The Leader's Edge: Six Creative Competencies for Navigating Complex Challenges: 19 (J-B CCL (Center for Creative Leadership)) - Hardcover

Palus, Charles J.; Horth, David M.

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0787909998 ISBN 13: 9780787909994

Publisher: Jossey-Bass, 2002

Synopsis

Let the Center for Creative Leadership show you how you can dramatically improve your leadership abilities in today's business environment. Based on years of specialized research, The Leader's Edge outlines six distinct creative leadership skills that, while not traditionally associated with management development, have, nevertheless, proven to be essential to modern business leadership. Here, the book's authors deliver compelling lessons in paying attention, personalizing, imaging, serious play, collaborative inquiry, and crafting -- all competencies that modern leaders should master. They also outline activities for real-world implementation, provide case examples, and suggest ways to avoid common mistakes. A wealth of self-reflections and tools helps ensure your rapid progress.

About this title

About the Author

Charles J. Palus is a research scientist and project manager in the Leadership for Complex Challenges practice area at the Center for Creative Leadership (CCL). His research interests focus on the relationship between meaning-making and leadership.
David M. Horth is a program manager and a senior faculty member with the Leadership for Complex Challenges practice area at CCL. He trains in many executive development programs, including leadership development and creativity programs for the international community.

From the Back Cover

"A true breakthrough approach to contemporary leadership. The content enables awareness, development, understanding, and application of six competencies essential to guiding organizations through today's complex and ever-changing business environment. Further, it enables levels of individual and organizational introspection vital to the change and adaptation required in leading and managing through complex challenges."
--Michael A. Barker, executive director of leadership development and executive staffing, Verizon Communications

"No one in any managerial position can ignore this wonderful book, which teaches in a most practical-and interesting-way how to lead and manage effectively. Using real-life examples, the authors painstakingly detail a step-by-step methodology which will literally transform your thinking and take you into the exciting world of creative leadership!"
--Kirpal Singh, professor and director of the Centre for Cross-Cultural Studies, Singapore Management University.

"The creative process has been captured at last, and what a ride. True to the best of learning theory, elegantly simple. A must-read for leaders with the courage to walk on the edge."
--Bernice McCarthy, president, About Learning, Inc.

"Horth and Palus understand the critical role leaders play in creating an environment for productive social engagement in turbulent times. Their practical advice is a must-read for leaders at all levels."
--Kevin E. Kirby, vice president for administration (health sciences), Columbia University, and former executive officer, National Institutes of Health

From the Inside Flap

The tasks faced by organizations today are increasingly complex, and leaders find themselves faced with challenges from all sides: accelerating technology, deregulation, mergers and acquisitions, shifting demographics, new business models, and an uncertain economy. Indeed, to many these challenges seem insurmountable, because traditional management skills are simply not enough to cope with them. The Leader's Edge offers a breakthrough approach to dealing with such situations, showing how to tap into a set of unique creative competencies that are necessary to survive and thrive in this turbulent environment.

Based on seven years of research on several hundred individual leaders and teams from a variety of industries and disciplines, The Leader's Edge identifies the insight, skills, techniques, and wisdom that separate true leaders from merely effective managers. The key to truly creative and successful leadership, say Charles J. Palus and David M. Horth, lies in adding six key competencies to traditional leadership skills: paying attention, personalizing, imaging, serious play, collaborative inquiry, and crafting. The authors reveal how any leader can access and use these sensibilities and skills to make sense of rapid change and complexity-and thus provide an invaluable "leader's edge."
The Leader's Edge will help managers recognize the competencies they already have and develop them further. It will give them a practical understanding of how the creative competencies, when integrated with traditional skills, are vital to the essential process of making sense. And it will show them how to help their organizations and communities develop and use these competencies to create shared understanding, and so better navigate and resolve complex challenges.

Edition details

• Publisher: Jossey-Bass
• Publication date: 2002
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0787909998
• ISBN 13: 9780787909994
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 304