The Leader of the Future: New Visions, Strategies and Practices for the Next Era (Paperback)

by Frances Hesselbein (Editor), Marshall Goldsmith (Editor), Richard Beckhard (Editor) "I recently met with a German senior manager..." (more)
Key Phrases: City Year, United States, Girl Scouts (more...)

Editorial Reviews

From Booklist
The Peter F. Drucker Foundation for Nonprofit Management was founded in 1990, with its mission to "help the social sector achieve excellence in performance and build responsible leadership." Hesselbein, former CEO of Girl Scouts of the USA and now head of the Drucker Foundation, and her coeditors have attracted an impressive roster of contributors. Thirty-seven notables, such as Peter Senge, Charles Handy, Rosabeth Kanter, and Stephen Covey, offer their views on leadership, examining what the organization of the future will be like and how leaders might be developed. Though they target present and potential leaders of so-called third-sector organizations, these 31 previously unpublished essays will be of definite interest to those in government and the corporate world as well. David Rouse --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Review
"An exciting exposition of numerous ideas on leadership that can nourish the reader spiritually, intellectually, and emotionally. The book is richer for its contributions from diverse leadership thinkers--academics, consultants, and practitioners.... It can offer a challenge to the reader wishing to become more like the leaders whom these numerous authors profile." -Academy of Management Executive

"The Leader of the Future is a thought-provoking collection of essays that gets readers up to speed on the most important trends facing today's leaders. It's a one-stop shopping guide that shows how leaders can be successful." -Training & Development

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Product Details

• Paperback: 352 pages
• Publisher: Jossey-Bass; 1 edition (August 19, 1997)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0787909351
• ISBN-13: 978-0787909352
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 6 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #485,324 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

14 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars "Leadership must be learned and can be learned", June 7, 2001

By	Turgay BUGDACIGIL (Istanbul, Turkey) - See all my reviews (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)

This review is from: The Leader of the Future (Hardcover)

'The Leader of the Future' adresses a significant and timely topic. It should be on every manager's must-read list.

Peter F.Drucker writes in his foreword, "Leadership must be learned and can be learned-and this, of course, is what this book was written and should be used for." And hence, he defines simple but basic characteristics of effective leaders:

1. The only definition of a 'leader' is someone who has 'followers.' Some people are thinkers. Some are prophets. Both roles are important and badly needed. But without followers, there can be no leaders.

2. An effective leader is not someone who is loved or admired. He or she is someone whose followers do the right things. Popularity is not leadership. 'Results' are.

3. Leaders are highly visible. They therefore set 'examples.'

4. Leadership is not rank, privileges, titles, or money. It is 'responsibility.'

After this excellent foreword, Frances Hesselbein, Marshall Goldsmith and Richard Beckhard divide this seminal book into four parts. Here, they note that "These parts have been chosen in a somewhat arbitrary manner. We deliberately gave the authors a free hand, and our revisions have been only mirror. The authors are all experts in their own right, and we wanted you to hear their views in an unfiltered form."

It is a great chance to read never before published essays of 37 distinguished authors under one roof.

Highly recommended.

10 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars the best of the leader books, September 15, 2000

By	M. H. Bayliss "book queen" - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

Having read about 6 leadership books in a row, I can say with this limited perspective that this is the best overall. These are great essays by a wide variety of major leaders -- every person has something significant to say about leadership and taken together, the reader can put together a detailed and rich picture about what makes a real leader. One encouraging thought is that great leaders benefit by having and creating other leaders -- no need to fear too many good leaders. So, everyone can benefit by learning how to become a leader and the change will be better for everyone involved. Each essay is short, so taken together, they are very digestible. The writing is good all around, but it's really the insights and examples from proven leaders that makes this so easy to use as a blueprint or study of leadership. Top notch ideas, well presented. Any one who serves or hopes to serve as a leader would do well by reading this book.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Future Is Now, January 6, 2005

By	Charents (Paris, France) - See all my reviews

The Drucker Foundation in 1996 asked leadership experts and proven leaders in the private sector to contribute to a leadership compendium, the proceeds of which would be donated to charity. The theme is clear from the title: what will the leader of the future look like, and what skills will he or she need? Over 30 authors answered the call and together provide a surprisingly consistent - if occasionally contradictory - view of tomorrow's organizations and their leadership needs.

The benefit of this approach is that it forces the authors to cut to the chase. Far too many leadership/management books waste space with folksy anecdotes and maddening metaphors. These are, thankfully, generally absent from The Leader of the Future, leaving almost 300 pages of substance for the reader. Another plus is the reader's ability to find new leadership authors that appeal to him or her that might otherwise have gone overlooked.

According to these experts, the business world is changing at a pace not seen in generations. (This refrain, I admit, gets old rather quickly and makes the experts seem like leaders of the past at points.) In order for organizations to survive and thrive, they need a new type of leadership. Today, CEOs and heads of organizations are the leaders. Tomorrow, they argue, CEOs will need a new set of skills, and anyone at any level in the organization will be called on to lead. Globalization, technology, mobile jobs, and an unprecedented amount of information mean that no one person can be "the" decisionmaker. Instead, organizations need to behave like market-economy nation-states: they need to be less hierarchical, allow internal competition, give their employees more decisionmaking authority, and train their employees to make informed decisions.

The idea of training is key - virtually all of the authors agree that leaders are made, not born. At the same time, they argue that all leaders have certain qualities, including high energy, vision, and other qualities that are hard to teach. Perhaps this is why one chapter focuses on the underanalyzed quality of followership. Certain segments are broad and theoretical, others offer concrete proposals to develop leaders of the future.

What does all of this mean for the average reader? Many organizations are still hierarchical with strict rules and regulations. There is, one could argue, only so far we can go towards decentralizing, flattening and empowering. But that would be yesterday's way of thinking. The leader of the future will find ways to work within these constraints, will have a vision of the organization that will guide him or her, and will allow for the empowerment of subordinates. This somewhat populist view of the leader of the future will at a minimum provoke the reader to consider what kind of leader he or she is and whether he or she is prepared to be a leader of the future.

The Leader of the Future is one of the few books on leadership that is worth buying. Borrow it or buy it, but read it today to be prepared for tomorrow.