Author: Warren Bennis
Publisher: Harper & Row
Publish Date: 1997
ISBN: 0887308392
Warren Bennis decided that the leaders he interviewed had four abilities in common. He refers to these as management of attention, management of meaning, management of trust and management of self.
- Management of attention is a matter of vision, not only the possession of one but the ability to turn it into action. It is a matter of a vision so compelling that other people adopt it as their own.
- Management of meaning is a matter of communication which for Bennis is not formal but a matter of metaphor that captures the imagination.
- Management of trust is that consistency of behaviour, of what other people have called 'walking the talk' that enables others to put their faith in a leader.
- Management of self is a matter being constantly ready to learn and of making the commitment to self-knowledge.
Bennis, like Reddin and others, firmly believed that leadership can be learned. In his view:
- Leadership is not rare.
- Leaders are made and not born.
- Leaders are very often ordinary people.
- Leadership is required not just at the top but throughout the organisation.
- Leadership is not about the tasks of management (perhaps as Henri Fayol listed them) but about inspiring others towards a common goal
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