Leadership Survival Guide Part 1

This is part of a long series in a number of postings based on the Spring 2009 Issue of OnPoint (from the Harvard Business Press) dedicated to Risk Management.

Specifically, this particular post is the 1st of several relating to my review of the article: A Survival Guide for Leaders by Ronald Heifetz and Marty Linsky (both professors at the Kennedy School at Harvard and authors of Leadership on the Line).

This piece will be on my list of top 100 all-time leadership articles. Heifetz and Linsky have taught leadership for years at the Kennedy School. Their key focus of research, teaching and consulting has centered around Adaptive Change: high-stakes, transformational, uncomfortable organizational change that forces people to give up something personal (attitudes, habits, territory, power, etc.) for the good of the organization. Often this kind of change is met with a technical solution—a simplistic approach to solving a complex deeply rooted cultural or personal problem