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Managing the Dream: Reflections on Leadership and Change
Warren Bennis has become synonymous with leadership, exploring all its dimensions as both practitioner and scholar for over four decades. Managing the Dream is an intimate portrait of leadership, comprising over a dozen essays that represent the author's most incisive and creative thinking. It features many of Bennis's most recent works, including "The End of Leadership," and a new preface reflecting on the challenge of leadership in the new millennium.
- GenresLeadership
317 pages, Paperback
First published June 15, 2000
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About the author
Warren Bennis
102 books124 followersWarren Gamaliel Bennis is an American scholar, organizational consultant and author, widely regarded as a pioneer of the contemporary field of Leadership Studies. Bennis is University Professor and Distinguished Professor of Business Administration and Founding Chairman of The Leadership Institute at the University of Southern California.
“His work at MIT in the 1960s on group behavior foreshadowed -- and helped bring about -- today's headlong plunge into less hierarchical, more democratic and adaptive institutions, private and public,” management expert Tom Peters wrote in 1993 in the foreword to Bennis’ An Invented Life: Reflections on Leadership and Change.
Management expert James O’Toole, in a 2005 issue of Compass, published by Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of Government, claimed that Bennis developed “an interest in a then-nonexistent field that he would ultimately make his own -- leadership -- with the publication of his ‘Revisionist Theory of Leadership’ in Harvard Business Review in 1961.” O’Toole observed that Bennis challenged the prevailing wisdom by showing that humanistic, democratic-style leaders better suited to dealing with the complexity and change that characterize the leadership environment.
“His work at MIT in the 1960s on group behavior foreshadowed -- and helped bring about -- today's headlong plunge into less hierarchical, more democratic and adaptive institutions, private and public,” management expert Tom Peters wrote in 1993 in the foreword to Bennis’ An Invented Life: Reflections on Leadership and Change.
Management expert James O’Toole, in a 2005 issue of Compass, published by Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of Government, claimed that Bennis developed “an interest in a then-nonexistent field that he would ultimately make his own -- leadership -- with the publication of his ‘Revisionist Theory of Leadership’ in Harvard Business Review in 1961.” O’Toole observed that Bennis challenged the prevailing wisdom by showing that humanistic, democratic-style leaders better suited to dealing with the complexity and change that characterize the leadership environment.
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
August 10, 2015
I picked up this book as part of the recommended reading list for my administrative internship and now, internship over, I am still carrying out the remainder of my first year as a Principal. This brings me to my specific appreciation for this book:
Bennis is an academic who forced himself to "walk the talk" - an experience that tested his idealism and helped him define who he is. I share the sense of guilt that would lead an idealist intellectual toward practical pursuits. I feel that if I do not lay it on the line and practically demonstrate what I advocate - then my work is only halfway accomplished, and not ready to be taken seriously. I guess you could view it somewhat like the old faith vs. works dichotomy familiar to religions.
As a Muslim, the two are equal. In God's eyes you may not justify the common excuse that you did not need to pray or act charitably because your "belief is in the heart". Rather, your works flow naturally from your beliefs and are a reflection of their authenticity. Likewise, your works reinforce your faith too. Righteous actions lead to increased faith, while wrong actions lead to hypocrisy and eventually the deterioration of belief. This does not preclude the sinful from belief - rather all people make mistakes and do wrong - but repentance is the righteous action prompted by sin, and thus, the unintentional sin has a purpose toward the fulfillment of the human being's growth and development: to fall down, to reflect, to resolve to improve, and to carry forth with good works and faith. And either may preclude the other. The one who begins with belief, learning intellectually and then accepting the belief, then acting, is as legitimate as the one who begins with works, like praying for guidance and doing what is instinctually right, and finally arriving at the realization of faith. And lastly - neither faith nor works are static or guaranteed - both require continuous attention to be legitimate.
The reason for this digression is that I think it is at the heart of what drives a man out of his idealistic comfort zone onto the battlefield of real life situations to be tested. Bennis shared his angst in this regard, and through the process has learned that it is okay to be an intellectual, and that there probably is a point where the intellectual should step back and allow the hands-on guys to take the lead. But I personally think that what gives him the authority and respect to make this observation is that he still put himself through the fire - going from social scientist to administrative leader. Even if he himself still came away from the experience with the self-acknowledgement that it was not his forte, his action still tested his commitment to his ideas and lent validity to the values and beliefs about leadership that he had espoused as an academic on the subject.
Personally, this gave me a light at the end of a tunnel I recently entered. Whereas I chiefly became a principal in order to fill a void, I know that my heart lies in learning and teaching. Someday I will be able to go back to my first love, but first, I think it is very important to push the boundaries of schooling to pave the way for the kinds of schools where I would like to teach, to be a reality. Otherwise, I would just grow old as a disgruntled educator with a lot of untested and untried dreams about the way schools should have been - or more likely others will come and shape the new face of schooling without my input or contribution.
And this is what the book is about. As the subtitle says, it is a collection of essays, articles, and other reflections on leadership and change. It advocates some of what I would consider the basics of leadership: maintaining the dream, or vision of where you are going (i.e. the changes that you believe will make your organization successful and effective in the future) and the importance of empowering leadership throughout the organization (i.e. the embodiment of democratic vs. bureaucratic leadership). The book is not necessarily focused on education. Bennis is an intellectual, his leadership experience was at the college/university level, but many of the examples cited are from commercial corporations that may appeal more to the businessman than the educator. It is well known to me that principles of organizational management will apply across organizations. A school has a social environment like any company where people have roles, formal and informal interactions, hierarchical positions in the society, etc.
In closing, this book provides inspiration for the aspiring leader. S/he should not be discouraged when the ideals they held before taking a leadership position are tested by the experience. For me this has been reinforcement in my first year where I have faced the urge to impose rather than inspire democratic leadership within my school. Trust and initiative have to be fostered and grown over time. While you are waiting to see the fruits, there are the naysayers who push for micromanagement, seeking the quick fix - but destroying the chance for future organizational excellence to emerge from within. Because it is a collection, the book does not require chronology or even thorough reading, though this is the way I approached it. But it can also be flipped through and individual sections sought that may provide perspective on different issues applicable at the time.
MM February 28, 2005
Bennis is an academic who forced himself to "walk the talk" - an experience that tested his idealism and helped him define who he is. I share the sense of guilt that would lead an idealist intellectual toward practical pursuits. I feel that if I do not lay it on the line and practically demonstrate what I advocate - then my work is only halfway accomplished, and not ready to be taken seriously. I guess you could view it somewhat like the old faith vs. works dichotomy familiar to religions.
As a Muslim, the two are equal. In God's eyes you may not justify the common excuse that you did not need to pray or act charitably because your "belief is in the heart". Rather, your works flow naturally from your beliefs and are a reflection of their authenticity. Likewise, your works reinforce your faith too. Righteous actions lead to increased faith, while wrong actions lead to hypocrisy and eventually the deterioration of belief. This does not preclude the sinful from belief - rather all people make mistakes and do wrong - but repentance is the righteous action prompted by sin, and thus, the unintentional sin has a purpose toward the fulfillment of the human being's growth and development: to fall down, to reflect, to resolve to improve, and to carry forth with good works and faith. And either may preclude the other. The one who begins with belief, learning intellectually and then accepting the belief, then acting, is as legitimate as the one who begins with works, like praying for guidance and doing what is instinctually right, and finally arriving at the realization of faith. And lastly - neither faith nor works are static or guaranteed - both require continuous attention to be legitimate.
The reason for this digression is that I think it is at the heart of what drives a man out of his idealistic comfort zone onto the battlefield of real life situations to be tested. Bennis shared his angst in this regard, and through the process has learned that it is okay to be an intellectual, and that there probably is a point where the intellectual should step back and allow the hands-on guys to take the lead. But I personally think that what gives him the authority and respect to make this observation is that he still put himself through the fire - going from social scientist to administrative leader. Even if he himself still came away from the experience with the self-acknowledgement that it was not his forte, his action still tested his commitment to his ideas and lent validity to the values and beliefs about leadership that he had espoused as an academic on the subject.
Personally, this gave me a light at the end of a tunnel I recently entered. Whereas I chiefly became a principal in order to fill a void, I know that my heart lies in learning and teaching. Someday I will be able to go back to my first love, but first, I think it is very important to push the boundaries of schooling to pave the way for the kinds of schools where I would like to teach, to be a reality. Otherwise, I would just grow old as a disgruntled educator with a lot of untested and untried dreams about the way schools should have been - or more likely others will come and shape the new face of schooling without my input or contribution.
And this is what the book is about. As the subtitle says, it is a collection of essays, articles, and other reflections on leadership and change. It advocates some of what I would consider the basics of leadership: maintaining the dream, or vision of where you are going (i.e. the changes that you believe will make your organization successful and effective in the future) and the importance of empowering leadership throughout the organization (i.e. the embodiment of democratic vs. bureaucratic leadership). The book is not necessarily focused on education. Bennis is an intellectual, his leadership experience was at the college/university level, but many of the examples cited are from commercial corporations that may appeal more to the businessman than the educator. It is well known to me that principles of organizational management will apply across organizations. A school has a social environment like any company where people have roles, formal and informal interactions, hierarchical positions in the society, etc.
In closing, this book provides inspiration for the aspiring leader. S/he should not be discouraged when the ideals they held before taking a leadership position are tested by the experience. For me this has been reinforcement in my first year where I have faced the urge to impose rather than inspire democratic leadership within my school. Trust and initiative have to be fostered and grown over time. While you are waiting to see the fruits, there are the naysayers who push for micromanagement, seeking the quick fix - but destroying the chance for future organizational excellence to emerge from within. Because it is a collection, the book does not require chronology or even thorough reading, though this is the way I approached it. But it can also be flipped through and individual sections sought that may provide perspective on different issues applicable at the time.
MM February 28, 2005
February 9, 2010
Had high hopes from a famous author Warren Bennis.
However, The book is either too complicated for me, or the presentation is not good.
However, The book is either too complicated for me, or the presentation is not good.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews