The Future of Leadership (Today's Top Leadership Thinkers Speak to Tomorrow's Leaders).

 
Warren Bennis, Gretchen M. Spreitzer, Thomas G. Cummings, Editors 
Jossey-Bass, 2001, $16 pages 
Hardcover, $26.95 

The seminal contributions, personal imprint and shared gifts given by Warren Bennis to the study and practice of management are numerable and declarative of the art and experience of leadership. Warren Bennis is a celebrated and noted academic scholar and practitioner who remains at the forefront of the field of leadership and approaches to leading that take place in diverse organizations. Furthermore, it is a fair statement to mention that there is a range of ideas, opinions and thoughts from scholars in the field about what is leadership, who can lead, and what are the expectations of leaders who engage in leadership practice and work.

In a book entitled, The Future of Leadership (Today's Top Leadership Thinkers Speak to Tomorrow's Leaders,) Warren Bennis, Gretchen M. Spreitzer and Thomas G. Cummings, as well as a notable group of contributors, present a dialogue and exchange of viewpoints on leadership and leading in the early years of the 21st century. Moreover, Bennis offers in his leadoff essay that several key questions of our present time have implications for the future. Among the questions is what should organizations do to retain wisdom without forestalling the futures of coming generations. A second question or theme that comes through time and time again in the book is Bennis' pronouncement "that there is a potential disconnect between the practice of management and the study of management."

In Part One, Bennis reflects on the new business environment where new models will need to be introduced in place of traditional bureaucratic organizations to meet changed requirements and new expectations by a broadened range of participants and stakeholders. In Part Two, there is reference by Charles Handy to a "world of fleas and elephants" and the constant need for the development of leadership competencies and skills in leaders (and all of this is in a world in transition.) Thomas Davenport in a discussion with Bennis offers a cogent view of Peter Drucker's "knowledge worker" and Davenport asks the question "Does management have a future?" Steven Kerr in discussing the GE elephant connects boundaryless behavior to the factors of demographics and globalization and the need for integration to produce results in integrated organizations. Thomas A. Stewart writes that "trust, unlike power baffles people." Stewart further asserts that business begins with trust. Yet it is important to establish relationships to have trust.

In Part Three, James Kouzes and Barry Posner remind us that leadership is an observable, learnable set of practices, and that you don't have to wait for someone else to lead. Karl E. Weick makes reference to Paul Ylvisaker's question to Warren Bennis about a world of what is unknowable and also unpredictable Simply put, there are many situations of the unknown for leaders to encounter and navigate. Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi suggests that creativity happens in the interrelations of a system and not in a vacuum; it always involves a domain of some sort such as the ...