The Powers to Lead or The Politically Incorrect Guide to the Constitution

The Powers to Lead: Soft, Hard, and Smart

Author: Joseph S Ny

What qualities make a leader succeed in business or politics? In an era when the information revolution has dramatically changed the playing field, when old organizational hierarchies have given way to fluid networks of contacts, and when mistrust of leaders is on the rise, our ideas about leadership are clearly due for redefinition.
With The Powers to Lead, Joseph S. Nye, Jr. offers a sweeping look at the nature of leadership in today's world, in an illuminating blend of history, business case studies, psychological research, and more. As he observes, many now believe that the more authoritarian and coercive forms of leadership--the hard power approaches of earlier military-industrial eras--have been largely supplanted in postindustrial societies by soft power approaches that seek to attract, inspire, and persuade rather than dictate. Nye argues, however, that the most effective leaders are actually those who combine hard and soft power skills in proportions that vary with different situations. He calls this smart power. Drawing examples from the careers of leaders as disparate as Gandhi, Churchill, Lee Iacocca, and George W. Bush, Nye uses the concept of smart power to shed light on such topics as leadership types and skills, the needs and demands of followers, and the nature of good and bad leadership in terms of both ethics and effectiveness. In one particularly instructive chapter, he looks in depth at contextual intelligence--the ability to understand changing environments, capitalize on trends, and use the flow of events to implement strategies.
Thoroughly grounded in the real world, rich in both analysis and anecdote, The Powers to Lead is sure to become a modernclassic, a concise and lucid work applicable to every field, from small businesses and nonprofit organizations to nations on the world stage.

Publishers Weekly

Leadership gurus since Machiavelli have argued over whether a leader should be loved or feared. In this evenhanded primer, Nye, a professor at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government and "soft power" theorist, takes a resolute stand in between the two sides. Modern leadership, he contends, requires "smart power," a judicious situational balance of "hard power" (getting people to do what you want, with carrots, sticks and bullying) and "soft power" (getting people to want what you want, with inspiration, charisma and propaganda). Nye embeds his argument in a lucid, if somewhat dry, survey of leadership studies, touching on everything from bonobo behavior to Freudian psychology, and illustrates it with references to noted leaders like former General Electric CEO Jack Welch, Lincoln, Hitler and Subcomandante Marcos. (George Bush's presidency provides a recurring object lesson in bad leadership.) The author takes a skeptical, down-to-earth view of leadership fads and hype. But he can't quite break free of mystical notions like "vision" or vague buzz concepts like "contextual intelligence" (a head-scratcher that boils down to "judgment" and "wisdom"); his "smart power" formula is therefore more truism than concrete guide to action. Nye's is a useful introduction to the theory, but not the practice, of leadership. (Mar.)

Copyright 2007Reed Business Information

Book review: Encyclopedia of Foods or Sacred Path Companion

The Politically Incorrect Guide to the Constitution

Author: Kevin R C Gutzman

In The Politically Incorrect Guide to the Constitution, readers will follow the Supreme Court as it uses the Constitution as a fig leaf to cover its blatant seizing of the people's right to govern themselves through elections. Gutzman unveils the radical inconsistency between constitutional law and the rule of law, and shows why and how the Supreme Court should be reined in to the proper role assigned to it by the Founders.