On Leadership
Published on 4. February 2009
144 pages
978-1-4051-4261-8 (ISBN)
Description
In this series of lectures, previously unpublished in English, andhere translated from a French reconstruction and interpretation bynoted scholar Thierry Weil, leading organizational scholar JamesMarch uses great works of literature to explore the problems ofleadership.
* Uses great works of literature to explore the problems ofleadership, for example War and Peace, Othello, and DonQuixote.
* Presents moral dilemmas related to leadership, for example thebalance between private life and public duties, and between theexpression and the control of sexuality.
* Encourages readers to explore ideas that are sometimessubversive and unpalatable but may allow organizations to adapt ina rapidly changing world.
Reviews / Votes
"One of the most refreshing, insightful and thought-provoking bookson leadership. This intelligent treatment opens up many new linesof inquiry and offers many new theoretical and practical insights."John Storey, The Open University Business School "This is a book for leaders, and for those of us who watchour leaders with appreciation, distaste, empathy, and frustration.Professor March shakes the foundations of how we think aboutleadership...This book will not offer you six easy steps tobecoming an effective leader, but it will provoke, amuse,challenge, and irritate you. It will force you to think aboutleadership in ways that will destroy your innocence."Joanne Martin, Stanford UniversityMore details
Other editions
Additional editions
James G. March | Thierry Weil
On Leadership
Book
08/2005
1st Edition
Wiley
€101.50
Shipment within 3-4 weeks
Persons
James G. March is Jack Steele Parker Professor ofInternational Management Emeritus and Professor Emeritus ofPolitical Science, Sociology and Education at Stanford University.He has inspired generations of students with his work in the studyof organizations. His previous publications include Decisionsand Organizations (1989), Behavioral Theory of theFirm (Second Edition, 1992), Organizations (SecondEdition, 1993) and The Pursuit of OrganizationalIntelligence (1998), all published by BlackwellPublishing.
Thierry Weil, a former physicist, is Professor ofTechnology Management at École des Mines de Paris, where hewas the Dean of research and graduate studies from 1991 to 1995. Healso advises companies and policy makers on the management ofinnovation. From 2000 to 2002, he acted as scientific advisor tothe Prime Minister of France, Lionel Jospin.
Content
Foreword - Jean-Claude Thoenig.
Preface - James G. March.
Preface - Thierry Weil.
1. Introduction: an original approach to a hackneyedsubject.
The organization of the course.
From oral to written presentation.
Issues linked with leadership.
2. Othello: leadership and private life, innocence andcleverness, revenge and the social order.
Prologue on the appreciation of leaders.
Private life and public role.
Can revenge serve the social order?.
Cleverness, innocence, and virtue.
Why do people act as they do?.
The characters in Othello.
3. Saint Joan: are heretics mad or are theygeniuses?.
Exploitation and exploration.
Can leaders selected for their reliability be turned intocreative leaders?.
Diversity and unity.
Saint Joan.
4. War and Peace: ambiguity, incoherence, andirrelevance.
Ambiguity and incoherence: The Love Song of J. AlfredPrufrock.
Leaders confronted by ambiguity.
A novel with a structure reflecting a view of history:irrelevance.
The social order in War and Peace.
What is power?.
The powerlessness of power.
Power and hierarchy.
Power as seen by those who do not have it.
Assuming the ambivalence of power.
Identity and social order: the characters in War and Peace.
Heroism and irrelevance.
The social order based on merit.
Why we are disappointed by our bosses.
Why are bosses not particularly clever?.
5. Sex and leadership.
The sexed nature of leadership in organizations.
Sexuality and organizations.
Private fantasies and social control of behavior.
Sexual harassment.
Sexual relationships.
Ambiguous sexual behavior.
The sexuality of leaders.
Are efficient organizations feminine?.
Efficient organizations with no heroic leader.
6. Don Quixote and the virtue of arbitrarycommitment.
A strange novel.
Don Quixote and reality.
Primary implications for leadership.
Don Quixote's vision of life.
Other lessons for leaders from Don Quixote.
Great visions, great actions, and great expectations.
Heroes to protect us from our own irrelevance.
The stuff that dreams are made of.
The pleasures of the process.
7. Plumbers and poets.
What do leaders really do?.
Appendix 1: INTELLIGENCE VERSUS REASON, an overview of JamesMarch's work.
Miseries of Reason.
The limitations of rationality or the critique of purereason.
The application of suitable procedures or the critique ofpractical reason.
Thwarted learning or the critique of dialectic reason.
The technology of foolishness or the critique of immediatereason.
Splendors of Reason.
The charms of orthodoxy.
The rigorous and efficient use of reason.
Systemic reason or the quest for intelligence.
Redemption through enthusiasm.
The collective need for individual gambles.
How to make the challenge of exploration attractive.
Beyond rationality: poetry, intuition, and enthusiasm.
Institutions are not based on haggling alone.
Insignificant actions.
Optimism without hope.
Mundane organizations and gardening.
Appendix 1: Intelligence Versus Reason: An Overview of JamesMarch's Work.
Appendix 2: Mundane Organizations and Heroic Leaders.
Index
