THE LEADERSHIP CONTRACT

Molinaro presents a manifesto designed to improve the quality of corporate leadership.

In these pages, the author seeks to address what he refers to as a crisis in leadership. Molinaro cites his own research indicating the reach of the problem, stating that “three out of every four organizations we surveyed state that leadership accountability is a critical business issue” and directly addressing business leaders by adding, “you must have the courage to do some hard work necessary to establish the foundations of enterprise-wide accountability.” The author, a strategic leadership advisor, stresses this theme of accountability throughout the book, painting a picture of a corporate world in which far too many leaders have mentally checked out and fallen into habits of negligence or corrosive antagonism. In order to avoid what he refers to as mediocre leadership, Molinaro proposes a leadership contract, a document stipulating the basics of accountability that includes promises to “Step Up” (“I commit to leaving things better than I found them every single day – better for my customers, colleagues, organization, and the communities in which we do business”). In chapters broken up into shorter sections, insets, and bullet points, the author lays out the details of the leadership changes he would like to see. Molinaro is a forceful advocate for reform; despite the upheavals caused by societal factors like the Covid-19 pandemic resulting in the “Great Resignation,” he believes “there’s no better time than today to be an executive-leader.” [247] Readers who dislike the vogue for corporate managers talking and behaving like cult leaders might be worried by Molinaro’s contention that “there isn’t an artificial division between our work lives and our personal lives” (at least some of those readers will remember when a corporate job wasn’t necessarily an around-the-clock commitment). But even skeptical readers will be uplifted by his call for organizations to stop being “uninspiring and soul-destroying.”

A passionate call for business leaders to upgrade their accountability.