Leaders: The Strategy for Taking Charge Concept

Written by Warren Bennies and Burt Nanus in 1985, “Leaders: The Strategy for Taking Charge” follows a conventional formula of taking lessons about management from the example of successful people. For that he bases on Bennis’ investigations near 90 North American leaders. The selected sample of leaders by Bennis was extremely varied, including maestros, sports leaders and business men. By this he showed that leadership is extensive and open to all. Another conclusion to which the authors arrived to was that the successful leaders have four common capacities:

Attention management: attention management is related with the vision: in fact, the authors actually define leadership as the capacity to create a motivating vision, to convert it in action and to sustain it;

Sense management: sense management bases on the communication which is the capacity to convert vision in successful actions: according to the authors, effective communication bases on the use of analogy, metaphor, animated illustrations, emotion, trust, optimism and hope;

Trust management: the authors describe trust as “emotional glue that unites leaders and followers”;

Management of themselves: leaders place the emphasis on the persistency and self knowledge, risk taking, involvement and learning.

 

 

Translated from Portuguese by Susana Saraiva, Portuguese-English and English-Portuguese translation specialist. Contact: spams@sapo.pt.