Learning to Lead: The Art of Transforming Managers Into Leaders (Jossey-Bass Management) [Hardcover]

Jay A. Conger (Author), Edward E. Lawler III (Author), Gretchen M. Spreitzer (Editor)

Book Description

Series: Jossey-Bass Management | Publication Date: August 14, 1992

Assume you're seriously interested in figuring our how to evaluate the many different approaches to leadership training. Fortunately, Jay Conger has provided a starting point.
--Fortune

Gain an insider's view of some of the most popular leadership development programs offered today. Learning to Lead offers human resource professionals, consultants, and executives personal insights into the role training plays in leadership development.

You'll learn:

• The forces that foster leadership
• Classic approaches to leadership training
• Different feedback approaches
• The future of leadership training

Turn your managers into effective leaders!

Editorial Reviews

Review

"Must-read"

"Assume you're seriously interested in figuring out how to evaluate the many different approaches to leadership training. Fortunately, Jay Conger has provided a starting point."

From the Inside Flap

An insider's evaluation of some of the most popular leadership development programs offered today. Educator, author and consultant Jay Conger offers executives, human resource professionals, and consultants personal insights into the role training plays in leadership development.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 234 pages
• Publisher: Jossey-Bass; 1st edition (August 14, 1992)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1555424740
• ISBN-13: 978-1555424749
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 6.2 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,331,896 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Not what I expected., September 28, 2007

By 

R. W. Schwerdt (Colorado Springs) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Learning to Lead: The Art of Transforming Managers Into Leaders (Jossey-Bass Management) (Hardcover)

This book really was an analysis of several leader development programs as they existed a decade or so ago. I'm sure it was more helpful then than it is now.

It can be helpful to read a book like this if you are interested in how to assess the value of those types of programs or how to develop them, but it should now be read not for the particulars of those that were covered (they've all changed to a degree, some considerably), but to gain an appreciation for how to approach leader development programs in general.

5.0 out of 5 stars Leading-Edge Learning re: Leadership Training, August 13, 2001

By 

M. Pardee "Lifelong-Learner" (Houston, TX United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Learning to Lead: The Art of Transforming Managers Into Leaders (Jossey-Bass Management) (Hardcover)

I was favorably disposed toward Conger's compelling analysis in "Learning to Lead" before I began reading his book. I've been thoroughly impressed by his work thru' several articles he's written (one of which synthesizes the highlights of this book-length exposition in a shorter essay form).

"L to L" is essentially a "connoisseurship study," with Conger himself in the primary role of scholarly expert/participant-observer. He writes parts of "L to L" in the first person, as he relates his experiences in several of the most popular leadership training programs available on the market today. But he supplements these more subjective impressions w/ more objective critiques of these programs in light of his more scholarly knowledge re: leadership education, as well. The result is a highly engaging, rewarding reflection that blends the immediacy of a compelling autobiography with the longer view and broader perspective of a savvy social-scientific treatise.

Conger has mastered all the salient leadership literature during his long academic career. He thus knows extremely well the subject(s) he writes about here. Yet he complements this professorial persona in "L to L" with his more human, accessible side, too. His readers are thus treated to a very balanced, nuanced appraisal of the major pros & cons of most of the most popular leadership-training approaches one finds being practiced today.

Conger uses the direct personal experience of training participants (plenty of others that he and his staff have interviewed, as well as his own) to ground the theory that informs his analysis. He understands the premises that undergird the various approaches he writes about, so he is able to illuminate the limitations as well as the inherent potential of each. I understand that Dr. Conger twice rec'd McGill University's Distinguished Teacher Award. It isn't hard to see from reading this volume why he is such an incisive and gifted educator.

Although few of us may still be able to take graduate or undergraduate courses from Conger today, anyone who peruses his "Learning to Lead" will be richly rewarded by his trenchant insights about which combinations of leadership training programs might be most effective--and WHY. I recommend this book MOST ENTHUSIASTICALLY to leadership novices as well as more seasoned educators, trainers, and students in this crucially important and rapidly burgeoning field.