Everyone a Leader A Grassroots Model for the New Workplace
February 9, 2009 by Joint Venture Marketing
Everyone a Leader A Grassroots Model for the New Workplace
Imagine if every employee does what it takes to help his or her organization reach its goals, a place where everyone is a leader.
If chaos and confusion come to mind, think again! Spreading leadership and decision-making responsibilities liberates, inspires, and motivates everyone to achieve more and contribute the maximum—making a positive impact on both productivity and business results.
Step in, CLIMBTM up.
Based on a landmark study that involved 2,000 people across 450 organizations, Everyone A Leader explores the critical moments when employees at all levels step forward into leadership roles. The findings are summarized in five key strategies the authors call the CLIMB model of leadership effectiveness:
- Create a compelling future.
- Let the customer drive the organization.
- Involve every mind.
- Manage work horizontally.
- Build personal credibility.
Each chapter in this breakthrough book brings the CLIMB strategies to life with powerful first person stories and anecdotes that effectively highlight the small, often-overlooked turning points in an organization’s daily life. Turning points made possible by grassroots leaders.
The CLIMB model’s step-by-step tools for grassroots leaders build competencies such as presenting thoughts and ideas, listening proactively, giving recognition, managing priorities, turning conflict into collaboration, identifying and meeting unspoken customer needs, and many, many more.
No other book offers such compelling proof that—equipped with proper tools and support—everyone has the potential to be a leader and to make a difference. To remain agile and responsive in today’s dynamic global marketplace, successful organizations recognize the critical need for greater flexibility, knowledge, and adaptability across the entire organization. To do so means everyone must learn to be a leader.
“Everyone A Leader explodes the myth that only people with official titles, big salaries, and high profiles mobilize others to get extraordinary things done. It makes the compelling case—backed by research and inviting anecdotes—that leaders emerge from all levels in all types of organizations. . . . You will learn how to make more of a difference once you’ve read and applied Everyone A Leader. This stellar book is not only a significant contribution to the field, it’s also a rallying cry for all of us to leave a more lasting legacy.” —Jim Kouzes, coauthor, The Leadership Challenge and Chairman, Tom Peters Group/Learning Systems.
“This work skillfully distills hundreds of observed experiences into a five-part strategic model, highlighting those behaviors most likely to produce successful leadership results. Both emerging and experienced leaders . . . can learn from Everyone A Leader. It offers a pragmatic roadmap for success!” —Major General Garry L. Parks, U.S. Marine Corps.
“Everyone A Leader is cause for rejoicing. The authors understand the key reality shaping today’s organizations: leaders can emerge from anywhere. Their book is an invaluable tool . . . full of wise observations and practical advice.” —Sally Helgesen, author, The Web of Inclusion.
“Everyone A Leader is a wonderfully actionable guide for creating a broad, take charge, leadership culture.” —Ron Zemke, author, the Knock Your Socks Off Service series.
“If you want co-workers who are productive, satisfied, and willing to shoulder the responsibility of making your organization stronger, this timely and inspiring nuts-and-bolts account of democratic leadership is for you.” —Meena Surie Wilson, PhD, Global Initiatives Group, Center for Creative Leadership.
“Finally, a leadership book for today’s flat, dynamic, team-based organizations . . . This is the model.” —Todd W. Arnold, Vice President, Customer Services, Cinergy Corp.
User Ratings and Reviews
4 Stars A Sound Exposition of the Latest Models of Leadership
This book catches the crest of the post-empowerment, post-New-Leadership wave and is highly recommneded reading for anyone who wants to know about modern management ideas and practices. It has perhaps the best available description of the role of leadership in new, team-based, flat-org-chart work environments.Among its virtues are terseness, practical aids, and reference to empircially based research. While its use of acronym-style models may not appeal to everyone, the authors mercifully do not push this aspect excessively. Page for page, its ideas are sound, clear and made relevant and applicable.
The book thus quite lives up to its intention of providing a mental model and practical support for “grassroots leadership”. Even so, one can expect further advances in such thought, as well as even more popularization capable of absorption by actually “everyone”.
5 Stars A good mix of research and practical improvement steps
Everyone a Leader explores the value of grassroots leadership. The authors contend that today’s workplace presents the opportunity-and the need-for every employee to demonstrate leadership. Their premise: Organizations today cannot survive if leadership is limited to the CEOs, executives and managers.This book offers compelling proof that, equipped with proper tools and support, everyone has the potential to be a leader and make a difference. Everyone a Leader is based on a recent study in which 2,000 managers and non-managers from 450 organizations were asked to recall stories and anecdotes about small, often-overlooked turning points in an organization’s daily life. These “critical incidents” illustrate the limitless opportunities for any person in an organization to demonstrate good leadership-or poor leadership.
Sixty-eight percent of the incidents described the actions of a manager or supervisor; the rest described non-managers and non-supervisors. The incidents were examined and found to encompass 17 common attributes of leadership. These competencies then were related to five key strategies the authors call the CLIMB model of leader effectiveness:
Create a compelling future. Let the customer drive the organization. Involve every mind. Manage work horizontally. Build personal credibility.
More than a research report A surprisingly large number of the critical incidents described poor leadership. These seemed to indicate that many formal leaders either don’t have the needed skills, or aren’t aware of the opportunities to “seize the moment.” On the other hand, many incidents of “good leadership behavior” came from what the authors call Grassroots Leaders-people in the frontline or in support positions who emerge during critical moments to act as leaders.
Everyone a Leader goes beyond merely reporting the research findings. The book is chock-full of practical how-to’s and personal strategies for achieving each of the CLIMB components. Powerful examples from the research underscore each point.
Half the critical incidents were related to the Involve Every Mind strategy described in Chapter Four. And half of these incidents were negative-leaders who minimized individual and team effort, withheld information or missed opportunities to share it, and either sidestepped decisions that could have solved problems or arrived at decisions in a way that made things worse. Most disturbingly, the negative behaviors made a strong and even indelible impression on the respondents but were quickly forgotten by the people who performed them. These leaders were unconsciously poisoning the organization they were supposed to maintain and improve.
Vivid examples of poor leadership described behaviors ranging from thoughtless to rude and even vulgar. The authors show how easily these situations could be turned around using basic people skills: listen, share information, coach, praise, have patience and be persistent. Stressing the importance of gaining active commitment of the entire workforce, this chapter provides in-depth advice on how to win that all-important commitment from peers, subordinates and supervisors.
Even more detail is provided in a “tools” section at the end of the book. The “tools” are step-by-step learning modules that walk the reader through self-improvement activities in the areas addressed in each chapter.
The explore the “emotional labor” required every time someone must make an effort to call up a smile or positive response, or resist the temptation to step in and tell somebody what to do.
The authors provide practical insights into how this works, as well as guidelines for maximizing areas of greatest strength and preparing to assume greater leadership responsibilities.
Grassroots Leadership: tying it all together
Everyone a Leader explores what it means to be a leader in today’s organizations-where more and more decisions are getting “pushed down;” where executives, managers, and supervisors are doing more “coaching” and less “directing;” and where employees at every level are taking on broader responsibilities. This book provides theoretical discussion of new directions for leadership; however its most significant contribution rests in the practical how-to tools and leadership “stories” or “critical incidents” that tie the theory to practice.
