Dilemmas of Leadership

Citation

Rickards, T. (2007), "Dilemmas of Leadership", Human Resource Management International Digest, Vol. 15 No. 4. https://doi.org/10.1108/hrmid.2007.04415dae.002

Dilemmas of Leadership

Dilemmas of Leadership

Tudor Rickards, Murray Clark Routledge, 2006

Dilemmas of Leadership is an easy-to-read but definitive and authoritative guide to modern western business leadership. The authors have provided readers with the materials of their courses on leadership development taught to various audiences internationally, including executive and MBA courses at Manchester Business School.

The book is designed to appeal to anyone interested in promoting leadership development, and it has particular relevance for management developers. It can be read as a reference text, with its up-to-date summaries of knowledge of leadership theories and practice. Or it can stand as a self-instruction personal development manual, or as a text on personal (leadership) development programs. In this respect, the publisher’s accompanying website has an excellent set of Powerpoint overheads, and tutor’s guide for a ten-lecture training course with one lecture per chapter.

The contents illustrate the broad aspects of leadership to be found in the book’s overviews, named “platforms of understanding”. These cover a wide range of issues and topics, such as transactional leadership, transformational leadership, fifth-level leadership, “tipping point” theory, servant leadership, symbolic leadership, creative leadership, innovation leadership, trust-based leadership, rationality, freedom, gender and, most importantly, the management of ethical dilemmas.

This book has several features that make it a must-read for serious management developers and managers. First, it combines academic rigor with practical applications. It concentrates on “helping readers to help themselves”. The approach involves explaining how leadership has a series of maps. The good leader tries to read existing maps, and to develop personal ones. How is this achieved? By developing the personal skills of self-awareness, by practicing critical evaluation of personal and supplied case examples.

In particular, the authors show how the toughest leadership challenges arise from internal conflicts or dilemmas. Wrestling with the dilemmas brings great personal benefits, and reinforces the message that leadership is not a matter of simple problem solving. For instance, all leaders face the emotional against the rational dimensions of their decisions. Each leader must take one path, which will differ from one circumstance to the next. In doing so, there is learning about accepting realities – necessary hardships as well as benefits – from decisions. Another dilemma is for the leader who wants to give responsibilities to followers, but remains aware that such freedom may risk to departure from the economic interests of the organization.

The book extends the typical American treatment of leadership with examples from other cultures. The examples indicate how leadership is fundamentally influenced by cultural maps. In one of my own studies, I found many examples in my own country of the symbolic nature of leadership, which re-define the meaning of the transformational leader.

At another level, it is interesting to learn from the cases of such leaders as Carly Fiorina, formerly at Hewlett Packard; Jean-Pierre Garnier, at GlaxoSmithKline; Bill Bratton, of the New York Police Authority; and Shiwong Wu, of Microsoft China. In addition, there are cases of other leaders in a variety of political and other domains, such as ex-UK premier Margaret Thatcher, Manchester United manager Sir Alex Ferguson, and “horse whisperer” Monty Roberts.

The book argues that leadership skills can be developed, at least in part, through dedicated study. The authors accept that it is less clear whether there is evidence for this belief in self-development. They point out that this is itself a kind of leadership dilemma.

We have all met successful leaders who belittle “book learning”. In some ways, the text will also be on the deep side for those still in search of leadership tips that can be instantly reapplied. However, for anyone who accepts this basic premise, the subtle approach in the book seems to me to be both sound and applicable in practice. Discussion of some paradigms, cases and exemplary models from non-western cultures would be of great value in getting a better and deeper understanding of the cultural dimension of leadership. Such a discussion might be considered in the next editions.

Reviewed by Abdullah Al-Beraidi Assistant Professor of Business Administration, Buraydah College of Technology, Saudi Arabia.

A version of this review was originally published in Journal of Management Development, Vol. 26 No. 2, 2007.