Managing Leadership^®

Professor John Adair, the world’s first professor of leadership studies, published his famous Action-Centered Leadership model in the 1970s. As summarized in Managing Leadership, this model proposes that

to be effective, leaders need to address three areas of activity related to the task, the team, and the individual. The basic idea is that a task calls into being a team or organization to pursue it, and this, of course, is composed of individuals. These three areas can be viewed as circles that overlap, indicating their interrelatedness. None can be viewed in isolation, and all must receive leadership attention in order for any to work effectively and for organizational goals to be met.

This theory has a pronounced purpose-centered orientation, and describes teams and individuals in that context. It discusses leaders - not as worthy of attention in their own right - but solely from the perspective of their role in helping teams and individuals accomplish those purposes. Accordingly, a discussion of the Action-Centered Leadership model was included in Chapter Three, “What’s Close.” This chapter was designed to demonstrate that the ideas presented in Managing Leadership have strong and deep antecedents in the literature reaching back 100 years and extending forward to more recent work such as Professor Adair’s.

A courtesy copy of the book was sent to Professor Adair, and he replied with a very pleasant and detailed letter in which he provided a general critique of the book. His overall review was generous, and he had positive things to say about particular aspects of the book, as well as about the general approach and thrust of the ideas presented. This posting will provide a brief summary of these. However, it is important to note that he also had some reservations, and that these will be discussed in greater detail in future posts, each post covering one of his comments.

To begin with, Professor Adair took particular pains to agree with me that he is not a part of what I refer to in the book as “the leadership movement,” which promotes the competing and conflicting theories of charismatic individual leadership reviewed in Chapter One, “What’s Happened,” and Chapter Two, “What’s Wrong.” of Managing Leadership. These chapters discuss the problems with the movement and its ideas, which gave rise to the need for the book. Professor Adair was also dismissive of these models of individual leadership, and of their application to the serious topic of leadership of organizations.

Next, he said that he was “absolutely with you” on my assertion that it is not the senior-executive-as-leader’s role to inspire. Professor Adair said that “inspiration is a phenomenon” in the organization, and the leader merely “acts as the catalyst.” This is an interesting idea, which I believe complements and amplifies those expressed in Managing Leadership; it will also have a posting dedicated to it in the near future.

Professor Adair observed that he saw Managing Leadership as part of a movement toward a global understanding of leadership. He added that he believed my “common sense approach” benefited from my experience in the Marines, adding that he thinks that this also sets Warren Bennis apart (this, in the context of his observation that most writers on the topic of leadership have very little personal experience in employing or experiencing it). This led to a brief discussion of military leadership, with which Professor Adair has considerable experience, and during which he expressed particular interest in some of the ideas in Managing Leadership about teams, drawn from observations of crew-served weapon teams in combat.

Professor Adair’s positive comments point to some of the key features of the book, and are much appreciated. However, his reservations are just - if not more - important, and are among the first expressions of another effort made by the book, which is to reopen the debate on what leadership in organizations really is. It is my hope that this debate and can lead to a re-examination of the topic from first principles. Please stop in to join that debate in the coming weeks.

News about the book:

I would like to mention here, as well, my pleasure in Managing Leadership’s recent listing with the highly regarded and formidable 800-CEO-READ. This company is rightly known for its genuine focus on superior customer service and its select offering of the best cutting-edge business books available for its elite corporate clients. It is a highly appreciated privilege for Managing Leadership to be associated with 800-CEO-READ.

What’s more, Managing Leadership has been selected to be featured on the company’s new 800-CEO-READ(er) site. This site showcases 4 books by “leading business thinkers” every week, and Managing Leadership will be featured the week of 1 August 2004. Please stop by and visit beginning Monday (and while you’re there, pick up a copy!).

Thanks for stopping by this week - we are appreciative of your support and look forward with pleasure to your continued visits.

Sincerely,

Jim Stroup