Head, Heart and Guts: How the World's Best Companies Develop Complete Leaders

5

GETTING THINGS DONE

 

 

 

 

In recent years, there has been a great deal of talk around the topic of getting things done. Larry Bossidy and Ram Charan’s best-selling book, Execution, has certainly catalyzed the discussion about leaders who are great thinkers but not-so-great doers. Despite all this talk, however, we have found that much confusion still exists around this capability. Sometimes, leaders oversimplify the topic and view execution as a matter of cracking the whip and driving people hard. In other instances, leaders take the opposite position and attempt to use influence to get others to execute effectively.

Like most leadership skills, however, execution is more complicated than either of these approaches suggest. To get things done, ...