Well-grounded arguments for effective leadership.
The benefits of an expert-led world.
Drawing on more than 15 years of empirical research, Goodall, a professor of leadership at London’s Bayes Business School, makes her book debut with a persuasive argument about the need for expertise in leaders. “When non-experts are put in charge of organizations,” she writes, “disaster often strikes.” She attributes the devaluing of expertise to a growing distrust of authority, a populist bent toward “majority decision-making,” and a belief “that everyone’s views are of equal validity.” While in the past, leaders emerged from those who rose through the ranks of an organization, leadership ability has come to be assessed “in terms of verbal skills” and an individual’s “personal characteristics or, more simply, their charisma.” Business schools, she asserts, have contributed to an “unfortunate shift towards generic management,” creating “business and management” as a separate academic field. Citing many examples in areas such as health care, manufacturing, sports, and technology, Goodall has found that expert leadership leads to success. Top universities are led by scholars, not outsiders recruited from business, and the best performing hospitals are led by clinicians. Basketball teams, too, “won more games if they were led by coaches who were former all-star players or had long playing careers in the NBA.” Expert leaders convey a clear sense of purpose, take a long view, create a productive work environment, perform to high standards, and signal excellence. They share their organization’s culture and values. Once experts are found, though, they often need to be persuaded to lead. Financial remuneration may help, as does their capacity “to identify psychologically as leaders.” They also need to know “that they will be developed and supported in the transition from expert to leader while being assured that they will be able to make tangible differences for the benefit of their teams, organizations, and stakeholders.”
Well-grounded arguments for effective leadership.Pub Date: July 11, 2023
ISBN: 9781541702509
Page Count: 272
Publisher: PublicAffairs
Review Posted Online: April 17, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2023
Striking research showing the immense complexity of ordinary thought and revealing the identities of the gatekeepers in our...
A psychologist and Nobel Prize winner summarizes and synthesizes the recent decades of research on intuition and systematic thinking.
The author of several scholarly texts, Kahneman (Emeritus Psychology and Public Affairs/Princeton Univ.) now offers general readers not just the findings of psychological research but also a better understanding of how research questions arise and how scholars systematically frame and answer them. He begins with the distinction between System 1 and System 2 mental operations, the former referring to quick, automatic thought, the latter to more effortful, overt thinking. We rely heavily, writes, on System 1, resorting to the higher-energy System 2 only when we need or want to. Kahneman continually refers to System 2 as “lazy”: We don’t want to think rigorously about something. The author then explores the nuances of our two-system minds, showing how they perform in various situations. Psychological experiments have repeatedly revealed that our intuitions are generally wrong, that our assessments are based on biases and that our System 1 hates doubt and despises ambiguity. Kahneman largely avoids jargon; when he does use some (“heuristics,” for example), he argues that such terms really ought to join our everyday vocabulary. He reviews many fundamental concepts in psychology and statistics (regression to the mean, the narrative fallacy, the optimistic bias), showing how they relate to his overall concerns about how we think and why we make the decisions that we do. Some of the later chapters (dealing with risk-taking and statistics and probabilities) are denser than others (some readers may resent such demands on System 2!), but the passages that deal with the economic and political implications of the research are gripping.
Striking research showing the immense complexity of ordinary thought and revealing the identities of the gatekeepers in our minds.Pub Date: Nov. 1, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-374-27563-1
Page Count: 512
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: Sept. 3, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2011
BOOK REVIEW
IN THE NEWS
These are not hard and fast rules, but Meyer delivers important reading for those engaged in international business.
A helpful guide to working effectively with people from other cultures.
“The sad truth is that the vast majority of managers who conduct business internationally have little understanding about how culture is impacting their work,” writes Meyer, a professor at INSEAD, an international business school. Yet they face a wider array of work styles than ever before in dealing with clients, suppliers and colleagues from around the world. When is it best to speak or stay quiet? What is the role of the leader in the room? When working with foreign business people, failing to take cultural differences into account can lead to frustration, misunderstanding or worse. Based on research and her experiences teaching cross-cultural behaviors to executive students, the author examines a handful of key areas. Among others, they include communicating (Anglo-Saxons are explicit; Asians communicate implicitly, requiring listeners to read between the lines), developing a sense of trust (Brazilians do it over long lunches), and decision-making (Germans rely on consensus, Americans on one decider). In each area, the author provides a “culture map scale” that positions behaviors in more than 20 countries along a continuum, allowing readers to anticipate the preferences of individuals from a particular country: Do they like direct or indirect negative feedback? Are they rigid or flexible regarding deadlines? Do they favor verbal or written commitments? And so on. Meyer discusses managers who have faced perplexing situations, such as knowledgeable team members who fail to speak up in meetings or Indians who offer a puzzling half-shake, half-nod of the head. Cultural differences—not personality quirks—are the motivating factors behind many behavioral styles. Depending on our cultures, we understand the world in a particular way, find certain arguments persuasive or lacking merit, and consider some ways of making decisions or measuring time natural and others quite strange.
These are not hard and fast rules, but Meyer delivers important reading for those engaged in international business.Pub Date: May 27, 2014
ISBN: 978-1-61039-250-1
Page Count: 288
Publisher: PublicAffairs
Review Posted Online: April 15, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2014
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