1st Edition
Leadership Failures Precautionary Tales and Prevention Strategies
Humans make mistakes. Many of us lose career ascendency or risk destroying our institutions by doubling down on or ignoring outcomes of our own poor decisions.
Good leaders learn and teach from their errors. Professions are strengthened. Institutions thrive. Careers grow.
Through real-life stories that focus on senior/board leadership from multiple walks of life, and brief discussions of significant attributes, readers will be challenged to diagnose and turn missteps into positive growth experiences.
The authors of this book have had extensive careers in public and private, for-profit and not-for-profit settings, and in independent and government-sponsored consulting, development, academic, and clinical environments. Without having any single leadership paradigm to push, they raise questions about outcomes for institutions that are affected and individual career paths.
Their cautionary tales ask readers to think through "next steps" or prevent the need to get there; hence, this is an ideal extra-assignment book in graduate management courses and for managers seeking to work their way up toward higher leadership roles. Board members also can learn from its non-industry-specific target readership.
Preface
- Three Envelopes: An Important Opening Parable
- Is This Book for You? Essential Elements
- Prevention and Damage Control
Introduction: Our View
- Why Us? .
- Book Organization & How to Use .
Section 1: Stories
Chapter 1: Vignettes About Failures
Vignette 1: Well-prepared for the Wrong Role
Vignette 2: Counter-cultural Leadership
Vignette 3: Well Qualified, But Lazy
Vignette 4: Sick Organization Syndrome (SOS)
Vignette 5: Large and In Charge
Vignette 6: Weak Moral Compass
Vignette 7: You Can Stay Too Long
Vignette 8: Symbols & Behaviors Communicate More than Words
Vignette 9: A Single Source of Truth Needs to be Verified
Vignette 10: Temper Tantrums Are for Two-year-olds
Vignette 11: Rip off the Bandage
Vignette 12: Keep the Personal Away from the Professional
Vignette 13: Leader’s Mind, But Not Brain, Is Lost
Vignette 14: Family Business or Business of the Family?
Vignette 15: Bureaucratic Success, Mission Leadership Failure
Vignette 16: Leadership Failure Cascade
Vignette 17: Boards Bruise the Business
Vignette 18: Don’t Confuse Activity With Productivity
Vignette 19: Small Intervention But Huge Impact
Vignette 20: The No-bell Prize
Chapter 2: Essentials for Success
Attribute 1: Honesty/Integrity
Attribute 2: Self-Awareness
Attribute 3: Emotional Maturity
Attribute 4: Communicator
Attribute 5: Decisiveness
Attribute 6: Intelligence
Attribute 7: Resilience
Section 2: And Now What?
Chapter 3: Planning for Orderly Organizational Succession
Chapter 4: Modeling Career Growth as a Part of Succession
Chapter 5: Reframing for the Future
Chapter 6: The Final Admonition
APPENDICES: Tracking Matrix
Biography
Kate Fenner, Mark Reifsteck, Peter Fenner
"It is highly refreshing to read a book on leadership about cautionary tales. The twenty vignettes gathered over many years of the authors’ management and consulting experience, combined with the seven leadership attributes to avoid such failures, have important lessons for anyone who wants to shine as a leader."
Shantha Mohan, Mentor, Carnegie Mellon Integrated Innovation Institute; Author of the Leadership Lessons with the Beatles: Tips and Tools for Becoming Better at Leading
"Far too often, we share stories around the proverbial fire of what worked in our leadership journeys. But what lessons are missed when we can’t linger with the times where our grand ambitions failed to come to fruition? In this book, the authors do a masterful job walking through their own leadership journeys at the point of failure, using those moments to cast a light for all of us in our own work."
Peter Boumgarden
Koch Professor of Practice for Family Enterprise
Washington University in St. Louis
"Having spent 30+ years in the government in senior level positions retiring as Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense and 12+ years in the private sector, this book on Leadership Failures is a must read to avoid the frequent mistakes all of us have made or witnessed in our careers. The book format creates an easy to visualize roadmap to facilitate self-reflection. I was most impressed with the inspiring quotes, vignettes about failures and attributes for success to help you move forward."Robert F. Lentz
Former Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense and CEO Cyber Security Strategies"Brilliant. Simply brilliant. If you are tired of sports coaches touting leadership principles of generals, generals touting leadership principles of corporate CEOs and corporate CEOs using sports metaphors and touting the great leadership of coaches, you need to read a book that is truly helpful, not hackneyed. Leadership Failures is that book. Failure is a far better teacher than fortuitous success -- the lessons learned from failure are seared into our minds. Told with humor, pathos, and rock-solid analysis, Leadership Failures is the best guide I know of to lead you to leadership success."
Joseph L. Shaefer. Brigadier General, USAF, Retired
"While we learn much from our successes, it tends to be our failures that create the strongest motivators to change. This is an exceptional collection of life lessons written by a group of true professionals. The lessons that the authors have drawn from their work and shared in such an insightful manner are invaluable!"
Doug Lawson, Ph.D. Chief Executive Officer of St. Luke's Health and Senior Vice President of Operations, Texas Division, CommonSpirit Health
"The book arrived yesterday. I spent much of the evening browsing and diving in it. Oh how I wish I had had the book when I was President of the University of Toledo - I made so many mistakes that could have been avoided!!"
Lloyd A. Jacobs, MD
President Emeritus, The University of Toledo; Professor Emeritus, The University of Michigan; Senior Fellow, American College of Surgeons; Distinguished Fellow, The U.S. Council of Competitiveness
