This week, we had the pleasure of welcoming to the Jossey-Bass offices Jim Kouzes, author, with Barry Posner, of The Leadership Challenge—our revered, beloved, and bestselling book on exemplary leadership. Every member of our J-B team is deeply familiar with the book, now in its fourth edition, as well as its entire suite of ancillary projects such as The Leadership Practices Inventory (LPI) and The Leadership Challenge Workshops. But during these economic turbulent times it was great to have Jim address us, not as his publisher, but as his business colleagues. Jim, as usual, gave us lots of food for thought and questions to ask ourselves, such as what we ask of leaders, what we value, and how leadership is first and foremost an ongoing relationship with others. At JBoL we plan to bring you his comments on a regular basis.
One of the questions from the audience raised the issue of balancing short term results with long-term goals – especially with today’s state of affairs. Jim noted that leaders need to be forward-thinking at all times and brought up some great research from his work with The Leadership Challenge. Leaders today spend roughly 3% of their time thinking about the future – he recommends and studies show that this number should be closer to 25%. Even in challenging results-driven conditions, leaders should be thinking about where their company will be, keeping abreast of trends, looking outside of their industry for ideas and conditions that will influence business for years to come. He also talked about how every organization that has rebounded from crisis—and the percentage that have are in the minority—did so because they were able to come together for a shared vision. In our nation’s own time of crisis, it’s urgent that leaders put aside divisive strategies to create a vision based on shared values.
For more information on The Leadership Challenge click here.
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