The Leader's Edge

Let the Center for Creative Leadership show you how you can dramatically improve your leadership abilities in today's business environment. Based on years of specialized research, The Leader's Edge outlines six distinct creative leadership skills that, while not traditionally associated with management development, have, nevertheless, proven to be essential to modern business leadership. Here, the book's authors deliver compelling lessons in paying attention, personalizing, imaging, serious play, collaborative inquiry, and crafting -- all competencies that modern leaders should master. They also outline activities for real-world implementation, provide case examples, and suggest ways to avoid common mistakes. A wealth of self-reflections and tools helps ensure your rapid progress.Der ultimative Schritt-für-Schritt Leitfaden für Manager, die ihren Führungsqualitäten mehr Kreativität verleihen wollen.

Er basiert auf jahrelanger Forschungsarbeit.

Die Autoren stellen hier eine bewährte Methode für sicheren Führungserfolg vor.

Sie beschreiben sechs unterschiedliche, aber miteinander verflochtene Kompetenzen für kreative Führung, die wichtige Aspekte menschlichen Verhaltens widerspiegeln, aber bislang nur unzureichend für eine funktionierende Unternehmensführung in Betracht gezogen wurden.

Mit genauer Anleitung, welche Maßnahmen notwendig sind, um die jeweilige Kompetenz zu erwerben.

Bietet eine Fülle von Hilfsmitteln und Beurteilungstests, mit deren Hilfe man die sechs Kompetenzen entwickeln kann.

Enthält eine Fülle von Beispielen und Fallstudien sowie Tipps und Hinweise, wie man Missbrauch vermeidet.

Ein neuer Band zum Thema Leadership vom renommierten Center for Creative Leadership. Preface.

Acknowledgments.

The Authors.

Introduction: Navigating Complex Challenges.

1. Paying Attention.

Shifting Between Modes of Attention.

Understanding Left-Mode and Right-Mode Attention.

Using Kinesthetic Attention.

Paying Attention to Negative Space.

Asking Powerful Questions.

Developing the Competency of Paying Attention.

Cautions.

2. Personalizing.

Learning Begins with the Personal Connection.

Practicing Assessment for Development (A4D).

Practicing Exploration for Development (E4D).

Tapping Into Your Passion.

Knowing When to Let Go of Your Personal Side.

Developing the Competency of Personalizing.

Cautions.

3. Imaging.

Making Imagination Tangible.

Seeing Organizational Vision in a New Light.

Exploring Scenarios.

Making and Using Metaphors.

Making Poetry in the Face of Complexity.

Developing the Competency of Imaging.

Cautions.

4. Serious Play.

Play Enhances Learning amid Turbulence.

Play Is a Community Activity.

Play Is the Heart of Science and Technology.

Developing the Competency of Serious Play.

Cautions.

5. Co-Inquiry.

Building Creative Leadership Communities.

Creating Spaces for Group Work.

Conducting Dialogue.

Putting Something in the Middle.

Crossing Boundaries.

Developing the Competency of Co-Inquiry.

Cautions.

6. Crafting.

Thinking in Wholes.

Crafting Decisions.

Building Scaffolds for Learning.

Developing Leadership as Science and as Art.

Learning from Artists.

Developing the Competency of Crafting.

Cautions.

7. Creative Leadership in Action.

Case Study 1: Task Force Collaboration.

Case Study 2: Leadership in New Media.

Case Study 3: Individual Leadership Coaching.

Case Study 4: Creative Product Innovation.

Case Study 5: Executive Interdependence.

Case Study 6: Inventing a New Manufacturing Paradigm.

Appendix A: The Leading Creatively Program.

Appendix B: Our Research Methods.

Appendix C: A Reflective Assessment of C2 Competencies: Competencies for Making Sense of Complex Challenges.

Appendix D: The ORC Star-Mapping Process.

Notes.

Bibliography.

Index.

About the Center for Creative Leadership. Charles J. Palus is a research scientist and project manager in the Leadership for Complex Challenges practice area at the Center for Creative Leadership (CCL). His research interests focus on the relationship between meaning-making and leadership.
David M. Horth is a program manager and a senior faculty member with the Leadership for Complex Challenges practice area at CCL. He trains in many executive development programs, including leadership development and creativity programs for the international community. The tasks faced by organizations today are increasingly complex, and leaders find themselves faced with challenges from all sides: accelerating technology, deregulation, mergers and acquisitions, shifting demographics, new business models, and an uncertain economy. Indeed, to many these challenges seem insurmountable, because traditional management skills are simply not enough to cope with them. The Leader's Edge offers a breakthrough approach to dealing with such situations, showing how to tap into a set of unique creative competencies that are necessary to survive and thrive in this turbulent environment.

Based on seven years of research on several hundred individual leaders and teams from a variety of industries and disciplines, The Leader's Edge identifies the insight, skills, techniques, and wisdom that separate true leaders from merely effective managers. The key to truly creative and successful leadership, say Charles J. Palus and David M. Horth, lies in adding six key competencies to traditional leadership skills: paying attention, personalizing, imaging, serious play, collaborative inquiry, and crafting. The authors reveal how any leader can access and use these sensibilities and skills to make sense of rapid change and complexity-and thus provide an invaluable "leader's edge."
The Leader's Edge will help managers recognize the competencies they already have and develop them further. It will give them a practical understanding of how the creative competencies, when integrated with traditional skills, are vital to the essential process of making sense. And it will show them how to help their organizations and communities develop and use these competencies to create shared understanding, and so better navigate and resolve complex challenges. "A true breakthrough approach to contemporary leadership. The content enables awareness, development, understanding, and application of six competencies essential to guiding organizations through today's complex and ever-changing business environment. Further, it enables levels of individual and organizational introspection vital to the change and adaptation required in leading and managing through complex challenges."
--Michael A. Barker, executive director of leadership development and executive staffing, Verizon Communications

"No one in any managerial position can ignore this wonderful book, which teaches in a most practical-and interesting-way how to lead and manage effectively. Using real-life examples, the authors painstakingly detail a step-by-step methodology which will literally transform your thinking and take you into the exciting world of creative leadership!"
--Kirpal Singh, professor and director of the Centre for Cross-Cultural Studies, Singapore Management University.

"The creative process has been captured at last, and what a ride. True to the best of learning theory, elegantly simple. A must-read for leaders with the courage to walk on the edge."
--Bernice McCarthy, president, About Learning, Inc.

"Horth and Palus understand the critical role leaders play in creating an environment for productive social engagement in turbulent times. Their practical advice is a must-read for leaders at all levels."
--Kevin E. Kirby, vice president for administration (health sciences), Columbia University, and former executive officer, National Institutes of Health "A true breakthrough approach to contemporary leadership. The content enables awareness, development, understanding, and application of six competencies essential to guiding organizations through today's complex and ever-changing business environment. Further, it enables levels of individual and organizational introspection vital to the change and adaptation required in leading and managing through complex challenges."
--Michael A. Barker, executive director of leadership development and executive staffing, Verizon Communications

"No one in any managerial position can ignore this wonderful book, which teaches in a most practical-and interesting-way how to lead and manage effectively. Using real-life examples, the authors painstakingly detail a step-by-step methodology which will literally transform your thinking and take you into the exciting world of creative leadership!"
--Kirpal Singh, professor and director of the Centre for Cross-Cultural Studies, Singapore Management University.

"The creative process has been captured at last, and what a ride. True to the best of learning theory, elegantly simple. A must-read for leaders with the courage to walk on the edge."
--Bernice McCarthy, president, About Learning, Inc.

"Horth and Palus understand the critical role leaders play in creating an environment for productive social engagement in turbulent times. Their practical advice is a must-read for leaders at all levels."
--Kevin E. Kirby, vice president for administration (health sciences), Columbia University, and former executive officer, National Institutes of Health

"The manager just tapped to become a senior leader may have an abstract fear of the new, and a new fear of the abstract-giving rise to questions that begin with 'How do I?' This book maps new avenues to thoughtful and meaningful answers to some of the more befuddling of these questions."
--Hunton Tiffany, chairman, The Fauquier Bank, Warrenton, Virginia.

"The consciousness of leadership and its effects on any organization is more important than ever in our world of increasing speed, complexity, and unpredictability. This book is a valuable contribution to help apply efficient leadership in today's world."
--Ingar Skaug, president and CEO, Wallenius Wilhelmsen Lines AS, Norway

"This well-written book moves beyond creativity theory and provides the reader with enabling tools that will greatly assist in developing creative individuals and environments. Through a series of engaging techniques the authors have given us new ways of stimulating the creative impulse that is resident in all of us. Highly recommended."
--Maurice Terry, president and CEO, Guelph Food Technology Center, Guelph, Canada

"The authors' collaboration has produced a 'work of art,' a useful, simple look at six key competencies everyone should explore and apply."
--Michael A. Cafasso, president and CEO, Pueblo Bank and Trust, Pueblo, Colorado

"At last, a full-spectrum palette for all sorts of creative leaders. This book feels like one of those beautiful Italian artist's sets I sometimes see--full of high-quality paints, brushes, and delightful surprises, practically guaranteed to produce living rainbows."
--David Barry, professorial chair of organizational creativity, Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand