Resources — Book Reviews
Leading Quietly
An Unorthodox Guide To Doing The Right Thing
by Joseph L. Badaracco, Harvard Business School Publishing, 2002.
Reviewed by Brent Green, Ph.D., November, 2003
What characterizes good leaders? Ask almost any business person, and Jack Welch, Tom Peters, and others immediately come to mind. Characteristics such as courageous, high risk taking, fearless, decisive, conductor of large scale change, heroes, and others will be mentioned. These larger-than-life characteristics are challenged by Harvard’s Joseph Badaracco in his new book, Leading Quietly: An Unorthodox Guide To Doing The Right Things. He does not believe that these leader characteristics truly make the world turn.
Instead, Badaracco’s research reveals that the sum of millions of small decisions most of us make daily on the job are the real heroic deeds. These decisions don’t get the limelight. Quiet Leaders are those who choose responsible, behind the scenes actions to solve everyday challenges. They are the true leaders.
In the author’s words Quiet Leaders do the “right thing” for themselves, their teammates, organizations and customers without casualties and fan fair. He offers practical guidelines which most of us probably use in our everyday work without realizing it. Principles such as: managing our political capital with others, buying time for decisions, bending the rules when needed, giving trust carefully, limiting ourselves to what can realistically be accomplished.
Other characteristics include being somewhat modest, strategic, methodical, even hesitant and cautious at times. High ethics and integrity are valued, and morale/emotional furor does not substitute for gathering complex facts. Quoting Aristotle, and others, Badaracco states that “too much courage is unwise”, even reckless. Hence he advises us to seek the “golden mean”, use balanced judgment.
In short, these “non-hero” workplace principles truly make a difference everyday to improve organization effectiveness, customer service, and the promotion of a better world.
Brent
Green, Ph.D.
Founder, Execoach
Kensington, CA
execoach@mindspring.com
For more information on this book go to Amazon at http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/1578514878/qid=1070306061/sr=1-1/ref=sr_1_1/104-9349183-6295940?v=glance&s=books
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