The Practice of Leadership: Developing the Next Generation of Leaders

Chapter . Introduction

Jay A. CongerRonald E. Riggio

Few topics in the field of management have flourished as dramatically as leadership. Each year, more than a hundred new books and thousands of articles are published on the topic. Google lists more than a billon “hits” when the term leadership is entered for a search. When it comes to insights on leadership, most of us are suffering from information overload. As editors of this book, we felt it was time to address this flood of information. We have a simple aim: a single, easy-to-read resource of the best and most current thinking on a broad yet essential range of leadership topics. We had several audiences in mind when we assembled this volume: (1) those of you who practice leadership as managers and executives and who desire to become more effective, (2) those of you who develop leaders and who want to improve the ways you help others learn to lead, and (3) those of you who study and research leadership and who want to become more informed on certain topics. We hope you will find this “one-stop” volume as informative, rich, and helpful as we intended it to be.

An underlying assumption of this book is that leadership can be developed. While there is an age-old debate about whether leaders are born or made, the authors in this book feel that both individuals and their organizations can proactively influence leadership capability long after birth. At a minimum, organizations can improve how they select and assess for leadership. ...