The Nature of Leadership: Reptiles, Mammals, and the Challenge of Becoming a Great Leader [Hardcover]

B. Joseph White (Author), Yaron Prywes (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 27, 2006

A great leader is a truly unique animal, possessing both the warmth of a mammal and the cold-blooded toughness of a reptile Enlightening, encouraging, and filled with incredible anecdotes from the author's own experience, The Nature of Leadership explores these characteristics, with examples of leaders ranging from tough-minded Lou Gerstner at IBM to mammalian leaders like Herb Kelleher of Southwest Airlines and Wendy Kopp, founder of Teach for America. Key features Contains anecdotes from the author's own experiences, including his participation in the landmark University of Michigan affirmative action Supreme Court case, as well as lessons he learned from meeting world-famous figures like former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright and Bishop Desmond Tutu Unique, approachable metaphor to describe different kinds of leadership styles. The author points to both successes and failures (his own as well as those of his subjects) and describes eloquently how mammalian, reptilian, and other attributes contributed to those outcomes Uncommon in leadership books is the idea of visionary succession planning being a hallmark of a great leader. White illustrates how the best succession planning recognises the importance of both mammalian and reptilian characteristics

Editorial Reviews

From Booklist

The animal metaphors for business seem to stick--after elephants that can't dance come mammalian and reptilian leaders. White, now president of the University of Illinois (with a nearly $4 billion annual budget), ponders four quadrants of leadership competencies, giving examples from his work life at Cummins Engine and corporate directorships. This is an important topic, considering that 30-50 percent of CEOs are prematurely ousted. He builds a pyramid with to-be-expected qualities--ability, character, integrity, and the like--as the foundation. Reptilian (read critical, detached, analytical) and mammalian (or nurturing, engaged, emotional) traits balance each other, topped by the five secret ingredients--innovation, risk taking, appetite for talent, helicopter view, and sparkle factor. Simplistic almost to a fault, all these characteristics, he claims, are critical to the making of today's and tomorrow's leaders; the author devotes his last chapter to the art of becoming. Yet with many acclaimed U.S. CEOs close to retirement (or already there, e.g., Jack Welch, Lawrence Cassidy), the question then becomes, where have all the leaders gone? Appended: "The Nature of Your Leadership." Barbara Jacobs
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Review

"""Leveraging his diverse leadership experience and his learnings from other great leaders, Joe White explains how to set tough standards, continually raise aspirations, and nurture high-energy teams. You won't get multipoint plans or be encouraged to think on four levels. But you'll know how to receive bedraggled members of your teams and send them on their way with a sense of purpose and determination.""

--Edward A. Snyder, Dean and George Pratt Shultz Professor of Economics,

The University of Chicago Graduate School of Business

""The Nature of Leadership should be required reading for every person who aspires to be an effective leader. Joe White approaches the topic of leadership in an interesting, enlightening and captivating way. He combines his own experiences as a highly successful leader with the powerful lessons he has learned from his research and study of other highly effective leaders who are diverse in their backgrounds and leadership roles. Joe is providing us with a phenomenal 'class' on leadership!""

--David A. Brandon, Chairman and CEO, Domino's Pizza, Inc.

""Few authors on leadership have a more eclectic perspective than Joe White, who has been credible as an academic, university leader, and business executive. His book captures this rich diversity and shows that inherent paradoxes (reptilian vs. mammalian leadership requirements) that are built on a foundation of character and trust can be the basis for great leaders who accomplish innovative change. The thoughtful principles, engaging stories, and clever examples create a deep understanding of the nature of leadership. The book reinforces, synthesizes, and clarifies what it takes to become a great leader, by one who has done so over and over again.""

--Dave Ulrich, Professor of Business, University of Michigan, and author of

The HR Value Proposition

""In The Nature of Leadership, Joe White provides a clear and inspiring road map for today's leaders and those of the future. His advice rings true for me: Be resilient--in the face of adversity you just keep going.

And be a high-integrity leader--if you don't have strength of character and trustworthiness, nothing else matters.""

--Doris K. Christopher, Founder & Chairman, The Pampered Chef"

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Reading level: Ages 17 and up
  
• Hardcover: 192 pages
• Publisher: AMACOM (October 27, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 081440894X
• ISBN-13: 978-0814408940
• Product Dimensions: 8.6 x 5.6 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 11.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (14 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #685,323 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

7 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Bravo: To an Elegant New Vision of Leadership, November 20, 2006

By 

Richard F. Greenberg - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Nature of Leadership: Reptiles, Mammals, and the Challenge of Becoming a Great Leader (Hardcover)

Eleven months into this once new year, I have finally made sense of my last New Year's resolution, thanks to the thoughtful lessons and keen insights that abound within Joseph White and Yaron Prywes' wonderful new book, The Nature of Leadership. "This year," I recall telling my wife, "I resolve to be more...mean." To which she replied with a puzzled look on her face, "Did you say 'mean' - as in cruel, hard, cold-blooded kind of mean?" To which I replied forcefully, in my best approximation of the spirit, "Yes, that's exactly what I mean...mean!"

To my own consternation and my wife's puzzlement at the time, I couldn't quite explain my seemingly strange resolution. Though I didn't realize it then, I lacked the conceptual framework for understanding the urge I felt to be more, so I thought, mean. That is, until I discovered White and Prywes' "reptilian-mammalian" model of human nature and that most elusive of concepts: leadership.

White and Prywes posit that personal tendencies and behaviors may be classified as being either mammalian or reptilian. As the monikers suggest, people with mammalian traits are, on the whole, "warm-blooded": nurturing, engaged, emotional, cooperative, and independent. Reptiles, on the other hand, are those "cold-blooded" people among us: detached, analytical, adversarial, and independent. Each of us has a "natural bias" toward one or the other, and truly great leadership requires balance - mammalian qualities under some circumstances and reptilian at others.

As a self-confessed mammal, I now see that what I was struggling to express in my odd New Year's resolution is the essential insight that superlative leadership demands both the heart and the mind, both emotional warmth and cool calculation. I used the word 'mean' to express my desire to become more reptilian and, in retrospect, having read the book I understand that in fact I was not striving to be cruel or hard but rather more analytical and independent, more detached from the distorting effects of excess passion. As a side note, it has been a relief to realize that my longing for a mean streak was not so aberrant after all!

The book's organization and style are, as the authors' thesis calls for, well balanced. White and Prywes skillfully blend the practical and the inspirational, nimbly merging the nuts-and-bolts how-to of a user's manual with the inspiration and emotional quality of anecdotal case studies. Consequently, the experience of reading the book is rich with moments of both professional development enlightenment as well as deeper insights into one's own emotional composition. This is perhaps the book's most impressive accomplishment: that it practices what it preaches and strikes that difficult balance between hard-headed advice and soft-hearted wisdom. Indeed, it is exactly this balance - just the right proportions of rose-colored optimism and tell-it-like-it-is realism - that elevates The Nature of Leadership above the countless other leadership/self-help works that line bookshelves across the land.

To bring their model to life, the authors provide a veritable arsenal of visual representations, assessment tools, and original vocabulary. Their proposed "Leadership Pyramid" presents the mammal-reptile dichotomy clearly and persuasively, but also goes a step further to depict a requisite "Foundation" of but-for leadership traits (indeed, the foundation metaphor works well within this cumulative developmental context). To put meat on the bones of the Pyramid's skeleton, White and Prywes coin several catchy, user-friendly phrases that aptly convey their thesis, such as the importance of acquiring a "helicopter view" perspective and exuding the "sparkle factor" of charisma. The book culminates with a "Nature of Leadership Survey," a self-assessment tool that neatly ties together the book's lessons and ushers the reader to that most gratifying of destinations: better self-understanding.

Having reached this destination so swiftly, I was left longing for more upon turning the book's final page - in the best of ways, as a film buff is sad to reach the conclusion of her favorite director's latest opus. Alas, in the future I hope White and Prywes will see fit to build further upon their model and bestow yet more pearls of wisdom upon their would-be readers. In the meantime, as I await The Nature of Leadership (Part II), I shall take solace in having had the good fortune of appreciating their work in the moment, indeed, of having missed it before it had even drawn to a close. Toward the end of their book, White and Prywes share a pearl of Buddhist wisdom that perfectly describes such unadulterated appreciation:

The master held up a glass and said, 'Someone gave me this glass, and I really like this glass. It holds my water admirably and it glistens in the sunlight. I touch it and it rings! One day the wind may blow it off the shelf, or my elbow may knock it from the table. I know this glass is already broken, so I enjoy it incredibly.'

3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars An Easy Read on Leadership, January 3, 2007

By 

Michael D. Haberman "Consultant, athlete and ... (Marietta, GA United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Nature of Leadership: Reptiles, Mammals, and the Challenge of Becoming a Great Leader (Hardcover)

Having a professional background in dealing with people in a wide variety of leadership positions and an early educational background in studying animal behavior I looked forward to reading a book subtitled Reptiles, Mammals and the Challenge of Becoming a Great Leader. The premise of the book is that there are two sides of leadership, a hard and cold reptilian side and a soft and warm mammalian side. This dichotomy is pretty much the same as the numbers versus people sides of leadership or management.

White, who is the President of the University of Illinois, spends a brief chapter on various leadership theories. These include a bit on McGregor's Theory X and Y, Blake and Mouton's Leadership Grid, a little Herzberg and McClelland. He writes about the theory that leaders are born and not made, but then goes on to talk about a "leaders can be made" (hence his book.)

Using his reptilian/mammalian analogy, White puts his model of leadership together as a pyramid. The base of the pyramid consists of four characteristics. First is a desire to be in charge, followed by ability, strength and character. Without these you have no hope of being a leader. The implication is this is what you are born with.

The second component of his pyramid is the reptilian and mammalian traits. The reptilian side is described as "cold-blooded", disciplined, economic sense, financial management, attention to detail, detached and analytical, among others. The mammalian side is "warm-blooded", nurturing, people sense, attention to context, communication ability, delegate, empower, and others.

He then spends a couple of chapters describing the characteristics of these two sides. He warns us not to make value judgments about the "reptilian" traits being bad or the "mammalian" traits being good. He argues that both sets of traits are necessary for great leaders to have. The problem with this however, is that people do make judgments on labels and my guess is that not too many potential leaders would be thrilled as being described as having a reptilian style. Not many people want to be known as a "snake."

The apex of White's pyramid of leadership consists of the qualities he associates with being a great leader. According to White to be a good leader you must have both the reptile side and mammalian side capped with innovation, risk-taking, an appetite for talent, and what he calls the "helicopter view" and the "sparkle factor." The "helicopter view" is perspective, looking ahead, back and sideways. The "sparkle factor" is charisma, presence and magnetism.

The book is an easy read that mixes in his personal leadership "journey" along with his observations about his leadership "heroes". I think his reptilian/mammalian analogy is somewhat flawed (some reptiles can show great tenderness and some mammals can be very hard and cruel). However, it is somewhat of a novel way to discuss the "hard" and "soft" sides of management and leadership. I was left with a mixed message about the ability to become a great leader. He tells you what it takes to become a great leader but also leaves you with the message "if you ain't got it, you ain't gonna get it." But, that said it is an easy introductory book on the concepts of leadership and is good for people who have not read a lot on the subject.

3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Iguana be a leader, and a panda too, October 28, 2006

By 

C. Carlson "seeker" (Portland, Oregon) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Nature of Leadership: Reptiles, Mammals, and the Challenge of Becoming a Great Leader (Hardcover)

This book is a wonderfully creative spin on what it takes to be a leader in the workplace although the principles could be applied to any group, including a family. White boils successful leadership down into a three-tiered pyramid, the core of which is the requirement of having attributes of reptiles and mammals: you've got to be both tough and nurturing.

White's down-to-earth and enthusiastic approach includes inspiring personal stories about both famous and little-known leaders who exemplify either strong reptilian, or mammalian characteristics, or both. And he certainly knows his subject, with a career spanning the highest-level positions in academia and the business world.

The Nature of Leadership will help you become aware of your strengths as a leader, and your Achilles heel. It also provides a lens through which to view any that you are led by, be that your supervisor, or a world leader.

*This book would be a great required or supplemental reading for college-level courses in sociology, human behavior or related subjects.