The author, Buchen, teaches on business doctoral programmes in Capella University, focusing on the development of leadership skills, styles and values. This book represents his approach, his “assertive argument”, to teaching leadership to his varied students: that leadership style is essentially a choice made by each individual leader at a particular time and in a particular context regardless of existing theories of leader archetypes.
The introductory pages describe three reader types for books such as his: the eager and aspirant leader who wants a manual for success; the internal leader-related executive who wants the book to help him navigate the “game” of progression and promotion; the coaches and mentors who would like the book to be a handbook for their own training sessions. So, the author confesses that the book is deliberately structured to satisfy all three types of readership, but that is not really a manual, a survival map or definitive handbook for success. The key argument stressed is that leadership can never be a static condition. It is always evolving, adapting and essentially unfinished, requiring an intellectual agility, a critical attitude to theories and archetypes, and a willingness to accept the need for hybrids.
The book moves through its four-part structure using 31 chapters, possibly mirroring a lecture series. It argues that the reader, or doctoral candidate, will eventually have to make a conscious decision to become a particular type of leader from among five broad options as follows:
(1) the changer (transformational – vertical);
(2) the re-arranger (transactional – horizontal);
(3) the integrator (convergent – lateral);
(4) the innovator (entrepreneurial – leapfrog); and
(5) the anticipator (futuristic – circular).
This is not to suggest that the chapters are totally linear and nicely cumulative. Rather, the various pieces within the chapters and parts carry a common theme that provokes and stimulates the reader with polemic arguments, twists and witty asides.
Reading the book as a reviewer is likely to be a very different experience to reading it as an aspiring chief executive or newly appointed leader. The reviewer can be entertained, provoked and satisfied with the range of arguments and challenges presented. The MBA student or doctoral candidate already committed to a career in senior management is likely to find the book somewhat unsettling. But, this of course, is the author's intention, and it works. It is likely to be one of those occasional books that business students will keep in their personal libraries when their chosen “brand” as a leader needs maintenance or re-direction. However, it is remarkable that the attitude of the book is generally gendered towards the male leader in business. One wonders if a similar book authored by a woman would be substantially different in values and in content?
