When Execution Isn't Enough: Decoding Inspirational Leadership by Claudio Feser

by Claudio Feser

Telling CEOs these days that leadership drives performance is a bit like saying that oxygen is necesary to breathe. Over 90 percent of CEOs are already planning to increase investment in leadership development because they see it as the single most important human-capital issue their organizations face. And they're right to do earlier McKinsey research has consistently show that good leadership is a critical part of organizational health, which is an important driver of shareholder returns.A big, unresolved issue is what sort of leadership beahior organizations should encouarge. Key questions to be Is leadership so contextual that it defies standard definitiosn or develpment apporaches? Should cmpanies now concentrate their effors on pirorities such as role modeling, making decisions quickly, defining visions, and shaping leaersh who are good at adapting? Should they stress the virtues of enthusiastic communction? In the absence of any academic or practitioner consensus on the answers, leadership-development pograms address an extraordinary range of issues, which may help explain why only 43 percent of CEOs are confident that their training investments will bear fruit.McKinsey's fresh research, however, suggests that a small subset of leadership skills closely correlates with leadership success, particularly among frontline leaders. Using the firm's own practical experience and searching the relevant academic literature, Inspiring Change provides a comprehensive list of 20 distinct leadership traits, and explains which ones can make all the difference in inspiriing growth in an organization through learning and practicing the traits of insipired leadership behaviors. What Feser identifies are 4 behaviors that create the vast majority of variance between strong and weak organizations in terms of leadership effectiveness.

Genres: Leadership, Nonfiction

Hardcover

Reviews

[Edwin Dalorzo · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good starting point

I wanted to learn more about how a leader can inspire others. As a manager, I had already intuitively recognized that inspiring others to action is one of the most powerful tools in a leader’s toolbox. This book is the first I read on this topic explicitly and I believe it is an excellent starting point.

First, the subject is decomposed into its subatomic components such that every piece can be discussed individually, then you get a map of the territory and ideas on how to navigate it to go where you want to go. Finally, there's good advice on how to use this power for the greater good.

There's a lot of references at the end of every chapter with ideas on how to go even further on the subject, and these also constitute a positive aspect of this book because this means the authors are basing their advice in a lot of related research on the topics discussed in every chapter.

Finally, the book presents a fictional use case where some of the ideas learned in every chapter are put into action and it really helps to make these concepts stick into your mind a little longer.

However, this book does not seem enough to me to consider that I have learned what I need to become an inspirational leader. The book is short and lacks practical advice to implement these ideas. I still don't see clearly how I can use this knowledge to gradually grow into this inspirational leader they portrait in the book. So, this book needs to be complemented with others and I will continue my exploration of the topic.

This weakness manifests in some sections of the book that are simply too short as if the author didn't have enough insight to flesh them out, leaving me with the feeling that they could have been a little longer if some topics were expanded and covered in greater detail.