From Sage to Artisan: The Nine Roles of the Value-Driven Leader [Hardcover]

Stuart Wells (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 28, 1997

Emphasizes that core values are a prerequisite for success in any context.

Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal

Consultant Wells (organization and management, San Jose State Univ.) contends that management and leadership are essentially the same: they are about creating order, inspiring action, and improving performance. He believes leaders have strengths and weaknesses in each of nine roles, which they draw on and work to improve. Each chapter gives the characteristics associated with a particular role and also a chart indicating signs of excess. Exercises for approaching one's duties in each role are included at chapter ends. The self-administered test at the back of the book points out the reader's strengths and weaknesses, and there is even a test that can be mailed to the author's company for scoring. Wells uses many abstract terms with few concrete examples. Recommended only for libraries with a large collection of management books.?Peggy D. Odom, Texas Lib. Assn.,Waco
Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 304 pages
• Publisher: Nicholas Brealey Publishing; 1st edition (January 28, 1997)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0891060936
• ISBN-13: 978-0891060932
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.3 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,929,187 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars a valuable typology of leadership roles, June 8, 2000

By 

Bill Godfrey (Mt Stuart, TAS Australia) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: From Sage to Artisan: The Nine Roles of the Value-Driven Leader (Hardcover)

Every now and then there is a book that a reviewer can wholeheartedly recommend as being both practical and a genuine contribution to the way in which we think and act. This is one of them. It offers an extremely valuable typology with which to think about and develop the leadership role, based firmly on the imperative of a solid basis of core values. An invaluable tool for developing the leadership function in organisations and skills in individuals.

Stuart Wells offers a deceptively simple and very rich framework for thinking about the leadership function and for building personal and organisational leadership capacity, consisting of nine management roles, framed within three foci of managerial effort and three principal leadership processes. The whole of the book is an explanation and elaboration of the model.

Points to notice about the model are:

* first, that the explicit articulation and demonstration of a coherent set of core values lies at the base of the effectiveness of all the roles;

* second, that the author is concerned with roles, all of which contribute in different ways to the success of the organisation, that collectively make a difference to organisational success and that may be exercised cooperatively by different people within a team or group. The model is not about the superhuman abilities of the 'hero' leader;

* third, that each role lies at the intersection between one of three leadership processes and three foci of managing effort - at different times and in different situations different combinations of roles may be critical to moving forward. Each role is itself distinctive and different from the others;

* fourth that the nine roles are learnable, but that in each individual they will be differentially developed and each individual with have natural preferences, strengths and weaknesses.

The model is focused on observable roles and their impact, rather than on: * the inner qualities of a leader (eg Jaworski 'Synchronicity'), * the stance of a leader in relation to the authoritarian/participative continuum (eg Bower 'The Will to Lead'), or * the way in which a network of leadership may be developed within an organisation (e.g. Senge: 'The Dance of Change').

These different perspectives are complementary to each other. Wells' distinctive contribution is to separate the discussion of important and continuing roles from the mythology of the 'hero' leader that is implicit or explicit in so much writing about leadership.

The author's claims for the book are modest. He explicitly recognises that leadership is learned from practice, not from books and he offers the book as a guide to self assessment and a guide to building practice and confidence in each role.