The critics who despair of the coming of imaginative, charismatic
leaders to replace the so-called manipulative caretakers of American
corporations don't tell us much about what leadership actually is, or,
for that matter, what management is either. Now, John P. Kotter, who
focused on why we have a leadership crisis in "The Leadership Factor"
shows here, with compelling evidence, what leadership really means
today, why it is rarely associated with larger-than-life charismatics,
precisely how it is different from management, and yet why both good
leadership and management are essential for business success, especially
for complex organizations operating in changing environments.
Leadership, Kotter clearly demonstrates, is for the most part not a
god-like figure transforming subordinates into superhumans, but is in
fact a process that creates change-- a process which often involves
hundreds or even thousands of "little acts of leadership" orchestrated
by people who have the profound insight to realize this. Building on his
landmark study of 15 successful general managers, Kotter presents
detailed accounts of how senior and middle managers in major
corporations, in close concert with colleagues and subordinates, were
able to create a leadership process that put into action hundreds of
commonsense ideas and procedures that, in combination with competent
management, produced extraordinary results.
This leadership turned NCR from a loser to a big winner in automated
teller machines, despite intense competition from IBM. The same process
at American Express and SAS helped businesses grow dramatically despite
the fact that they were "mature" and "commodity-like". Kotter also shows
how leadership turned around operations at P&G and Kodak; produced huge
business successes at PepsiCo, ARCO, and ConAgra; and made the
impossible occasionally happen at Digital.
Thousands of companies today are overmanaged and underled, John Kotter
concludes, not because managers lack charisma, but because far too few
executives have a clear understanding of what leadership is and what it
can accomplish. Without such a vision, even the most capable people have
great difficulty trying to lead effectively and to create the cultures
which will help others to lead.
