U.S. He believes this is a critical problem and opines that new leaders are desperately needed to tackle the obvious monumental societal problems that exist in our culture. Much of the book has a common thread on the critical need for leadership development. The author frequently uses historical examples to highlight his theories on leadership. On Leadership begins by stressing that understanding real leadership is an important first step. Leaders must be accountable, and must be held accountable for their actions and the direction they are taking us. He also does not shy away from a bold discussion on the importance of shared values, ethics, integrity and responsibility. A major emphasis of this work is that individuals at all segments of society must be prepared to demonstrate initiative and responsible leadership. He refers to this as dispersed leadership. Gardner stresses that, "Vitality at middle and lower levels of leadership can produce greater vitality in the higher levels of leadership".

The seventeen chapters of the book culminate with a "call to action" and a foretaste of what future possibilities might lie ahead if we heed the call. In the last chapter entitled The Release of Human Possibilities, Gardner envisions that "what leaders see on the surface can be discouraging - people, even very able people, caught in the routines of life, thinking short-term, plowing narrow self-beneficial furrows through life. What leaders have to remember is that somewhere under that somnolent surface is the creature that builds civilizations, the dreamer of dreams, the risk taker. And, remembering that, the leader must reach down to the springs that never dry up, the ever-fresh springs of the human spirit."

You may or may not agree with all the ideas and concepts that On Leadership presents. However, you will certainly be given a tremendous amount of material for personal reflection and self-discovery. This is a good book and the only weakness may exist in a few sections that are difficult to read due to an academic orientation and background.

Gardner's first sentence of his introduction, "Why do we not have better leadership?' is first answered by his initial definition of leadership attached to a disclaimer: "attention to leadership alone is sterile--and inappropriate. The larger topic of which leadership is a subtopic is the accomplishment of group purpose" [italics original]. This purpose, he says, is furthered by people other than individuals traditionally identified by leaders, such as "innovators, entrepreneurs and thinkers." He did not intend "to deal with either leadership or its related subjects comprehensively" but wanted instead to "illuminate aspects of the subject that may be of use in facing our present dilemmas--as a society and as a species" (p. xvi).

His book accomplished his purpose by highlighting, in vignettes, what by the 1990s had become the standard topics of leadership--traits, contexts, leader-follower dynamics, and so forth. In this sense, Gardner's book, with a flavor made particular by his extensive political examples, is in the genre of classic leadership textbooks, and his answer to the question posed in his first sentence was the book-length elaboration of the final sentence of his introduction: "We can do better. Much, much better" (p. xix).

His contributions to the field of leadership studies include his discussion of "dispersed leadership," which is woven through the text, his thoughts about renewal, and his discussion of how leadership and followership can release human potential. His extended definition of leadership, found on the first page of the first chapter, stated "Leadership is the process of persuasion or example by which a leader (or leadership team) induces a group to pursue objectives held by the leader or shared by the leader and his or her followers" (p. 1).

His book is a goldmine of aphoristic insights into leadership:

* The concept of accountability is as important as the concept of leadership. (p. xviii)

* The first step is not action; the first step is understanding. (p. xviii)

* Many people with power are without leadership gifts. (p. 2)

* Many writers on leadership take considerable pains to distinguish between leaders and managers. In the process leaders generally end up looking like a cross between Napoleon and the Pied Piper, and managers like unimaginative clods. This troubles me. (p.3)

* Values always decay over time. Societies that keep their values alive do so not by escaping the process of decay but by powerful processes of regeneration [italics original]. (p. 13)

* Indeed, one could argue that willingness to engage in battle when necessary is the sine qua non of leadership. (p. 16)

* Leaders are invariably symbols. (p. 18)

* Achieving a goal may simply make the next goal more urgent: inside every solution are the seeds of new problems. And as Donald Michael has pointed out, most of the time most things are out of hand. No leader enjoys that reality, but every leader knows it. (p. 22)

* Executives are given subordinates; they have to earn followers [italics original]. (p. 24)

* Woodrow Wilson said, "The ear of the leader must ring with the voices of the people." (p. 29)

* One ambitious young lawyer asked one went about winning trust, and the senior partner said dryly, "Try being trustworthy." (p. 33)

* Hobbes said that the reputation of power is power [italics original]. (p. 34)

* As Peter Drucker put it, Vail saw that the only way to keep Bell a private company was "to stand for the public interest more forcefully than any public agency could." (p. 45)

* He said, "He's a superb crisis manager, which is fortunate because his lack of judgment leads to a lot of crises." (p. 49)

* Acclaim and derision are the rewards of leadership. (p. 53)

* So the public (even the reasonably well-informed public) is deprived of the opportunity so cherished in a free society to exercise its native judgment in choosing the candidate who meets its needs. It knows its needs. But it does not know the candidates--only skillfully manufactured facsimiles thereof. (p. 54)

* To say a leader is preoccupied with power is like saying that a tennis player is preoccupied with making shots an opponent cannot return. Of course leaders are preoccupied with power! The significant questions are: What means do they use to gain it? How do they exercise it? To what ends do they exercise it? (p. 57)

* Our federal government is the biggest carrot-and-stick warehouse in the world. No wonder the power junkies gather. (p. 61)

* In our society public opinion is a notable source of power. (p. 61)

* A familiar failing of visionaries and of people who live in the realm of ideas and issues is that they are not inclined to soil their hands with the nuts and bolts of organizational functioning. (p. 65)

* Even veteran observers are bemused by the overreaching of some who exercise power. It is a source of constant wonder that such ancient and dreary vice can spring up so freshly. (p. 66)

* And who remembers the reigning princes? What heritage was left by those who held great worldly power when Buddha was teaching, or when Isaiah was prophesying or when Jesus spoke by the lakeside? (p. 76)

* Cyert and March point out that an organization is generally a coalition of individuals and groups with diverse goals, engaged in continuous bargaining for power. (p. 91)

* Mark Twain said, "There isn't a parallel of latitude that but thinks it would have been the equator if it had had its rights" . . . . People who think of themselves as victims are in no mood to collaborate with others to shape a constructive future. (p. 96)

* Pluralism that reflects no commitments whatever to the common good is pluralism gone berserk. (p. 97)

* Leaders unwilling to seek mutually workable arrangements with systems external to their own are not serving the long-term interests of their constituents. [italics original] (p. 99)

* Hitler said, "The art of leadership consists of consolidating the attention of the people against a single adversary." (p. 104)

* Transactional leadership accepts and works within the structure as it is. Transformational leadership renews. (p. 122)

* Leaders must understand the interweaving of continuity and change. [italics original] (p. 124)

* The person who works for social change must not be assumed to be a believer in Utopia and human perfectibility. Change will occur. We must cope. Leaders should understand the point made by Francis Bacon 350 years ago: "He who will not apply new remedies must expect new evils; for time is the greatest innovator." (p. 125)

* A feature of the trance of nonrenewal is that individuals can look straight ata flaw in the system and not see it as a flaw. (p. 126)

* Nothing is more vital to the renewal of an organization than the arrangements by which able people are nurtured and moved into positions where they can make their greatest contributions. (p. 127)

* H.G. Wells said, "Leaders should lead as far as they can and then vanish. Their ashes should not choke the fire they have lit." (p. 132)

* There is no doubt that a certain number of top executives have, in the secrecy of their minds, closed the books on one or another portion of their responsibilities. (p. 133)

* Pity the leader who is caught between unloving critics and uncritical lovers. (p. 135)

* The final issue is the most serious. Power lodges somewhere. When "the people" take power away from an individual or group they dislike, they may inadvertently empower those they like even less. In a leaderless system, where will power lodge? (p. 142)

* There is a French saying, "Be sure you want the consequences of what you want." (p. 142)

* Most of the endlessly debated questions about leadership are ancient, but there is one that has a distinctly modern ring: How can we define the role of leaders in the way that most effectively releases the creative energies of followers in the pursuit of shared purposes [italics original]. (p. 143)

* The first duties of citizens are not of a sophisticated political nature. Those duties are to look after one another in the family circle, get themselves educated and equipped to support themselves, obey the law, pay their taxes, and rear their children as responsible members of the community. These are authentic forms of participation, though they are rarely mentioned in discussions of the subject. (p. 145)

* The generalization may be that explosive crises produce great leaders, creeping crises do not. (p. 158)

* They learn that it is how they perform as individuals that counts, not how they relate to others. So it is not surprising that many young executives--even middle-aged executives--are still pirouetting for some scorekeeper, real or imagined, with little thought of their possible constituency. Their gaze is directed upward, at the executive staff meetings they want to worm their way into, at the executive vice-presidents they want to impress. They are not even paying attention to the people at their own level or below, whom they might hope to lead. (p. 167)

* Experience, thought to be the best teacher, is sometimes a confusing teacher. Robert Benchley said that having a dog teaches a boy fidelity, perseverance, and to turn around three times before lying down. (p. 168)

* Mentors are "growers," good farmers rather than inventors or mechanics. (p. 169)

* No leadership course can affect young men and women so powerfully as a well-designed sequence of reassignments. (p. 175)

* Are these just questions to be tossed into the box that lies beyond the in-box and the out-box? (Dean Acheson said there should be a third box, labeled Too Hard.) (p. 182) [note: this is the segue quotation to Heifetz and Peck]

* As a consequence, beneath the surface of most constituencies are dormant volcanoes of emotion and motivation. Oddly, when leaders tap those geothermal sources and evoke intense responses, we attribute the intensity not to the subterranean fires but to charisma in the leader. (p. 186)

* Your identity is what you have committed yourself to--whether the commitment is to your religion, to an ethical order, to your life work, to loved ones, to the common good, or to coming generations. (p. 189)

* We are not only problem solvers but problem seekers. If a suitable problem is not at hand, we invent one. Most games are invented problems. We are designed for the climb, not for taking our ease, either in the valley or at the summit. (p. 195)

* Harlan Cleveland points out that the leader has little choice but to be optimistic. The analyst, the critic, the journalist can afford not to be. But taking a positive view is not something that effective leaders have to work at: It is in their temperament, and no doubt had much to do with their attainment of a leadership role. It may have been a leader who said, "I'd be a pessimist but it would never work." (p. 196)

This is a book from one of the great observers of leaders in our country. Gardner emphasizes shared values and community building as the basis for great leadership. He also spends a great deal of time discussing renewal and how a leader must renew himself and his organization. Buy this book and Howard Gardner's Leading Minds.

John Gardner opens with the question that I have often pondered myself, "Why do we not have better leadership?" For me, the following question is 'how did these people obtain their position?' Of course the latter question exceeds the scope of Gardner's text.

Gardner does explain the attributes of a leader, basic components of leadership and its placement & utilization in large-scale organizations. The author enlivens this academic material by breathing politically historical examples to illustrate its application. The discussion comes full circle when Gardner segues into leadership development, motivation, and the release of human potential.

Personally, I relished absorbing and will emphasize the value of Chapter 13, 'Sharing Leadership Tasks'. Up until this point, most of the material colorfully delivered has been the foundation of leadership in its academic sense and you can find most of these precepts in any leadership text. But in Chapter 13, Gardner ties the principles together and hold all parties responsible. Leaders must be accountable for their actions & outcomes and conversely, the subordinates/constituents are responsible for holding their leader accountable. Gardner does not gloss over the role and responsibility of the subordinate/constituent because they act as a check & balance component for their leader. Furthermore, Gardner challenges the leader to trust, empower and hold his or her subordinates/constituents accountable for their jurisdiction and involve their energy & ideas. Gardner left me with the impression that any person at any level accepting responsibility and sharing in leadership tasks can have a positive ripple effect on those with whom s/he come into contact.

Gardner sells well the 'power of one' in terms of taking responsibility, being an active participant, and growing to be a better human being. As a leader, we should teach responsibility through empowerment and encourage initiative by eliciting participation, embracing various perspectives, and learning from less-than-desirable results. Lastly, Gardner proposes leadership development may begin as early as birth as a result of proactive parenting or latently unlocked and unleashed through carefully crafted conduct, circumstantial crises or happenstance. Whenever the leader in one emerges, it is the necessary renewal in the leadership process.

I was very pleased with this read and recommend it to anyone interested in understanding the fundamentals of being a leader, the expectations of leadership, and measures you can take to become more leader-like in your daily living.

Gardner has done it again by writing an engaging and thought provoking guide on leadership principles. When you compare Gardner to the other great philosphical writers, such as Drucker or Bennis, Gardner's outline and nine principals fill in the gap. Leadership is not power but it includes power. Leadership is not status but it may include status. Leadership is a constant self-evaluation.

This is one of those books filled with big words, written by an obviously brilliant man. There are only one hundred-ninety nine pages, yet it took me some time to get through this book. As the author states at the first of the book, this is not a how-to book, rather, it is a compillation of a lifetime of observation by this highly intelligent man. The word leadership is difficult to define, and every author/expert has a different definition. Gardner points out the many qualities, and qualifiers which define a leader, and he does it better than any author on the subject I've read yet. I enjoyed this book a little less than Covey's "Principle Centered Leadership", yet it does hold it's own. Anyone aspiring to the leader/manager level would do well to read this and other books on the subject.

This book is required reading for my graduate program and I understand why. Gardner has a wonderful grasp on the difficult concept of leadership. He is able to share his ideas in an understandable manner which is meaningful and relevant and stays with you!

After finishing this book I have to thank the author for sharing his wisdom with us as the reader. I've read many management and leadership books over the years and this one is certaintly one of the best. I enjoyed how he covers every aspect of leadership from the small business to the politician to the parent and there are just simply too many great quotes to even start disseminating them in reviews. You owe it to yourself to spend a few hours on this book, it's pretty short at 200 pages, and build your thoughts with the wisdom of this book.

John Gardner clearly knows a thing or two about leadership. In fact, he packs about 150 things about leadership into this fairly slender, 220-page volume.

What he doesn't know so much about is writing books, although he has written a few. While most writers would benefit from being more concise, including yours truly, Gardner is concise to a fault. "On Leadership" would be eminently more readable, and interesting, if he had simply fleshed out some of the historical examples and anecdotes that are sprinkled throughout the book.

Nonetheless, this 20-year-old book is still relevant and timely, and even inspiring and trenchant. Tell me this statement doesn't still hold true:

"We give every appearance of sleepwalking through a dangerous passage of history. We are anxious but immobilized."

Gardner succeeds in grounding leadership principles in big ideas about history, sociology, organizational behavior and psychology.

Although I haven't read widely in the leadership genre, I dare say that this is one of the better books on the subject, despite Gardner's limitations as an author.

This book is so full of great straight-shooting advice that you really need to read twice to get the full effect of it. The great news about Gardner's teachings is that nearly anyone can develop their leadership skills. One of his interesting findings is that there is no one set of leadership styles or personality traits that can create great leadership.

In my consulting practice working with heads of emerging enterprises, lack of leadership skills is the greatest obstacle to the success of their respective organizations. There are literally hundreds of books that come out annually on leadership and management, most of which are retreads of older material with a fancy new title.

The elements of strong leadership don't change with the season. Instead, they stand fixed over time.