Highly enjoyed this book from Jossey-Bass because it clearly lays out the relevant issues involved in leadership development and training. It's concise and gives plenty of case examples. This would be an excellent purchase.

Also recommend a superb book our company uses for leader training - because it teaches managers very easily: "The Leader's Guide: 15 Essential Skills."

Stretching beyond the confines of books devoted solely to leadership theory, "Building Leaders" combines a conceptual understanding of corporate leadership development with the nuts and bolts of it all. Through impressive case studies of significant companies, Conger and Benjamin provide a blueprint for the design and execution of leadership development programs. If you are at all interested in understanding what will, in the future, distinguish those companies that survive from those that do not, you must read this book.

Unlike a like of so-called leadership books, this one seems like it was actually written in the 1990s. No out-of-date references to "successes" like Wang computers or Saturn autos. Lot of Gen-X stuff. An easy read.

I would like to know How I can be a better leader. Do I have what it takes to be a Charismatic Leader

I was favorably disposed toward Conger's compelling analysis in "Learning to Lead" before I began reading his book. I've been thoroughly impressed by his work thru' several articles he's written (one of which synthesizes the highlights of this book-length exposition in a shorter essay form). "L to L" is essentially a "connoisseurship study," with Conger himself in the primary role of scholarly expert/participant-observer. He writes parts of "L to L" in the first person, as he relates his experiences in several of the most popular leadership training programs available on the market today. But he supplements these more subjective impressions w/ more objective critiques of these programs in light of his more scholarly knowledge re: leadership education, as well. The result is a highly engaging, rewarding reflection that blends the immediacy of a compelling autobiography with the longer view and broader perspective of a savvy social-scientific treatise. Conger has mastered all the salient leadership literature during his long academic career. He thus knows extremely well the subject(s) he writes about here. Yet he complements this professorial persona in "L to L" with his more human, accessible side, too. His readers are thus treated to a very balanced, nuanced appraisal of the major pros & cons of most of the most popular leadership-training approaches one finds being practiced today. Conger uses the direct personal experience of training participants (plenty of others that he and his staff have interviewed, as well as his own) to ground the theory that informs his analysis. He understands the premises that undergird the various approaches he writes about, so he is able to illuminate the limitations as well as the inherent potential of each. I understand that Dr. Conger twice rec'd McGill University's Distinguished Teacher Award. It isn't hard to see from reading this volume why he is such an incisive and gifted educator. Although few of us may still be able to take graduate or undergraduate courses from Conger today, anyone who peruses his "Learning to Lead" will be richly rewarded by his trenchant insights about which combinations of leadership training programs might be most effective--and WHY. I recommend this book MOST ENTHUSIASTICALLY to leadership novices as well as more seasoned educators, trainers, and students in this crucially important and rapidly burgeoning field.

Simply put: this is the best article on applied persuasion that I have read in years.

Conger takes a slightly different approach to persuasion than most authors. In a sense, I would suggest he is talking about how professionals can build and exercise influence. Based on his observations of many professionals, Conger delivers essential advice such as "persuasion is not a one-shot effort" and "persuasion is not about who has the best technical arguments." Instead, Conger talks about the reasons why we allow ourselves to be influenced by others. In my own words, these reasons are relationships and credibility.

When delivering an executive session on influence, this article is always the first that I select. I....

My advice is to skip the more recent influence articles from HBR and read this article instead. .... In a short period of time, you will get solid advice about influencing others that will serve you well inside the office and out.

"Winning 'em Over" is a book with some strong positives and some moderate negatives. On the positive side, it describes a person-centered approach to persuasion writtten in an intellectual style, and with an eye towards the reader. Mr. Conger offers direction on the mindframe needed to relate to others on a human level, while dealing with the important and sometimes harsh business issues of money and power. On the negative side, Mr. Conger seemed to want the reader to like him and buy his book, instead of being solely focused on communicating his own solidly held beliefs and values on the subject at hand. Because of that lack of focus, Mr. Conger never outlined the individual maturity and experience needed before the reader should attempt to persuade others in an organizational setting. His book gives case studies of mature, well-developed managers, but is flawed in that it could reasonably lead less experienced readers to see this book as "tricks and techniques" instead of as a good book with a limited scope.

For a prelude to "Winning 'em Over", I suggest a short but powerful treatise titled "The Courageous Follower" by Ira Chaleff.

"One important aim of this book is to challenge your stereotypes of persuasion. We usually think of persuasion as something reserved for salespeople-certainly not for managers. What I am going to propose to you is that, quite to the contrary, persuasion skills have become absolutely essential to the job of managing-far more than we might imagine. Much of what a good manager does today is sell: sell their ideas to coworkers; sell their organizations on change; sell their bosses on new investments. But it's not traditional selling. A large part of what we do as effective managers is to find optimal solutions for problems through investigation, discussion, and debate. We then convince our organization to get behind them. It is in the convincing part that we face our greatest hurdless-getting buy-in. This is where the skills of constructive persuasion play a vital role. So leave behind your older notions of persuasion. It's time for a paradigm shift. Your effectiveness depends on it" (pp.14-15).

In this context, in Chapter 2, after listing wrong ideas about persuasion as following:

1. persuasion is simply mustering the best arguments for something;

2. persuasion almost always involves stating your position up front;

3. persuasion means being assertive-often very assertive; and

4. negotiating and deal making are at the heart of it.

Jay A. Conger writes that "These are some of the stereotypes people have about the act of convincing. There are several others. Together I call them the 'killer myths' of persuasion-'killer' because they can kill our ability to be effective and our motivation to become better persuaders."

Killer Myth 1- The most effective persuasion is the hard sell.

Killer Myth 2- Persuasion is a one-way process.

Killer Myth 3- Effective persuaders succeed on the first try.

Killer Myth 4- Good persuaders don't need to compromise.

Killer Myth 5- Great arguments are the secret to successful persuasion.

Killer Myth 6- Persuasion is pure manipulation.

As a result, he writes that "Now that we know what persuasion isn't, we may be wondering what constructive persuasion really is." Hence, he shows four distinct steps such as (i)building your credibility, (ii)finding the common ground, (iii)developing compelling positions and evidence, and (iv)connecting emotionally to becoming an effective persuader, and he discusses these steps/the four elements of effective persuasion throuhout the following four (3-6) chapters.

Highly recommended.

As an indication of how good this book is, I bought five copies when it came back in print. There are less than a dozen business books I have more than 2-3 copies of (Drucker is half of them.) It's that good.

As a leadership consultant who regularly has to assist Directors, Vice Presidents and above - many of them in technology-heavy companies - this is the book I used to recommend most often, and it breaks my heart it is out of print. It is good enough that I have contacted Mr. Conger directly. Here's what I've found: it speaks in language that most executives can understand, and with a litle bit of coaching this book provides a framework for them to see what they are doing and not doing when it comes to internal communications, relationships, and, yes, politics. I am no longer amazed at the lack of caolition-building and relationship development skills of executives, but I come across it constantly. As such, I often find that great ideas are NOT being implemented either do to a lack of understanding of, or blatant disregard for, the need to PERSUADE others of the viability and effectiveness of the recommended course of action.

If you're a bright executive who wonders why someone with less technical depth than you has gotten promoted in front of you, this book is a good place to start looking. Ask yourself whether you are as good interpersonally as you are technically.

We picked up this book after our first board actually became a liability! It was only after the failure of original the board (which failed for exactly the reasons the book outlined as primary reasons boards fail!) that this book was recommended to us. The five founders all read it and discussed it.

Since we were in the midst of a reorg, it was exceedingly helpful in reshaping the new board into a more effective and cohesive part of the company. We did a much better job of first creating the criteria to evaluate candidates and a lot of the politics went out of the process.

I don't agree with all of the authors assertions about what a strong board can do for a company. I still think much of that is up to the people doing the actual work. However, since a board is a critical element of any modern company, read this first and do it right the first time.

This is a must read for every board director. Newly-electeds will find a treasure trove of important material; experienced directors will find data to either support or challenge their beliefs on corporate governance.

Bruce R. Ellig
Corporate Vice President HR (retired)
Pfizer, Inc.

In my role advising mid- and senior-level management of Fortune 100 companies, I found this book by Conger, Lawler and Finegold to be of immediate value.

"Corporate Boards: New Strategies for Adding Value at the Top" is positioned towards people who are perhaps on boards or who are executives dealing with boards. The authors are extremely credible, having dealt with and advised senior leadership from nearly every Fortune 100 company.

This book really brings together in one source all you need to know about building a more effective board - it is filled with real and practical guidelines and actionable how-tos. At the same time, it challenges the current governance approaches, arguing that despite all the "best practices" available, we still have a relatively simplistic understanding of how to build a great board. This book gives the reader more sophisticated insights into what it takes to have an effective board.

The authors also raise a number of issues that are critical given today's environment. For example, are boards solely responsible to shareholders or are there other, equally critical groups to which boards need to be accountable? Finally, the authors discuss the implications of the Internet for the boardroom.

In short, I strongly recommend this book, particularly for those who deal with senior leadership, corporate boards and governance issues.

Reading this book reminded me of attending a good conference where lots of company executives provide detailed examples of the issues they faced, and how they went about dealing with those issues. Since such conferences usually cost several hundred dollars, this book is a real bargain -- and you don't have to get on an airplane and fly someplace!

One of the strengths of the book is that you receive several perspectives on the context for each case history. The editors describe what each case means, and the conclusions section summarizes general patterns. Also, each case is presented in the same format which makes it easier to understand what is being shared. I was particularly grateful for the exhibits (which exist in electronic form in the CD enclosed in the book). I also appreciated that the cases were primarily written by Human Resources professionals inside the companies, rather than being a consultant's take on what happened.

Having said all those positive things, let me share some concerns. First, I looked in vain for my favorite examples of outstanding work in recruiting, retention, knowledge encouragement, and executive development. If this book is about "best practices" where were GE, Disney, Motorola, Ritz Carlton, and SAS Institute? Second, many of the cases involved companies that are better known for their poor performance than for excellence. If they are developing their people so well, what happened? Third, a lot of these cases involve new initiatives where the long-term consequences are hard to see. Fourth, the profit impact on the organizations was not well documented. That makes it hard to use these cases as examples to encourage your own company to follow suit. Fifth, as change management processes, most of these cases are far behind the curve of what is described in Peter Senge's various books of case histories such as The Dance of Change. Part of the reason seems to be that a number of these cases aren't very new.

Of the cases in the book, I recommend the ServiceMASTER, Westinghouse, Johnson & Johnson, Allstate, and Case Corporation examples as the most helpful to me. I mention that because there's a lot of material in this book. I read a lot and rapidly, and I found this book hard to tackle. By being more selective in what you go after, you can help avoid some of that problem. Naturally, if your own issues are only in a few areas, just look at those cases.

Develop the full potential of everyone, beginning with yourself!

"The principal goal of this book is to provide you with the key ingredients taken from best-companies to help you create and enhance your organization and human resource development (OD/HRD) initiative. Through a case study approach, this book provides practical, easy-to-apply tools, instruments, training, concepts, and competency models that can be used as benchmarks for the successful implementation of your specific OD/HRD initiative (from the Introduction)."

In this context, Louis Carter, David Giber, and Marshall Goldsmith (editors) divide core part of this book -Organization and Human Resources Development Case Studies- into following five OD/HRD topic areas:

I. Organization Development and Change: In this section, W. Warner Burke says, "Seven rich cases (Kraft Foods, Nortel, ServiceMASTER, SmithKline Beecham, Westinghouse, CK Witko, and Xerox) of organization development and change are discussed...The cases cover a wide range of change from how OD occurs every day to deep change in an organization's culture...Without doubt we can learn from these cases. And learn we must. Changing organization is too intricate to be left to novices. We have indeed learned and noted at the outset, but we still have much to learn. As one who has been involved for more than 35 years, helping organizations change is both thrilling and very satisfying. Learning, however, is the most exciting part (pp.6-8)."

II. Leadership Development: In this section, Jay A. Congerwrites that "In the cases that follow, we look at three companies (Boeing, Johnson & Johnson, and Sun Microsystems,Inc.) that have dedicated serious time and resources to leadership development...In addition, all three of the company cases make extended use of competency models, 360-degree feedback, and action learning (p.186)."

III. Recruitment and Retention: In this section of the book, John Sullivan writes, "you'll learn how three diverse companies tackled their retention and recruiting problems. Two of the firms are high tech (AMD and Cellular One), while another (Allstate) is in a more traditional industry. Both AMD and Cellular One focus on solving the hot issue of retention while Allstate takes a new look at the recruiting and selection processes. All three of the case studies use a scientific approach to identify which solutions have the most impact...All three of these case studies are worth examining because of their scientific methodology as well as their results. All are full of powerfull 'lessons learned' for those who are soon to begin a major recruitment or retention effort (pp.303-304)."

IV. Performance Management: This section examines performance management systems of Case Corporation and Sonoco. Edward E. Lawler III says that "the performance management systems in most organizations are contoversial, ineffective, and constantly under construction. They are so problematic that critics argue many organizations would be better off if they simply didn't have a performance management system, particularly one in which performance appraisals are tied to pay actions. But-and it is an important but- if individuals are not appraised, counseled, coached, and rewarded for performance, how can an organization pruduce the organized, coordinated, and motivated behavior that it takes to perform well? The answer most likely is that it can't (p.393)."

V. Coaching and Mentoring: Introduction of this section, Beverly Kaye writes, "the last 5 years have seen a groundswell in both arenas. And it's not just been more of the same; organizations have begun to use mentoring and coaching more purposefully. HR and OD practitioners have worked to utilize both interventions to meet pressing business problems having to do with the development and retention of talent, as well as the growth of future leaders. These interventions have been more systemic, more thoughtful, and more innovative than ever before. The case studies (Dow Corning, and MediaOne Group-AT&T) illustrate this trend. Both were motivated by specific business drivers, both were preceded by intensive research, both were implemented over time, and both were evaluated seriously. Readers will find them instructive, detailed, and engaging (p.438)."

Finally, Louis Carter (editor) says that "contributors were asked to indicate where they envision their organization is heading with its initiative within the next 5 to 10 years. Responses indicate that the contributors want to keep the organization on a track to continuously learn and develop its capabilities. Comments from some contributors indicate that they want to leverage lessons learned from this experience. Some contributors commented that they want to firmly ingrain the initiative into the organization to the point that it is almost invisible to the user, making it an accepted part of life at the company. Other contributors will continue to refine the present initiative in place, while others will expand their efforts into other business lines. Survey results clearly indicate that the present state of the initiatives represented in this book represent snapshots of moving targets. Further growth and innovation is inevitable for these best practice organizations, as they work to stay ahead of their competitors by embracing change and continuously learning and improving (pp.531-532)."

Strongly recommended.

Here in a single volume is about all that is needed to design, implement, and then monitor a program through which to achieve organizational transformation. Moreover, the editors have selected both information and wisdom which can help to ensure that such a program is comprehensive, cohesive, and cost-effective. The phrase "best practices" is apt but should not be misconstrued to mean that strategies and tactics which have been highly successful in some organizations are necessary going to be successful in all others. Moreover, I urge the reader to keep in mind that, although the organizations featured (e.g. Boeing, Johnson & Johnson, Kraft Foods, Nortel Networks, ServiceMASTER, SmithKline Beecham, and Sun Microsystems) are among the largest in their respective industries, much of the material in this book is also relevant to small-to-midsize organizations. My own rather extensive past experience with all manner of organizations (including non-profits) has convinced me that most people do not fear change; rather, they fear the unfamiliar. Hence the importance of three on-going initiatives: communicate, communicate, and communicate.

Part One consists of Acknowledgments, About This Book, How to Use This Book, and an excellent Foreword by Richard Beckhard. Carter, Giber, and Goldsmith then shift their attention in Part Two of "Organization & Human Resources Development Case Studies." The individual case studies are distributed within this thematic structure:

Organizational Development & Change

Leadership Development

Recruitment & Retention

Performance Management

Coaching & Mentoring

Part Three: Conclusion consists of Research (OD/HRD Trends and Findings), Endnotes, About Linkage, Inc., About the Editors, Index, and How to Use the CD-ROM, terrific value-added benefit.

Back to Beckhard's Foreword for a moment. In it, he identifies six (6) "elements" which are basic to each case study; all are central to and sequential within the change process associated with organizational development/human resource development (OD/HRD). They are: Business Diagnosis, Assessment, Program Design, Implementation, On-the-Job Support, and Evaluation. It is helpful to keep these six "elements" clearly in mind while working your way through the abundance of information which the editors provide. Fortunately, they have organized the (sometimes daunting) material with meticulous care and write exceptionally well. I also urge you to use the same six "elements" as guidelines when determining what the design of your own program for organizational change should be, and, when selecting those strategies and tactics discussed in the book which are most appropriate to the implementation and evaluation of that program. This is especially true of decision-makers in small-to-midsize organizations.

Those who share my high regard for this book are urged to check out O'Toole's Leading Change, Katzenbach's Real Change Leaders as well as his Peak Performance , Kaplan and Norton's The Balanced Scorecard and The Strategy-Focused Organization, Quinn's Deep Change, O'Dell and Grayson's If Only We Knew What We Know, Isaacs' Dialogue and the Art of Thinking Together, and Senge's The Dance of Change. Those especially interested in Six Sigma are encouraged to check out (and read in this order) Pande's The Six Sigma Way, Breyfogle's Implementing Six Sigma, and Eckes's Making Six Sigma Last.

This Toolkit can make a tremendous difference in developing your leadership skills.

I have been to quite a number of excellent seminars and workshops on leadership, and always found the assessments, exercises, and examples to be the best part. Imagine how thrilled I was to see that this one Toolkit contains far more such material than all of the sessions combined I have attended over my entire career. If you want to be a better leader, your time would be better spent reading and applying this material in your current job than by taking on any graduate program in business that I am familiar with.

Decades ago, many young people got training and experience as leaders by serving in the military. These days, those who intend to have business careers seldom get that experience. Where is a person to learn leadership who doesn't go into the military? Probably not in business school, where a lot of the learning is associated with solving problems, learning concepts, getting background, and verbally sparring rather than moving people and an organization forward.

A very high percentage of the situations that a leader is likely to run into are handled at some level in this book, both at the individual, one-on-one, team, and organizational levels. I wish I had had this resource available to me when I had started my business career. It would have made a large difference.

Naturally, like any self-coaching guide, the benefit is all up to how seriously you take the content, how often you refer to it, and how much you try to learn. If you are reasonably committed to being a better leader, this Toolkit will take you as far as you can go short of having a personal leadership coach meet with you for an hour a week.

Each section describes briefly the theory of what needs to be done, gives you a self-assessment tool to check out your tendencies, gives you an example to make the point concrete, and suggests how to proceed to get better.

I was particularly pleased to see that this Toolkit encourages developing a better network of relationships, learning how to foster innovation, shaping your own leadership learning, coaching others, managing challenging conversations, influencing without authority, interviewing to select the right people for a job or a team, locating organizational stalls, and planning a business case to lead a specific change. Most leaders I know in organizations would candidly confess to lacking background in at least two of these areas.

The only thing I was disappointed in was that the Toolkit ducks the issue of leadership versus management as being "moot." I don't agree. To oversimplify the point, leadership is about going in the right direction, and management is about efficiently getting to whatever direction you happen to be aiming at. Most organizations have very little leadership in this sense, and way too much management. As a result, clearly this book also has a lot of management information as well as leadership information, but the area of picking the right direction probably could have used more attention.

Reading this Toolkit also made me think about the reasons why I wanted to be a leader, which is to make a positive difference. I wonder how leaders can prepare their own motivations for serving more than their own career desires. Stephen Covey has written about this subject in Principle-Centered Leadership if you are interested.

"No doubt you are reading the latest management books, attending seminars and conferences, and thinking long and hard about the best bosses you've had. Perhaps they offer helpful insight into your growing model of successful leadership. But day to day, despite your best efforts, such reading and contemplation are often difficult to apply to emerging situations that demand that you act as a leader. This toolkit is designed to close that gap, to provide practical advice, ideas, behaviors, assesments, skill-building activities, and methods for leading yourself and others in your daily work...If you are using this book as a development path-to build your leadership competencies-it moves concentrically from leading yourself, to individuals and teams, to whole organization. We believe an emerging leader must first develop self-awareness and personal commitment before he or she can effectively lead others. And you must be able to garner committed action from individual colleagues, employees, and your boss before you can effectively lead them collectively" (from the Introduction).

In this context, L.Carter, D.Davidson, J.Lehrich, and R.Waks (editors) divide this seminal toolkit into four major sections. As said by editors, these major sections are further divided into topical subsections. Each brief 'topic' reading is intended to provide context, background, and insight for the 'tool' that follows. Many tools are then followed by an application exercise that encourages you to 'try it out' in specific leadership situations.

I- Leading Self: "Leader," editors say, "know thyself. True leadership-leading individuals, teams, and organizations alike-comes from within, from the manager who draws from the wellspring of his own character. To trust others, trust yourself; to inspire others, find inspiration in who you are." Thus, in this section writers present tools to evaluate yourself: both your leadership behaviors (the Leadership Assessment Instrument) and your emotional intelligence.

II- Leading Individuals: "Leaders achieve results through others." Editors say, "As a leader, you owe it to your organization and to yourself-not to mention to your employees-to take responsibility for those you manage. How you treat and serve the individuals you lead will determine what you achieve, what you are accountable for, and what role you play in the future of others. With power comes obligation, and a leader accepts sober responsibility along with the power to hire, fire, and inspire. Such responsibility need not rely solely on intuition and hard-won experience." Then, in this section book gives you some ready resources like interviewing, delegation, performance coaching, managing challenging conversation, and building trusting relationship for the fundamental duties of a leader and manager.

III- Leading Teams: "Virtually all organizational work today is done in teams: project teams and quality teams, ongoing work teams and cross-functional improvement teams, virtual teams, problem-solving teams, and more." Editors write, "Individuals work interdependently on shared projects and toward a common purpose, often on more than one team at once. And for the individuals to succeed, for the groups to achieve its objectives with minimal rancor and recriminution, the team needs effective leadership. As leader you have the opportunity to watch and guide a team throughout its life cycle, from origin to deliverables, cradle to grave." Thus, in this section writers present the steps of that cycle to simplify your leadership responsibilities for choosing the team members, clarifying the group's objectives and its members' roles, facilitating effective team meetings, assessing and developing the team's processes, capabilities, and decision-making, reducing or forestalling conflict, and conducting team project reviews.

IV- Leading Organizations- "You may know yourself as a leader-your tendencies, your behavior, your principles and practices." Editors say, "You may serve as guide and inspiration for individuals, and as driving force or unseen hand for high-performing teams. But do you lead your organization? Are you an architect, change champion, teacher, and communicator on whom your company or institution can depend? An organizational leadership role demands foresight, reflection, and planning-very skills that are strongest when assisted by tools." In this section writers present techniques, devices, and systems to leading organizations.

Finally, L.Carter, D.Davidson, J.Lehrich, and R.Waks (editors) say that "Yet this single volume is not intended to be a comprehensive compendium of all the tools we could find or develop. That would be impractical and self-defeating. Instead it is meant to give you, the emerging and working organizational leader, a sampling of the range of tools needed to effectively manage the present and lead toward the future, and to apply them to the broadest span of situations you encounter."

Highly recommended.

This book is a great read for anyone who engages in work of any sort, or who desires to connect with self and others in a deeper, more meaningful way. While traditional approaches to career satisfaction have focused on "correct" placement in accordance with interests and personality, this book begins to step into an area that is unknown, ambiguous, and individually unique.... the human spirit.

The definition of "spiritual" in this context has much more to do with a deeper connection to the ideals, values, and goals of an entity greater than oneself (be it a company, an organization, or a family) than the more traditional connotation of "religion," or human relation to "God," (although one chapter does venture into the notion of partnering with "god"). It speaks both to those who would be leaders of others, as well as to those who would just become a leader in his or her own life.

Chapters on leadership, and accessing and projecting one's spirit as a leader provide a new framework that may become one of the most effective approaches to teaching effective leadership yet. Other chapters implore individuals as well as leaders of groups to understand their fears and to become aware of strengths and weaknesses.

Perhaps the most valuable thread running throughout this compilation of chapters by various authors such as Parker Palmer and Katheryn Tyler Scott, is that for any of us to realize a new, higher, more fulfilling connection to those activities in which we engage daily (called "work"), we must individually take a journey within.... a journey that will prove of tremendous value to anyone willing to take it.

Exploring the relationship between spirituality and leadership, this book is a rare breed. It contains very high quality articles from insightful writers such as Parker Palmer, Vaclav Havel, and Jay Conger. It explores the inner being of a leader and spirituality in practice. This book distinguishes itself from the multitude of management and leadership books with a class of its own. A must read for wholesome leaders with sustainable lives for significance.

After reading numerous leadership books, and as an MBA student I was greatly disappointed by this book. The book was very dry. The leadership concepts that the authors wrote about were conventional concepts that I had known about for many years. It is a shame that so many intellectual minds cannot write a better book. The book is a hard read and the reader will most likely fall sleep before finishing the first chapter.

A disappointing package of disjointed material and a lot of recycling of standard leadership theory. The old theories are repackaged in heavy academic jargon to make it seem that something new is being offered. I am sorry to report that I gained very little from the enormous effort that was involved in reading this book. It was disappointed that so many well-known academics and experts in the field allowed the publication of such disjointed ramblings under one cover. If you are having difficulty getting to sleep at night this book is for you.

This book is a remarkable guide from 20 remarkable thought leaders for leaders of the new century. Jay A.Conger, Gretchen M.Spreitzer, and Edward E.Lawler III divide this invaluable volume into four parts. As written by them, Part Three-Chapter Seven, by Robert E.Quinn and Nancy T.Snyder, introduces Advanced Change Theory (ACT), arguing that the leaders must change him- or herself first to ensure that his or her deed and actions are consistent with the vision of the future before expecting others to change.

In this context, R.E.Quinn and N.T.Snyder identify thirteen assumptions/principles of ACT as following:

1. Assumptions of relationship: alignment with changing reality requires relationships of inclusion, openness, and emergent community.

2. Assumptions of purpose: to establish an emergent community, a change agent must put the pursuit of the common good ahead of self interest.

3. Assumptions of resistance: to maintain alignment with changing reality and with the common good, a change agent focuses on internal sources of resistance, continually seeking to reduce self-deception and personal hypocrisy.

4. Assumptions of influence: in influencing others, the change agent first models the courage and discipline of self modification, the resulting integrity then serves to influence others by attracting them into a relationship, or community, of mutual support and exploration.

5. Assumptions of empowerment: by transcending self-deception and personal hypocrisy, the change agent empowers and frees the self from the controlling sanctions within the existing social system.

6. Assumptions of enlightenment: in freeing self from external sanctions through personal modification, the change agent obtains increased understanding, enlightenment, or vision about direction and strategy.

7. Assumptions of volition: the change agent's increased understanding and personal empowerment result in increased reverence for the potential and the volition of the change target.

8. Assumptions of motivation: given the high respect for the volition of the change target, the change agent seeks to inspire growth by attracting the change target to engage in noble tasks of service for the higher good of the community.

9. Assumptions of causality: the change agent recognizes the change target's need for relationship and assumes that change happens as a nonlinear process of mutuality and cocreation that further requires continued integrity and increasing trust.

10. Asumptions of strategic vision: the change agent's efforts in self-modification and empowerment result in increased cognitive complexity and the ability to see larger governing rules or seemingly paradoxical relationships.

11. Assumptions of behavior: freed from the influence of the existing sanction system, and holding a more complex or paradoxical world view, the change agent engages in unconventional behaviors that distort routines, capture attention, and move the system toward the edge of chaos.

12. Assumptions of determination: the change agent assumes that altered internal states determine altered external states.

13. Assumptions of action: the change agent is a self-authorizing person with a bias for action and enactment under uncertainty.

Throughout the presentation of ACT, each of these assumptions is illustrated by a quote from three transformational change agents: Jesus Christ, Mohandas K. Gandhi, and Martin Luther King Jr. Then, Quinn and Snyder explore the applicability of ACT in an account of a cultural change effort at Whirlpool under the leadership of its CEO David Whitwam.

Highly recommended.