Power Up: Transforming Organizations Through Shared Leadership

THE OLD AND THE NEW WORLDS OF LEADERSHIP

The chapters in Part One explain the core ideas of the book. Chapters 1 through 3 describe the trap that restricts so many leaders, widely shared but outmoded concepts about leadership, and a new model of shared leadership that can transform organizational performance. These ideas are revisited later in the book with greater richness and context. The concepts come together in Chapter 4, which is an account of a leader who was able to learn to share leadership, despite his own resistance and his team’s doubts. Chapter 5 describes the ambivalence that both leaders and subordinates feel about the new leadership and how to get past it.

THE LEADERSHIP TRAP

Ask any manager about leadership today, and you are likely to hear much the same answer. Leaders should build teams, get everyone to pull together, develop vision, inspire extra effort, seize opportunities, encourage openness—and do other wonderful things. Almost everyone knows what leaders are supposed to do, but few leaders do them.

• Why do so many subordinates still complain about their bosses?
• Why do so many employees feel their abilities are underutilized, even as their managers feel overworked?
• Why are critical issues so seldom raised and resolved at team meetings?
• Why is there so much ...