Routledge Leadership Agility: Developing Your Repertoire of Leadership Styles

Leadership is about influencing others to move in a certain direction and there are many ways of achieving this influence. Each of these leadership styles has its inherent qualities and pitfalls, and will be more suited to specific people and different circumstances. The more leaders understand their preferred leadership styles and are able to flexibly switch to the most suitable style given the situation, the more effective they will be. This book maps out ten sets of opposite leadership styles, giving readers the possibility to understand the strengths and weaknesses of both sides, and to identify their own current preference. The ten leadership style dimensions cover the full range of leadership roles, from the leader as coach (interpersonal leadership), to the leader as organizer (organizational leadership), as strategist (strategic leadership), as sense-maker (leadership and mission) and as role model (leadership and self). Readers are invited to draw up their own leadership development plans, which is supported by an interactive App. Readers are also challenged to reflect on how they would approach a number of cases, after which they can go to an interactive web-forum to read how others have responded and engage in a discussion with them. Leadership Agility is a useful tool for practitioners in the corporate world as well as business students and emerging leaders. Review "A refreshing and insightful journey into the inexact science of leadership. For leaders who look for new ways to develop their agility." Eric Rondolat, CEO, Philips Lighting "Ron and Ronald have done it again. A very readable book on leadership with a focus on the main characteristics of agility. With a world that is increasingly facing the dilemmas caused by the diversity of diversity we need a new paradigm of leadership that goes beyond situational leadership. And this well-written book helps you to get aware of your dominant style and how to go beyond it." Fons Trompenaars, Partner KPMG Trompenaars Hampden-Turner Culture for Business and co-author of Riding the Waves of Culture: Understanding Cultural Diversity in Business "Successfully navigating through the storms and swells of a major transformation effort requires a compass, map and that old and trusted notebook with the lessons we and other captains learned on earlier traverses. This book provides exactly and all that in a practical and pragmatic manner." Harry Brekelmans, Member of the Executive Committee, Royal Dutch Shell "Oh no. Not another book about leadership. Trees are too important to be turned into leadership books. Books that typically promote tricks, styles and interventions that will allow you to become Winston Churchill or Jack Welsh in a heartbeat. And in the process ignore the single most important requirement for good leadership: authenticity. Faking a leadership style that is not yours, or playing a leadership role that ignores your very nature, is a recipe for organizational disaster and personal frustration. This book, you guessed it right, is different. It is descriptive rather than prescriptive. It does not advertise the one leadership style that will save the world, but describes different dimensions of a leadership style. Why is that helpful? First, it helps you understand yourself. Along 10 different dimensions you can assess your own style, understand what your basic leadership is, and what it is not. It makes you realize what your environment observes, and what not. And in that way helps you execute and communicate your decisions and messages much more effectively, because you better realize their impact. Second, it helps you better understand the leadership of others. Of your peers, your team members, or your boss. You understand that the fact that their style is different from yours does not make them bad leaders; just, indeed, different! It helps you build your own team, in recognizing that leadership styles might complem