Leaders At All Levels: Deepening Your Talent Pool To Solve The Succession Crisis

by Ram Charan

Leaders at All Deepening Your Talent Pool to Solve the Succession Crisis-Wiley-Ram Charan-2009-EDN-1

Genres: Leadership, Business, Management

184 pages, Paperback

First published December 21, 2007

About the author

Ram Charan is an Indian-American business consultant, speaker, and writer resident in Dallas, Texas.

Reviews

[Benjamin Elliott · Rating 3 out of 5]

Well, it pays to read the subtitle. Once you pay attention to the "solve the succession" part of it, the actual focus comes into much better focus than if you just see "leaders at all levels." I made that mistake.

I thought I was getting something about how to be a leader in your current position, no matter where you are on the totem pole. I was wrong. This book focuses on the process needed to plan for the retirement of a CEO and choose a replacement who will be successful. It is targeted specifically to the management of large, multi-national corporations.

People looking for insights into how to be an effective leader will need to reverse engineer the advice of the book to be about someone working their way up instead of people at the top looking down on the masses to see who they want to let up to their level. The author starts the book off by saying that he believes leadership is an innate talent people have or they don't. If they have it, you need to support and develop that talent, but if they don't have it, don't bother trying to instill it in someone. This view mostly excuses him from detailing what it would take to be a good leader. The only deviation from this is in the epilogue. If you don't work for a business with at least half a billion dollars in revenue and have either a C or a V at the beginning of your title. You might as well just read the first chapter and the epilogue and call it a day.

[Agus Fitriandi · Rating 4 out of 5]

Buku ini menjelaskan tentang metode "magang" sebagai salah satu metode dalam menyiapkan calon-calon pemimpin. Model kerja magang merupakan satu sistem ketat untuk menyediakan pengalaman dan umpan balik yang dibentuk untuk mempercepat pengembangan setiap pemimpin. Model ini berangkat dari keyakinan bahwa kepemimpinan hanya dapat dikembangkan melalui praktik. Orang bisa memperoleh ilmu kepemimpinan dari ruang kelas atau buku, namun calon pemimpin harus mengembangkan kemampuan mereka dengan berpraktik di dunia nyata dan mengubah pengalaman itu menjadi ketrampilan dan penilaian yang lebih baik.

Memang Ram Charan mengusulkan metode tersebut untuk korporasi, namun saya berpendapat bahwa ide tersebut dapat diterapkan pada tataran negara. Dan Partai Politik (Parpol) adalah salah satu wadah yang memungkinkan diterapkannya metode magang dalam sebuah organisasi pemerintahan. Di sini lah pentingnya sikap kenegarawan para pemimpin senior Parpol. Ketajaman visi untuk mampu menemukan pemimpin-pemimpin muda berpotensi serta kebesaran hati untuk memberikan kesempatan kepada pemuda untuk berkiprah dengan peningkatan skala penugasan yang menanjak. Tetapi itulah tanggung jawab seorang pemimpin, yakni mampu menyiapkan calon-calon pemimpin.

Lihatbselengkapnya di: https://www.academia.edu/13733846/Men...

[J. J.]

This will sound funny as a description of what might look like just another dry business book, but I have deep affection for this book. Not only did I lean on it heavily as a case study example in my doctoral dissertation, but also Charan advocates for so many things I’ve fought for over the years that he helps me feel sane. Leadership development, succession planning, discipleship, equipping the saints… The open secret is that to do any of them well, you have to do all of them. And, further, the deeper you understand any of them, the more you come to realize they’re all the same thing. This book is only 163 pages but I spent months reading it and scribbling madly in the margins. This book is worth the attention it requires.

[Ryan Barretto · Rating 5 out of 5]

A superb book with great ideas on developing leaders for the organization, and articulating in real depth, what a succession plan and talent development system looks like.

There is input for both individuals and organizations on what to do to develop leadership talent.

I would say that the overall leadership development system shown here is more suited to large organizations than small, but there's plenty to pick up and apply.

This is a must read for leaders, aspiring leaders, HR heads, talent development managers and Learning & Development heads.

[Jeff Willis · Rating 3 out of 5]

Some useful advice about planning for succession at a company, but the book was a little dry and too focused on the CEO level for my tastes. I would have liked a little more info that applied to more than just the <1% of employees who occupy the corner c-suite.

[Logan · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book was really not meant for me. It focuses on C suite level leadership, which its a pretty small segment of people. I did appreciate the apprentice model of development but focusing on C suite personnel leaves a lot people wanting more.

[Beth T. · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is aimed at replacing a CEO of a multi million corporation. I enjoyed the examples of how other companies somewhat engage their talented/motivated workforce. This was a long winded read.

[Harish B · Rating 5 out of 5]

Ramcharan never fails to deliver. This is a small but highly insightful book on leadership and succession planning.

[Peter Lund · Rating 3 out of 5]

Slightly dated now but there are fundamentals that underly the book. I thought the Appendix with Building Blocks was most helpful.

[Rob Cardon · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was an excellent book about the overall approach a company should take in identifying the talent within the organization. The premise of the approach is to identify leadership capability within the organization as early as possible (even during the recruiting process) and provide individuals that display an aptitude to lead at the highest levels growth opportunities. The opportunities should not be incremental, but exponential and provide the leader with rapid learning opportunities. The focus of this activity should be to groom potential future CEOs. By doing this, leaders will emerge to fill positions at all levels.

An excellent book for individuals who are growing their leadership skills and finding opportunities to practice them.

[Jenn Botts · Rating 1 out of 5]

Awful, couldn't finish it.

1st problem- it didn't really apply to me
2nd problem- it kept saying the same thing over and over in slightly different ways. It could have been an article rather than a book.

[Alberto Lopez · Rating 4 out of 5]

I found this awesome book to be a great follow up to Jack Welch's Straight from the Gut. By diving into the details of how to create an effective culture that reliably and effectively develops leaders, this text is a must read for any board member and/or business owner.

[Ridwan · Rating 3 out of 5]

An interesting concept of raising the leaders.
Give them a brief exposure on P&L structure.

[Julius · Rating 5 out of 5]

all i can say is i love this book over and over again..

[Tedy · Rating 5 out of 5]

inspiring

[Allisonperkel · Rating 1 out of 5]

So many issues from it didn't resonate at all with me to every 5 minutes the author would state the exact same thing over again.

[Mitesh Patel · Rating 4 out of 5]

cutting edge insight. awesome