Driven to Lead: Good, Bad, and Misguided Leadership

by Paul R. Lawrence

"This book is truly amazing—actually, a masterpiece. It tells the story of the human condition."
—From Foreword by WARREN BENNIS IN THIS FOLLOW-UP BOOK to the best-selling Driven , Harvard professor Paul Lawrence applies his four-drive theory of human behavior to the realm of leadership, explaining how leadership—like all human behavior—can be understood as a function of the balance, or lack of balance, of four basic human drives: the drive to acquire, to defend, to comprehend, and to bond. We achieve an optimal state of leadership when all four drives are cultivated and balanced. In this next-step resource, Lawrence uses historical examples and current leadership crises to explain how the balance of the four drives results in one of three types of leadership: Driven to Lead explains the biological underpinnings of leadership behavior and offers a compelling discussion of the history of leadership. It examines the critical turning points in the leadership of political institutions, the rise of the corporation as the leading economic institution, and the leadership of religious, artistic, and scientific organizations. Based on theories that are universal, testable, and actionable, Driven to Lead brings to light a general theory of human behavior that can be used to cultivate good leadership and leaders who have a balance of the four drives.

Genres: Leadership, Nonfiction

336 pages, Hardcover

First published July 2, 2010

Reviews

[Leah · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was a really thought-provoking book and provides a great basis for thinking about human interactions and needs.

There was a really jarring part in the middle where the author was suddenly like "PS, this proves god exists because of REASONS and even Stephen Hawking says so!" and then goes back to being all sound and scientific. I don't know what that was about, but the rest of the book was quite good.

[Dale Nicetic · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good read I found the first half of the book a very informative discussion on how humans are hard wired to balance the four drives to obtain the best overall outcome in decision making.

[dv · Rating 4 out of 5]

A good book on leadership, starting from darwinian concepts and elaborating them (sometimes too copious) with historical examples. Too bad the organizational point of view is not faced with much depth.