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The Spirit of Leadership

Liberating the Leader in Each of Us

By Harrison Owen

Publisher: Berrett-Koehler Publishers

Release Date: January 1999

Pages: 156

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The business world is desperate for leaders. Books and courses on leadership flood the market as companies search in vain for that one person who can make sense of their rapidly changing environment through assertiveness, charisma, and control. According to noted consultant Harrison Owen, our inability to locate such a person isn't the fault of our leaders, it's the fault of our expectations.
In today's world where chaos is "normal" and paradoxes can't be resolved, such old-style leaders no longer offer the solution. Today's world requires inspired leadership from all levels of the organization. "Inspired leadership" literally means in-spirited leadership, and this book explores the intimate connection between spirit and leadership it implies. It presents the radical notion that spirit is the most important ingredient of any organization and that leadership means opening space for that spirit to show up in powerful and productive ways.
The Spirit of Leadership lays out the New Rules of Leadership, rules which surprisingly turnOl organizations have always played by. For the keys to these new rules, the book turns to those who have always successfully operated apart from the levers of formal power and authority-women. Offering lessons from effective female strategies, it reveals the true functions of leadership: to evoke, grow, sustain, comfort, and raise the spirit.
Not to be confused with morale building, motivational techniques, or even the current fad of spirituality in business, The Spirit of Leadership digs deeper to show that, at its essence, leadership is our link to deep inner forces. It provides practical steps readers can use to uncover their own capacity for leadership in whatever position they find themselves, and to exercise that capacity both to enhance the performance of their organizations and to find their own fulfillment as complete human beings.