Review Excerpt:

Joseph Raelin believes that leadership is potentially the most desperate problem

we face in organisational life today but that, conceived in a different way,

leadership might also represent the very solution to the ills of work in our current

era.

Raelin casts leadership in a new light in order to change our way of viewing it.

As our thinking about leadership changes, so too should our practice of it. Any person

in the organisation can practice leadership. Management needs to become mutual and

our leadership shared.

Raelin offers a mental model, leaderful leadership, in an endeavour to transform

leadership from an individual property into a new paradigm that redefines leadership

as a collective practice. The recharacterisation of leadership that Raelin suggests is not

completely new (neither is his buzzword “leaderful”) but he is bringing it into popular

consciousness through this book. Being leaderful means to be full of leadership since

everyone shares the experience of providing leadership. Leadership has an

interpersonal character.

Leaderful leadership is presented as an integrative model – the author draws on

decades of research and publishing of others, with his prime contribution being to

present this as a coherent whole. The prevailing “leader as hero” paradigm

characterises leadership as serial (leaders are always in a position of leadership and do

not cede the honour to anyone else – upon acquiring power, most leaders attempt to

sustain or increase it); individual (an enterprise has only one leader – it would weaken

or confuse decision-making and direction setting to talk about having more than one);

controlling (the conventional leader believes it is his or her ultimate duty to direct the

enterprise and engender the commitment of members); and dispassionate (the leader

must take tough decisions for the enterprise in a dispassionate manner – these may

result in not satisfying particular stakeholders, but accomplishing that the mission

must come first).

In contrast, leaderful managers are concurrent (in any community, more than one

leader can operate at the same time – leaders willingly and naturally share power with

others); collective (the community does not solely depend on one individual to mobilise

action or make decisions on behalf of others); collaborative (all members of the

community are in control of and may speak for the entire community); and

compassionate (leaders extend unadulterated commitment to preserving the dignity of

others – leaders take the stance of a learner who sees the adaptability of the

community as dependent upon the contribution of others). Raelin styles these as “the

Four C’s”.

Raelin asserts that leaderful leadership can also accomplish the processes of

leadership in more settings and with more pervasive effectiveness than the

conventional approach. He doesn’t see conventional leadership as being invalid –

he simply sees the leaderful leadership approach as more practical and useful in

managing communities and organisations in the new century.

The book is divided into two parts. Part one – Presenting a New Paradigm for

Leadership, presents leaderful practice through five chapters: its tenets,

distinctiveness, challenges, development, and benefits.

Part two – Uncovering the Traditions of Leaderful Practice, is a four-chapter

history tour and critique of prevailing leadership concepts and their traditions,

showing how these concepts can be cohesive through the “Four C’s”. A fifth chapter

provides tips to develop leaderful practice under each of the Four C’s, for both

managers and employees.

Leaderful practice is a relatively new characterisation of leadership – there are no

studies that link it to bottom-line results. However, Raelin draws on the wealth of

research on teams and organisations to forecast the potential benefits of his

characterisation. In other words, Raelin is advancing a theory albeit one supported by a

lengthy tradition of its component parts. In very simplistic terms, the normative view

advanced is that a happy and empowered workforce is strongly related to superior

organisational performance.

Therein lies the one caution I have about this book – it is advancing a theory

not yet validated. The book does contain two useful organising frameworks for

construction of organisational survey and/or evaluation instruments – the

“continua of leadership” and the “dimensions of leaderful development”. Raelin

also provides the (not yet validated) “Leaderful Questionnaire” with which to

assess your personal predisposition to each of the Four C’s. Whilst I am in no

doubt that what is being presented in this book has value, it appears that the

author’s focus has been on advancing his theory through the book and through

occasional journal articles rather than through validating the theory through

empirical research. “Leaderful” may yet be another buzzword that we need to deal

with.

Raelin asserts that the starting point for the development of leaderful practice is

personal self-awareness, especially learning how to “let go”. In the absence of

validation of the theory, I would suggest that the most practical use for this book

would be as a self-help guide. If you are in a position to influence others, then your

modelling of appropriate behaviours would expand leaderful practice further in your

organisation.

I support Raelin’s contention that leaderful practice is preferable to traditional

heroic leadership in our knowledge-based era. The book is also an excellent guide

to the traditions of leadership, with good text coverage and some 280

endnotes/footnotes.

Raelin says that his target audience is practicing managers. He appears to be aiming

especially for those who feel “undervalued, under utilised, and often overwhelmed with

‘busy’ work”. His intent is to cast leadership in a new light and to potentially change

our entire way of viewing it. This book is a valuable addition to the crowded field of

leadership publications and it is a worthwhile purchase.