Connective Leadership: Managing in a Changing World

by Jean Lipman-Blumen

Book Overview

Business today is framed by two global tensions. On the one hand, the age of the Internet has ushered in an unprecedented interdependence. People from far-flung reaches of the globe now find themselves in close contact, and collaboration is the order of the day. On the other hand, we still live in an autonomous world of diverse nations and unique individuals, and the businesses and organizations that we have created to represent us are equally unique...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0195134699
• ISBN13: 9780195134698
• Release Date: April 2000
• Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
• Length: 432 Pages
• Weight: 0.74 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.0" x 5.6" x 8.5"

Customer Reviews

Wisdom, Eloquence, and Circumspection

As those who have read Hot Groups already know, Lipman-Blumen is one of the most innovative thinkers now commenting on the contemporary business world. With this book, she makes a substantial and truly significant contribution to our understanding of several separate but interdependent issues: leadership, connectivity, human development, intellectual capital, strategic alliances (both internal and external), and organizational transformation. Yes, yes, I know. There are hundreds of other books already published which discuss several of the same subjects and many of them are first-rate, as Lipman-Blumen would be the first to acknowledge. All of them are listed in her superb "References" section and key ideas from several are woven into her crisp narrative. One of the several reasons why this book is different is the provision and explanation of what she calls "The Connective Leadership Model" which is the focus of Part II. Typical of Lipman-Blumen, she does not suggest that hers is the only model to consider; in fact, she strongly urges her reader to correlate her or his organizations needs and interests with the structure of the model, selecting whatever is most important. However, I presume to offer a caveat: Although by now an overworked buzz word, "integration" of any combination of components is absolutely essential. Whatever the model, its components must be cohesive, comprehensive, and cost-effective as are those which comprise "The Connective Leadership Model."Wisely, following a precise and eloquent Preface, Lipman-Blumen focuses in Part One on "The Changing Dynamics of Leadership" which, inevitably, have changed at least to some extent since she wrote this book, first published in 1996. Nonetheless, her rationale remains rock-solid. Then and now, organizations need (and will continue to need) leadership which is "more politically savvy and instrumental, yet more ethical, authentic, accountable, and particularly, more ennobling." She calls this new approach "connective leadership" and suggests that it can "potentially transform the destructive tensions of diversity and interdependence into constructive leadership action." I hasten to add that, in most organizations where leaders tend to be identified by title, political and economic leverage, degree of authority, the "connective leadership" to which she refers can -- and should -- include everyone involved in a given organization. Stated another way, what she seems to be advocating is what I call "collaborative initiative" which can (and should) function at all levels. Those organizations which achieve and then sustain such initiatives (e.g. Southwest Airliners) have a "connective edge" over their competition. Lipman- Blumen provides an excellent discussion of this point in Chapter 10 and Noel Tichy also has much of value to say about this in his own book, The Leadership Engine.Lipman-Blumen organizes her material within three Parts: The Changing Dynamics of Leadership (a review and exa

If you read just one book on leadership, this is it!

The Connective Edge is a remarkable book, one of my very favorites. In it, Jean Lipman-Blumen presents the the Connective Leadership model, consisting of nine "Achieving Styles." She advocates developing all of the styles and merging them into a balanced leadership approach that can address any challenge in our increasingly complex world. This book has enabled me to better understand myself, my colleagues, and the organizations with which I interact. The Achieving Styles are presented in a way that allows the reader to understand the components of leadership and to identify his or her preferred styles. Dr. Lipman-Blumen also shows how to strengthen one's less preferred styles and how to apply the concepts of Connective Leadership to effective relationships with people, organizations, and society. The Connective Edge, nominated for a Pulitzer Prize, works on every level. The model it presents is balanced, flexible, and practical. Professionals or students in any field will learn a great deal from it.A brief review can't do this book justice -- a rating of 5 stars is not high enough! I have given or recommended it to friends, family, and colleagues, and the feedback has been 100% positive. This is a winner!

Far Reaching, Insightful

There is no shortage of books out there that try to categorize leaders into different leadership styles. Often, the leadership styles delineated seem arbitrary. That is the difference between Lipman's book and other books: Lipman has outlined some really useful categories for leaders. These styles are: instrumental, relational, and direct. These styles are further divided into three categories each. Lipman also makes it clear that the most successful leaders use a range of these styles and do not overuse the one style they are best at. Lipman uses dozens of examples to make her ideas easily understood. And many of the leaders (like the Brazilian activist Chico Mendes) she mentions are ones I haven't found in other leadership books.The chief prediction of the book (that leaders who do not foresee the consequences of a connective world will not succeed in tomorrow's world) is brilliant and far-reaching...

Connective Leadership: Managing in a Changing World

By far the richest treatment of leadership styles I have found. A superb look at the intersection between personal leadership styles, organizational culture, gender, and the contemporary context of rapid change. Essential reading for senior managers, individuals leading or managing in an international context, and anyone interested in fostering new leadership. Many of the current writings on leadership provide "great quotes" or "great ideas" but little in the way of a sound or stimulating theoretical framework for leadership. This title is the clear exception.

A Powerful New Model of Leadership

Truly magnificent! For years, as an academic and an organizational consultant, I've looked for a leadership book that connects me to the most serious issues of human life and organization. At last I've found it. Move over John Kotter, Warren Bennis, and John Gardner. A powerful new voice has entered the debate on what constitutes a leader, a voice that will have to be reckoned with by all future writers on leadership. A voice of passion, integrity and courage. Unlike any other leader, Jean Blumen-Lipman's "connective leader" can help us creatively integrate the dialectics of individuation and relationship, diversity and interdependence, self and other, I and Thou, the individual and the organization, the nation-state and the global community, without sacrificing either pole, in a whipsaw of opposites, to the demands of the other. No small feat! Reaching out dramatically to friends and foes alike, "connective leaders go around intellectual defenses to reach directly into the emotional solar plexus," says Lipman-Blumen. Such persons "use" themselves and everyone else as "instruments" or servants to accomplish their cause, practicing a service-oriented instrumentalism, an ethical Machiavellianism, whose purpose is not to advance the leader's power or glory but to allow us to reach beyond our narrow self interest, our self-imposed boundaries, to serve a larger whole. If leaders try to use the same one-dimensional behaviors that they've used in the past - authoritarian, charismatic, ego-driven or even naively collaborative - they are going to fail. "Connective leadership" involves a paradoxical way of being, neither authoritarian nor simply participatory, neither command-and-control nor anarchic, neither arbitrary nor self-sacrificial. The "connective leader" lives and models, as a way of being, maximum individuality within maximum community. This requires an exquisite balancing act, and presupposes that leaders, in businesses, local communities, national politics or international relations, have the emotional intelligence to accept the compatibility of what are usually seen as irreconcilable or contradictory needs. There are deep existential reasons, says Lipman-Blumen, who was strongly influenced by Ernest Becker's writings on the denial of death, why "connective leaders" may be more effective in coming generations. For leadership in an era when physical and geopolitical boundaries are dissolving, when century-old ideologies are dying, the false dichotomy between interdependence and diversity, union and separation, likeness and difference, ally and competitor, friend and enemy, must be transcended. This, above all, is the role of the "connective leader." This is a splendid book for university courses on management or leadership. If you do not read Lipman-Blumen, I'm afraid that you may never truly understand the future of leadership.