Head, Heart and Guts: How the World's Best Companies Develop Complete Leaders

by David L. Dotlich

This book reveals the three most important capabilities leaders must demonstrate today: the ability to set strategy, empathize with others, and take risks--all at the same time. In "Head, Heart, and Guts, " leadership experts David Dotlich, Peter Cairo, and Stephen Rhinesmith--who teach and coach CEOs and executive teams throughout the world--argue that to be successful in a complex, matrixed, fast-moving world, "whole" leaders must set strategy, develop trusting relationships with others, and consistently do the right thing based on personal values. "Partial" leaders, often the product of traditional executive programs, may be successful in the shortrun, but their companies lose over time. Filled with case studies of companies such as Bank of America, Johnson & Johnson, Novartis, and UBS, "Head, Heart, and Guts," lays out specific steps and actions for leaders who want to grow beyond their "leadership comfort zone" and an action plan for companies that want to move beyond tried-and-true leadership development in order to develop "whole" leaders throughout their leadership pipeline.

Genres: Leadership, Business, Nonfiction

240 pages, Hardcover

First published April 27, 2006

Reviews

[Marvin Oka · Rating 5 out of 5]

In their excellent and thought provoking book 'Head, Heart, and Guts', leadership experts David Dotlich, Peter Cairo, and Stephen Rhinesmith—who teach and coach CEOs and executive teams throughout the world—argue that to be successful in a complex, uncertain and fast-moving world, “whole” leaders need to learn to use not just their head, but also the competencies of heart and gut, of compassion and courage.

Their work fits perfectly with and supports our own work on multiple Brain Integration Techniques (mBIT) which is based on the neuroscience findings of complex, adaptive and fully functional neural networks or 'brains' in the gut and heart regions.

We recently had the pleasure of interviewing Dr. David Dotlich on the 'Head, Heart and Guts of Leadership' and it's links with mBIT, and you can download the mp3 of the interview for free here: http://www.mbraining.com/interviews-w...

[أخضر أخضر · Rating 3 out of 5]

عندما أكون في موقف يضعني موضع القيادة؛ هل اعتمدت في قراري على العقل؟ أو أسّلم نفسي للقلب؟ أم للشجاعة والمبادرة والقوة؟
هل المدير الناجح هو المدير الذي يتخذ قرارات عقلانية؟ أم المدير العاطفي؟ أم المدير الشجاع الذي يتخذ قراره فورًا وبالحدس؟

يجيبنا هذا الكتاب إجابة مختلفة؛ فينحي القيادة بمفهومها الجزئي القاصر على جوانب دون أخرى من جوانب القيادة ليفسح المجال لمفهوم أوسع للقيادة وصورة أكمل من ذي قبل. القيادة الناجحة التي يراها ديفيد وزملاؤه في الكتاب هي التي تجمع بين كل ذلك في تناسق وتناغم.

وليس بالضرورة أن القائد الذي سيأخذ بالقيادة الشاملة سيكون مثاليًا لا يقع في أي أخطاء، هو معرض لا شك للخطأ لكن أقل عُرضة وأكثر سلامةً للتصرف عند وقوع الأخطاء؛ فلا يزعم الكتاب أبدًا هذه الصورة المثالية التي قد تروجها بعض الكتابات عن القائد المثالي.

والجميل في الكتاب أنه يدل القارئ على معوقات القيادة الشاملة أو ما يحول بينه وبين أن يصبح قائدًا شاملًا في المستويات الثلاثة: العقل والقلب والشجاعة.

[Kyle · Rating 4 out of 5]

My favorite business and leadership books are the ones whose thesis is so simple that it can only make me say “Duh!”. However, an almost naively simple thesis isn’t enough. It needs to be structured into a manner that allows me to take that simple thesis and flex it in ways more condusive to my own context. Head, Heart, and Guts is one of those books.

Its thesis is stunningly simple: the best leaders exhibit strategic vision, empathy, and courage. Or, as the title suggests: the best leaders are women who have head, heart, and guts. To me this is stunningly obvious. It’s so obvious that it makes me wonder why I didn’t think of it first.
Yet that’s not the primary reason for this books success: it’s flexible. The book was written with upper management and leaders in large multi-national corporations. That’s not me. It never will be. I have next to zero ambition for that type of career trajectory. But I am interested in leadership.

Leadership happens in many ways every day in both large and small scale scenarios. On a day to day basis many of us have opportunities to lead in families, projects at work, in our churches, in service organizations, on sports teams, etc. The list goes on. Dotlich, Cairo, and Rhinesmith argue that the most successful leaders are holistic leaders. They move leadership beyond strategic analysis, vision casting, and other mental functions of leadership and beg future leaders to lead with empathy and courage as well.

[Holger · Rating 1 out of 5]

A stereotypical book written by management consultants in the 2000s - both in content and style.

The content is mainly truisms: do not be extreme. Don't rely purely on analytics, don't be too soft, don't forget integrity, develop trust... I'm reading this book 13 years late, but I refuse to believe this blew people away in 2006.

The style is off-putting. It's full with anecdotes we've read everywhere by now (Nike is cool, GM was becoming cool) and that mostly cater to clients and friends from the authors' consulting gigs. This simple strategy inevitably never ages well (Giuliani and Immelt as beacons of leadership). The language is jargon, a jarring string of "context leadership" and "guide people through vision and values".

[Pupsi · Rating 2 out of 5]

Whilst nobody would have an issue with the sentiments in the book that it is essential to have a mix of analytical, compassion and guts this book did not engage and was full of anecdotal elements. Like some poorer books this book read like the author had a theory (and a consultancy business) and has found use cases to support their thinking. Nothing revolutionary in the this book.

[Ruth Ropper · Rating 2 out of 5]

If you work in industry this book may be more useful. However I found it a fairly dry book which doesn't transfer to other settings. The theory of being a well rounded leader is sound but the examples are very selling industry focused.

[нєνєℓ ¢ανα · Rating 2 out of 5]

A standard subject, always lean to industry's environment, but without convincing...

[Suzan Oktaria · Rating 3 out of 5]

`Kami tahu bahwa arti penting ketiga kualitas ini-kecerdasan, perasaan, dan keberanian-telah dikenal orang sejak dahulu. Gagasannya tidak baru. Ilustrasi yang paling jelas dapat kita lihat di film-film

[Irwan]

Seems interesting. Hope to be inspired by (skim) reading this.

[Lisadunbar22 · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book was hard to believe. I would love to see a large company be successful at implementing training and a reward system for those who can exhibit these qualities in a leadership role.