Book Report: Leadership Agility

Book Report: Leadership Agility

Section 1: Summary

Written by Stephen Josephs and Bill Joiner (2007), the book titled, Leadership Agility - Five Levels of Mastery for Anticipating and Initiating Change, provides insight into the suppleness of the world which tends to have an instable, fast - paced and a complex nature. The authors in the first part of the book highlight the four chief competencies which are required for the efficient development and maintenance of agile leadership.

Furthermore, the book contains details about the five fundamental levels of leadership which differ on the basis of their responsibilities on account of their varying goals and objectives. According to the authors, a leader must pass through these levels in order to develop his agility in a competent manner. The mentioned levels of leadership include; the expert level which involves solving key problems, the achiever level which is responsible for the accomplishment of desired outcomes, the catalyst level which is concerned with the organization of the breakout endeavors, the co-creator level which involves the acknowledgement of a shared / common goal and the synergist level which involves the organization of unanticipated possibilities.

In the third part of the book, the authors have elaborated on the aspects which need to be ascertained when an individual aims to enhance his potentials to become a more agile leader. As mentioned in the book, this process requires the assessment of one's agility in his / her leadership with the intention of developing and enhancing their leadership agility (Joiner & Josephs, 2007).

Section 2: Key Ideas

Two key ideas mentioned in the book that I personally found significant are related to the leadership levels of an achiever and a catalyst. A leader who functions at the Achiever level considers that leaders are responsible for motivating others by making it satisfying yet challenging to ultimately accomplish the bigger goals of the organization. Such a leader is primarily accommodative or assertive with some capacity to recompense with the style which is preferred to a lesser degree. He accepts and initiates feedback if he deems it useful for the achievement of desired outcomes.

Within the organizational settings, such a leader operates like a full-fledged manager and conducts meetings to discuss important strategic or organizational issues are often orchestrated to gain buy-in to own views. Their general organizational initiatives include a deeper analysis of the external environment as compared to the organization's internal environment. Their approach to gain stakeholder buy - in range from one-way communication to soliciting input (Goleman, Boyatzis & McKee, 2002).

The second key idea, which I learned, is related to the fundamental characteristics and approaches of a leader who is functioning at the catalyst level. Such a leader believes that leaders articulate an innovative, inspiring vision and bring together the right people to transform the vision into reality. These leaders empower others and actively facilitate the development of others throughout the organization. In general these leaders are skilled enough to balance the accommodative and assertive styles in relation to what is ...