Managing Leadership: Toward a New and Usable Understanding of What Leadership Really is-and How to Manage it [Paperback]

Jim Stroup (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 27, 2004

Managing Leadership is an essential guide to understanding what organizational leadership really is and how to harness it to the service of today's organizations.Author Jim Stroup brings to the topic of organizational leadership over 30 years of experience as a student of and participant in leadership in military, civilian, and governmental organizations around the world. In a compellingly drawn argument, Stroup provides a clear and actionable solution to the leadership crisis facing the owners, directors, and managers of contemporary organizations.Learn why today's concept of individual leadership has to be scrapped:§ It places on "leaders" untenable burdens that irresistibly lead to isolation, loss of direction-and disloyalty.§ It represents the surrender of our organizations, their owners and stakeholders to the "leaders" and their "vision".§ Managers must regain control of today's organizations in all fields.Discover how to:§ Properly understand what leadership in an organization really is.§ Manage leadership as a resource like any other in the organization.§ Guide today's organizations out of the individual leadership crisis and into the intelligent management of leadership.Managing Leadership will show owners and managers how to take back control of their organizations and direct them with effective, no-nonsense managerial integrity.

Editorial Reviews

Review

2004 Business Book of the Year First Place Winner -- bookannouncements.com

He makes a lot of sense and his book is worth reading. -- Alan Caruba, Bookviews

If you're tired of the same old recycled leadership dogma - check out Jim's book . . . Read it and reap! -- BJ Gallagher, coauthor of the international best-seller,

Jim Stroup develops an interesting and sophisticated approach to the issue of modern leadership. -- Professor Walsh, BookPleasures.com

Scholars, serious business thinkers, and practitioners will all find much of interest in this book. -- Dr. John Walsh, Bookideas.com

This book is perhaps the most intelligent work on the subject in recent years. Buy it! -- Dr. David West, TheWorkingManager.com

From the Author

Adapted from the Preface:

In Managing Leadership, the argument will be made that leadership in an organization is in no wise an individual characteristic, and certainly not a characteristic of any particular individual. While it is expressed through individuals, it is itself an innate quality of the joining together of numbers of people in a collaborative effort in an organizational setting. It arises from, communicates itself among, and is expressed through all members of the organization in varying degrees according to the general level of group cohesion in the organization, and the abilities and circumstances at any given time of the individuals concerned. Thus, it is potentially more comprehensive and powerful an asset for the organization than the leadership generated by any individual leader, however capable such a person might be.

The management of this organizational leadership thus serves a number of purposes. It relieves the senior executive of the untenable burdens and expectations of individual leadership that he has assumed, or that have been placed upon him. It obviates and reverses the erosion of the integrity of the organization that arises when its focus is misdirected from its purpose to that of its leader. In addition, it makes available to the intelligently managed organization a source of leadership that is potentially far more powerful. The key is in recognizing what it is, and learning how to bring it into the service of the organization.

This book, then, aims to present a new view of what organizational leadership really is, and how to manage it. In so doing, it is hoped that management will reclaim its natural supremacy over leadership in an organizational setting. Further, the book is a call to raise our organizations out of the thralldom to individual leadership into which they have fallen, and to restore them to intelligent, responsible, owner-focused management.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 174 pages
• Publisher: iUniverse, Inc. (April 27, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0595315518
• ISBN-13: 978-0595315512
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6.3 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 9.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,924,825 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Jim Stroup is a management consultant specializing in organizational leadership. Born and raised in Detroit, Michigan, Jim began his working career with stints in a diner, several gas stations, a tool and die shop, and in an advertising agency mail room. During this period, his academic career went into a long hiatus after two years studying philosophy and history. After a few years, he moved to North Dakota to take a job as a common laborer on a construction site.

Later, Jim enlisted in the U.S. Marine Corps, and served as an Infantry Marine in the United States and Japan, as well as on deployments to the Mediterranean and the Western Pacific. After several years, and promotion to the rank of sergeant, Jim was selected for a commissioning program.

As an Infantry Officer, he continued to serve as a commander and staff officer in the operating forces in Hawaii, with further deployments to the Western Pacific and Indian Oceans. Upon assignment to a major training command on the West Coast, he was instrumental in the expansion and development of three major specialty certification and professional development programs. Later, Jim served in the first Gulf War, in 1990 and 1991. During his spare time in this period, Jim also completed his bachelor's degree, magna cum laude, in international relations, and a master's degree with a dual concentration in business and management.

Jim subsequently entered the Marine Corps Foreign Area Officer program, and went to the Defense Language Institute in Monterey, California, where he learned Arabic. Next, he and his family moved to Cairo, Egypt, where they lived for a year while Jim traveled throughout the Middle East, honing his skills as a military expert for the area.

During this time, he also managed to obtain certification as a foreign area officer for Europe, with a specialty for Turkey. After serving a further tour as the operations advisor for the Kuwait Ground Forces, Jim retired and turned to work in the civilian world, during which period he also found time to complete a doctorate in business administration.

During and since his military career, Jim has had the opportunity to work with, observe, and advise numerous military and civilian organizations, from many countries and cultures, on four continents. He has developed substantial expertise in organizational leadership, and he consults widely and writes on this subject, as well as other related organizational and management topics.

Jim is married and splits his residence between Istanbul, Turkey and San Diego, California. While still in the United States, his wife, Emel, obtained her doctorate in clinical psychology. She is also a certified cognitive therapist, and she practices and teaches in Istanbul. Jim and Emel have one son, Tarik, who is a graduate of the visual arts program at the University of California, San Diego, and who lives and works in his field in Southern California.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Best Leadership Book I've Read In Years, August 28, 2010

By 

Robert I. Sutton "Stanford Professor and Author" (Stanford University, CA USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Managing Leadership: Toward a New and Usable Understanding of What Leadership Really is-and How to Manage it (Paperback)

Most leadership books are either unrealistic, full of nonsense, or downright boring or useless. Jim Stroup has somehow managed to transcend all these hazards to provide us with one of rare compelling, inspiring, and relentlessly useful book on the topic. I was especially struck with his contrasts and deep exploration of leadership from the rear, leadership from the rear, and leadership from within. This book really surprised me, it has been around since 2004 and and is an unappreciated gem. I wish I had read it earlier, but I am glad that I am now. I just added it to my list of favorite boss books.

3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars There's a leadership crisis brewing in business, February 5, 2005

By 

Midwest Book Review (Oregon, WI USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Managing Leadership: Toward a New and Usable Understanding of What Leadership Really is-and How to Manage it (Paperback)

There's a leadership crisis brewing in business and modern organizations patterned on them, author Jim Stoup maintains in Managing Leadership: Toward A New And Usable Understanding Of What Leadership Really Is--and How To Manage It, and it revolves around the modern leadership's movement toward developing singular individual leadership characteristics for senior executives. Why is this a crisis? Because such `visionaries' often neglect their duties, abuse their status, and suffer from untenable burdens by the same movement which has fostered their temperament. MANAGING LEADERSHIP advocates an alternative, maintaining it's never been correct to assume leadership most be imposed from above, but that it arises from within - and is the senior executive's duty to manage.

3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars weLEAD Book Review from the Editor of leadingtoday.org, December 21, 2004

By 

Greg L. Thomas (Litchfield, Ohio United States) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Managing Leadership: Toward a New and Usable Understanding of What Leadership Really is-and How to Manage it (Paperback)

Author Jim Stroup brings his military and civilian experience together to provide a dogmatic and bold indictment of the modern leadership industry. In his book Managing Leadership he challenges the status quo and forces the reader to look at leadership from a different perspective. Stroup believes the typical definition of "leadership" used by most organizations should be "scrapped". He believes real leadership should not be centered on individuals. The end result of this single-leader approach includes unnecessary burdens placed on the individual leader, surrender of the stakeholders and organization to "the leaders" vision, a distorted view of managerial functions and loss of control. We are all familiar with the public crimes and business failures of many individuals formerly praised by the media as "leaders". Managing Leadership offers an alternative approach to what leadership essentially is.



Instead, Stroup observes that leadership is a characteristic of the organization and that it arises naturally from inside it. He writes in chapter 6, "Leadership from within the organization is a perfectly natural and ordinary occurrence. It has been remarked upon for centuries, but has not achieved the critical attention it deserves." Therefore Stroup believes it should be managed like any other vital resource. He opines that leadership should be allowed to come from virtually anyone in the organization and be welcome at any time. The task of the senior executives should be to manage the leadership that is inherently within the organization.



Managing Leadership is organized into 3 parts broken down into 9 informative chapters. In part 1, the author introduces the reader to the problems that now exist within the study of leadership because of poor definition, false expectations and ineffective leadership theories. Within Part 2, Stroup applies some military examples (with caution) to the non-military environment to demonstrate that organizational leadership is not the characteristic of an individual, but of the organization. Chapter 7 provides helpful analysis on how to manage the assets of organizational leadership from the proper perspective. Concluding with part 3, the author discusses the differences between traditional ideas and approaches toward leadership, and the model of organizational leadership he has been proposing. Stroup applauds the "half steps" made by previous consultants like McGregor, Burns, Blanchard and Follett. He then provides a compelling case on why it is time to take a "full forward step" toward complete development of organizational leadership. He concludes with a brief discussion of the benefits of this achievement.



Managing Leadership achieves its stated purpose. It was Jim Stoup's hope that "I will have convinced enough readers to begin a debate on this topic that redirects the attention of professional students and practitioners of management back to the line of thinking begun by Mary Follett so long ago." This well-written and challenging book is just what was needed. Let the debate begin!