Leadership (5th ed.)

Citation

(2014), "Leadership (5th ed.)", Development and Learning in Organizations, Vol. 28 No. 2. https://doi.org/10.1108/DLO-02-2014-0009

Leadership (5th ed.)

Article Type: Suggested reading From: Development and Learning in Organizations, Volume 28, Issue 2

Richard L. Daft and with assistance of Patricia G. Lane, South-Western Cengage Learning, New York, NY, 2011, ISBN: 9780538468282, Price: £54.99 ($89.90) (paperback), 528 pp.

1. Book synopsis

The book Leadership addresses leadership theories, themes and issues in context of today’s turbulent business environment. It is successful in reflecting and communicating Professor Daft’s vision “to give students an exciting, applied and comprehensive view of what leadership is like in today’s world” (p. xiii, Preface).

The book is divided into five major parts:

Introduction to leadership.

Research perspectives on leadership.

The personal side of leadership.

The leader as a relationship builder.

The leader as social architect.

The book integrates materials from both micro and macro approaches to leadership, from both academia and the real world, and from traditional ideas and recent thinking. Part 1 contains a single introductory chapter, titled “What does it mean to be a leader?” which describes various approaches and perspectives of leadership and why it is important to study leadership as a subject.

Part 2 includes two chapters: chapter 2 is titled “Traits, behaviors, and relationships”, while chapter 3 looks at “Contingency approaches to leadership”. Both the chapters reflect on various theories and models of leadership and different research approaches to studying leadership as a theoretical construct.

Part 3 comprises four chapters that reflect on the personal side of leadership from different angles – the leader as an individual (chapter 4), leadership mind and heart (chapter 5), courage and moral leadership (chapter 6) and followership (chapter 7). These chapters focus on specific personal qualities required from an effective leader.

Part 4 covers five chapters which discuss the relationship building capabilities of an effective leader. Chapter 8 focuses on motivation and empowerment, whereas chapter 9 discusses leadership communication. Chapter 10 talks about leading teams, chaptjer 11 on developing leadership diversity and chapter 12 deals with leadership power and influence. These capabilities are basic functional capabilities/skills which every manager should develop within oneself through experience and training.

Finally, part 5 includes three chapters focusing on the capabilities needed for higher order leadership, e.g. level 4 and level 5 leadership as defined by Jim Collins (Collins, 2001). These capabilities are: creating vision and strategic direction (chapter 13), shaping culture and values (chapter 14) and leading change (chapter 15).

The book Leadership has a number of special features that help students to understand theories and concepts in many interesting ways. In every chapter, theoretical concepts, research and examples are marked with the tag “turbulent times” to indicate their relevance to the current global turbulent business environment. Action memos in yellow boxes provide useful tips on leadership skills needed for today’s global managers. “Leader’s bookshelf” presents critical analysis on a selected popular book and thus motivates students to look out for other literary sources on leadership. The author has made an impressive effort to present traditional wisdom on leadership through the box item “Consider this!” which includes folklores, stories, poetry, literary classics, religious texts, speeches by great leaders etc. The book also covers examples of successful leaders across different businesses in the box item “In the lead”. The section “Leader’s self-insight” offers three different self-assessment tools relevant to skills and theoretical concepts discussed in that chapter. These self-assessment tools can be easily used by students to identify their leadership attributes, capabilities, skills and dominant leadership style. The section “Leadership at work” includes a classroom exercise which can be used by trainers and instructors to bring experiential learning in the classroom.

This book possesses all the qualities needed for a good textbook for students who wish to understand leadership theories and develop critical leadership skills through self-learning methods.

2. Evaluation

Leadership is perhaps one of the most popular subjects on which thousands of books are available in the market and it is a common topic being discussed in the popular media across the globe through internet, business magazines, newspapers, TV channels etc. Yet, there are very few quality books available in the market which could help a new student or general reader in understanding the basic concepts and develop critical insights on relevant issues.

Should I recommend this book as a basic textbook to new students or as advanced book to an experienced reader for expanding one’s learning? A good textbook should present its content through various interesting ways and its language should be simple, clear and easy to understand. The book presents examples of leaders across different businesses, politics, society, geographical regions, history and literature to connect theories and concepts to the real life. Examples discussed in boxed columns like “In the lead, consider this!”, and “Leader’s bookshelf” in most of the chapters are very catchy to attract attention of the reader and engage the reader till the end of the chapter. I have also found concepts, theories and models discussed throughout the book very effective in meeting the needs of the experienced reader. Discussion questions at the end of every chapter are very relevant and thought-provoking. There are few good classroom activities under the section “Leadership at work” in some chapters which I have found very interesting and useful in enhancing creativity, team spirit, group learning and persuasive skills, e.g. scary person (p. 169), follower role play (p. 195), team feedback (p. 288), walk the talk (pp. 404-403), organizational change role play (pp. 429-431), naming a few.

The book has a very good collection of cases (two cases per chapter, total 30 cases) in a separate section. These cases can be used by trainers and instructors to discuss critical issues in their classes. These cases cover different businesses, industries and occupations, hence are very helpful to the students to understand relevance of leadership issues across different contexts. I would like to mention here a few cases which personally appealed to me, e.g. “The trouble with bangles” (p. 455), “The Saddle Creek Deli” (p. 451), “Sales engineering division” (p. 433), and “Riverside Pediatric Associates” (pp. 463-464).

In the case collection, I have identified a few cases which are not cases but a story, classroom activity or role play. For example, “The boy, the girl, the ferryboat captain and the hermits” (pp. 444-445) is a classical folklore reflecting on ethical dilemma. This story could be better placed in the box column “Consider this!”. Some cases, e.g. “International bank” (p. 439), “Metropolis Police Department” (p. 458) and “Northern industries” (pp. 454-455), are role play/classroom activities which could be better placed under the section “Leadership at work” in relevant chapters.

Though I have found almost all the cases in the book to be very interesting, I would like to make a suggestion for further revision of the book. The book could better reflect cultural diversity if some new cases based on leadership issues in other cultural contexts (particularly non-American, non-western cultures, e.g. China, Japan, Africa, Russia, India, Latin America, Arabic region) could be included in the next edition. Overall, this book is a wonderful book and recommended to beginners as well as experienced readers who want to deepen their understanding of the concept of leadership.

3. In the author’s own words

“Leadership thoroughly covers the history of leadership studies and the traditional theories, but goes beyond that to incorporate valuable ideas such as leadership vision, shaping culture and values, leadership courage, and the importance of moral leadership. The book expands the treatment of leadership to capture excitement of the subject in a way that motivates students and challenges them to develop their leadership potential” (Preface, p. xiii).

References

Collins, J. (2001), “Level 5 leadership: the triumph of humility and fierce resolve”, Harvard Business Review, Vol. 79 No. 1, pp. 67–76

Reviewed by Satish Pandey

The review was originally published in European Journal of Training and Development, Vol. 38 No. 1/2, pp. 153-156