Howard Gardner, With *, Emma Laskin
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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 13
Average rating: 4.5 of 5
The leader as creator and embodiment of 'the story' 5 out of 5 stars.
26 of 28 people found this review helpful.
There are many studies of leadership from almost as many perspectives. Howard Gardner focuses on the leader as creator, teller and living exponent of a story, and makes an overwhelming case for the centrality of this function in leadership, and its complement, countering the counter-stories that exist in the organisation. Leaders who understand and use this book will add greatly to their effectiveness.The idea of the leader as living exponent of a story is combined with the concept of the 'five year old mind'. Simply put, even sophisticated people are not sophisticated in all domains. In other domains, the common denominator of shared understanding is the 'five year old mind', the five year old having a very concrete, literal and emotionally based understanding of the world. For success, a leader should know how to appeal to the five year old mind, as well as to more sophisticated audiences.
There are three parts - and do not miss the preface to the paperback edition. The first is 'A Framework for leadership', which states the main thesis.
"When one thinks of the leader as a story-teller, whose stories must wrestle with those that are already operative in the mind of an audience, one obtains a powerful way of conceptualizing the work of leading. It is important for leaders to know their stories, to get them straight, to communicate them effectively, and, above all, to embody in their lives the stories that they tell."
The second part consists of case studies of people who exemplify leadership across various domains. It includes examples from each of his two classes of leaders (direct leaders who engage directly with others in action, and indirect leaders (like Einstein) who influence others through their impact on how people see the world).
The third looks forward and summarises the enduring lessons for leadership. The principles that he extracts are both important and practical.
Approached as a guide to exercise of leadership, the case studies can be `dipped into', while Parts one and three are studied for their messages. If necessary, save the case studies for your holidays, because they are well chosen, brilliantly told and make fascinating reading.
It is a book that is not only valuable for the way it treats its core theme. It also provides an immensely fertile starting point for thinking about related issues of change. I first read it during a period in which I was intensely engaged in promoting cultural change in a large organisation and was able to relate very directly to Gardner's analysis and find direct value in his prescriptions.
Editorial Review:
Leading Minds addresses a crucial and often ignored component of leadership -- the mind. What distinguishes the mind of an effective leader, and what is the mentality of his or her followers? Gardner links the study of creativity with the study of leadership to demonstrate the many similarities between traditional creators (artists and scientists) and leaders in business, politics and the military. He argues that the key to leadership is the creation of an arresting story -- one that grabs the followers' attention and inspires them to greater efforts. In portraits of a wide range of leaders -- from Oppenheimer to Gandhi -- Gardner re-creates each of their stories, shows where each fits in the matrix of "leader archetypes", and reveals the ways in which they ultimately succeed or fail.
