Leading Through Conflict: How Successful Leaders Transform Differences into Opportunities (Hardcover)

by Mark Gerzon (Author) "Whether we like it or not, wariness or fear of difference is part of human nature..." (more)
Key Phrases: personal interview with the author, congressional retreat, integral vision, United Nations, United States, South Africa (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description
A New Model of Leadership for a Divided World

As our world grows smaller, opportunities for conflict multiply. Ethnic, religious, political, and personal differences drive people apart—with potentially disastrous consequences—and it’s the task of perceptive leaders to bring them together again.

World-renowned mediation expert Mark Gerzon argues that leaders have failed to rise to this challenge. Our organizations, schools, and governments remain filled with divisive dictators and everyday managers, instead of what he calls mediators—leaders who transform conflict so that everyone can move forward together.

Through absorbing examples drawn from decades of work with organizational, political, and global conflicts of all kinds, Leading Through Conflict provides a powerful new framework for the leader as mediator, and outlines eight specific tools these leaders use to transform seemingly intractable differences into progress on deep-seated problems.

Both practical and passionate, this book makes the tools of cross-border leaders accessible to anyone who wants to help create healthier companies, communities, and countries.

About the Author
Mark Gerzon, hailed by the New York Times as an "expert in civil discourse," has worked as a facilitator and leadership trainer for the United Nations, the US House of Representatives, and a wide range of corporate and civic organizations around the world for more than a decade. He is the author of several books, including two bestsellers.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 273 pages
• Publisher: Harvard Business School Press; 1 edition (April 12, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 159139919X
• ISBN-13: 978-1591399193
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.1 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.3 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars See all reviews (9 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #11,735 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An outstanding presentation of the business leadership ideas of Mark Gerzon, June 2, 2006

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

Leading Through Conflict: How Successful Leaders Transform Differences Into Opportunities is an outstanding presentation of the business leadership ideas of Mark Gerzon (President of Mediators Foundation). Showcasing his experience-based approaches to creating a more productive and confluent environment throughout for corporate managers and administrators engaged in an organizational struggle or situational conflict, Leading Through Conflict offers an expert commentary on the three principle forms of leadership (demagogue, manager, mediator), and eight principle tools used in mediation for conflict resolution, Leading Through Conflict is very highly recommended as an expert study into handling conflict any business or any other type of organizational setting.

4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Building Community through Leadership, May 31, 2007

By	David Gerard "David Gerard, Ph.D." (Morgan Hill, CA USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Mark Gerzon's Leading Through Conflict is a primer for leaders interested in developing eight clearly-defined competencies that are required for effective leadership in any situation. Because of Gerzon's international consciousness and life experience, he is able to crisply distill the essential factors a leader must grapple with in order to get agreement. While you may have heard some of these competencies before--such as systems thinking, inquiry, or bridging--it is the way Gerzon positions and integrates these concepts that gives this book its unique value add. Moreover, the author includes and explicitly describes five to six tips for actually practicing each of these competencies. This book is so valuable that I not only use it in all of my leadership development classes, but I also provide it to every executive and leader I coach. Despite its depth of insight, this book is easy to read, but it is the type of book a leader will want to read several times. The book's numerous embedded pearls of wisdom, due in part to Gerzon's anecdotes ranging from local school board meetings to the World Economic Forum, are points that leaders will want to remember as they face conflicts every day.

4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Hands-on advice about handling conflict., November 23, 2006

By	Rolf Dobelli "getAbstract.com" (Switzerland) - See all my reviews (TOP 50 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

We highly recommend this outstanding contribution to the literature of leadership. Author Mark Gerzon offers not just a how-to guide for resolving conflict, but a handbook for changing the way leaders think about it. The author doesn't fear being opinionated and is clearly an idealist. Yet, his idealism is strongly grounded in, though not limited by, the practical. This is a guide to action, not a theoretical discourse. Many of the tools Gerzon identifies and describes have much broader application than just organizational conflict management. Indeed, leaders who thoroughly master such mental dispositions as "integral vision" and "presence" can do more than solve conflicts; they can help prevent them.