Why Leaders Can't Lead: The Unconscious Conspiracy Continues [Paperback]

Warren Bennis (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: July 21, 1997

A Selection of the Executive Program and Fortune Book Clubs

Leaders beware. There's an unconscious conspiracy afoot, aiming to sabotage your plans and undermine your vision. Entrenched bureaucracy, ominous social trends, and mind-numbing routine are among its members?and their proliferation is an unfortunate sign of our times. But take heart. In this highly acclaimed work, legendary management consultant Warren Bennis unmasks the culprits, analyzes their tactics, and offers new insights for change agents struggling to take charge in an era that conspires against effective leadership.

The best book on how leaders can lead.
--Peter Drucker

Bennis teaches leaders to maximize their virtues, correct their faults, face change successfully, and love their work. Leaders will win, but so will their organizations: Bennis advocates a collaborative leadership that empowers employees and enhances organizational effectiveness.

A priceless gift to those seeking to be accountable leaders.
--Max De Pree, author of Leading Without Power

So learn why leaders can't lead. Then learn how they can lead. This book--alive with warmth and wisdom--is essential reading both for leaders and for the human resource professionals who teach them.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"Warren Bennis is one of the most perceptive and experienced writers on leadership and management....The book is full of lively insights expressed in vivid terms." --John W. Gardner, former Secretary of Health, Education and Welfare

"Only Warren Bennis has the unique combination of thirty years' study of leaders and leadership and twenty years' practical experience as COO and CEO of large and difficult organizations that makes Why Leaders Can't Lead the best book on how leaders can lead." --Peter Drucker

"Warren Bennis is one of the most perceptive and experienced writers on leadership and management. . . . He knows a lot about why our common efforts don't work and how they might be made to work. The book is full of lively insights expressed in vivid terms." --John W. Gardner, former Secretary of Health, Education and Welfare, and founding chairman of Common Cause

"This is vintage Bennis! Bennis at his best!" --Robert TownsAnd, author of Up the Organization and Further Up the Organization

From the Inside Flap

Leaders beware. There's an "unconscious conspiracy" afoot, aiming to sabotage your plans and undermine your vision. Entrenched bureaucracy, ominous social trends, and mind-numbing routine are among its members?and their proliferation is an unfortunate sign of our times. But take heart. In this highly acclaimed work, legendary management consultant Warren Bennis unmasks the culprits, analyzes their tactics, and offers new insights for change agents struggling to take charge in an era that conspires against effective leadership.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 192 pages
• Publisher: Jossey-Bass (July 21, 1997)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0787909432
• ISBN-13: 978-0787909437
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 11.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 2.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #455,408 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Warren Bennis (Los Angeles, CA), born in 1925, is an American scholar, organizational consultant and author, who is widely regarded as the pioneer of the contemporary field of leadership. He is University Professor and Distinguished Professor of Business Administration at the University of Southern California. In the past decade, he served as chairman of the Advisory Board of the Center for Public Leadership at Harvard University's John F. Kennedy School of Government, working with David Gergen.
Bennis has consulted for many Fortune 500 companies and served as adviser to four U.S. presidents. He has served on the faculty of MIT's Sloan School of Management and was Chairman of the Organizational Studies Department. He is a former faculty member of Boston University, former Provost and Executive Vice President of State University of New York at Buffalo and President of the University of Cincinnati. His global experience includes teaching at the Indian Institute of Management-Calcutta, INSEAD, the London Business School, and IMEDE (now IMD). In 2007, Business Week called him one of ten business school professors who have had the greatest influence on business thinking. He has received 20 honorary degrees and has served on numerous boards of advisors.
Bennis has written or edited 30 books, which have been translated into 21 languages, and many articles on three of his passions-leadership, organizational change, and creative collaboration. The Financial Times recently named Leaders as one of the top 50 business books of all time.
Bennis is proud of the four years he served in the U.S. Army, 1943-1947. At the age of 19 he was one of the youngest infantry commanders in Germany and was awarded the Purple Heart and Bronze Star. His dream remains: to write a terrific one-act play.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

15 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Bennis' style is chaotic and has a serious left-wing bias., May 20, 1999

By A Customer

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Why Leaders Can't Lead: The Unconscious Conspiracy Continues (Paperback)

I agree with Bennis' premise that there is an "Unconscious Conspiracy" which sucks the life and creativity out of would be modern leaders. However, I was extremely disappointed in the chaotic prose and exclusive stabs at politically conservative leaders. For example, he highlighted Ralph Nader as an example of a good modern leader.

Throughout the book, I had trouble figuring out what Bennis was trying to convey. I don't normally hate a book, having loved so many before. But I hate this one. Stick to Dilbert, it's more apropo.

5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Sad, September 26, 2003

By 

James D. Woest (Fullerton, CA USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Why Leaders Can't Lead: The Unconscious Conspiracy Continues (Paperback)

I read this several years ago, set it aside, and idly picked it up to reread recently. I had forgotten just how bad this book is. It's the cry of a frustrated 1960s liberal who found, at the end of the 1980s, that the world had refused to reshape itself in accordance with his utopian wishes. Bennis is usually pretty coherent, but this book isn't. Rather than providing insight into the dilemmas of leadership, it really makes me wonder if Bennis knows much about leading at all.

7 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars 80% Rant, September 26, 2001

By A Customer

This review is from: Why Leaders Can't Lead: The Unconscious Conspiracy Continues (Paperback)

I am mystified why Peter Drucker would lend his endorsement to this book. I'm only 70 pages into it, but have elected to write my first book review because I DISLIKE this book!

So far, I have read chapter after chapter of ranting about why the golden of age of America began in 1962 and ended in 1963. Television, fast food, yuppies, and above all, rock and roll, have conspired to corrupt America and with it, ostensibly, the world.

What a crock! How about getting on with life!