Reading
The Leadership Challenge
James Kouzes and Barry Posner (Jossey-Bass, 2002)
This is one of the most useful books of the current vast crop on leadership. The book suggests that there are 5 practices of exemplary leadership: model the way, inspire a shared vision, challenge the process, enable others to act and encourage the heart. The vision of the book is that it is our collective task to liberate the leader within each and every one of us. By assuming that leadership is learnable, we can discover how many good leaders there really are.
This book is available through Amazon.
The Support Economy
Why corporations are failing individuals and the next episode of capitalism
Shoshana Zuboff and James Maxmin (Allen Lane, 2003)
This book challenges pre-conceptions about managerial capitalism. It suggests that people have changed more than the commercial organisations on which they depend and a chasm has opened up between them. However, in the chasm lie the keys to a new economic order with vast potential for wealth creation and individual fulfilment. The marketplace of a support economy and the possibilities of distributed capitalism are the start of a new enterprise logic with a focus on individual self-determination.
This book is available through Amazon.