[.uk] Level Three Leadership: Getting Below the Surface (ISBN 0130108782)

Author's Comment:
This book summarizes current, practical knowledge about what it means to be an effective leader. Leadership implies three major thrusts: strategic thinking (leadership for what?), relationship building (leading whom?) and designing an action context (organizational design issues) all discussed in the text. Further, the book asserts that leaders who target Level Three (core values, assumptions, beliefs, and expectations or VABEs) can be more effective and powerful than those who, traditionally, target Level One (focus on behavior) and Level Two (conscious thinking). The book also introduces the notion of INFOCRACIES, or organizations that are increasingly being redesigned by the information systems within them and presents a framework for thinking about developing deeper influence. As the author, clearly I'm biased, AND I've found that this approach has worked very well with many clients and executive education programs. The book was intended as a dense summary for executive education audiences in short, week long seminars. If you have suggestions, I'm eager to hear.

Intriguing management advice with a New Age twist.:
At first glance, this might seem to be yet another standard text about management and employee relations. You'll be pleased to find that, instead, author James G. Clawson has written an engaging book about history, human psychology and the modern workplace. He offers intriguing insights, strong research and even a New Age wrinkle or two, with a few well-placed comments about meditation, inner vision and martial arts. Despite a few redundant passages, this is not a dry HR manual, though it provides helpful professional charts and summaries. With its you-need-to-know-this-now tone and its comments about gravity, magic and inner vision, the book is actually fun. We recommend it to managers at all tiers, to employees seeking advancement and to MBA candidates.