Artfully Rethinking Leadership

Review of The Art of Winning Commitment: 10 Ways Leaders Can Engage Minds, Hearts, and Spirits by Dick Richards

So much business literature is mind-numbingly and illogically recursive, suggesting that breakthroughs for your business will stem from imitating the techniques of other business people.

In a departure from this tired and arguably broken premise, consultant and coach Dick Richards provides lessons from leaders operating outside of corporations: in not-for-profits, the arts, sports, religion, education, government...

In drawing insights from his interviews with these leaders, Richards argues that leaders succeed by securing follower commitment. He posits that this happens when leaders work on, if not master, ten competencies in four interrelated domains: political, intellectual, emotional, and spiritual (defined as, "the sense of a calling from some source larger than one's self").

When a leader's capabilities coalesce in these four main areas of competence, she becomes, in essence, a fuller, richer human being. As a result, others positively respond to the improved leader by choosing to invest more of themselves in pursuing the leader's mission.

Familiar but..., Soft but...

In this framework, Richards proffers a cogent, integrated way of thinking about your own leadership. Drawing on historical and personal anecdotes, quoting philosophers, researchers and leaders, Richards both echoes and transcends conventional business literature (including the recent spate championing "emotional intelligence").

It would be fair to argue that there is little new here. But that would be off the mark. As Dick Richards himself candidly points out, there is more than plenty of literature and seminars traversing the broad, overly worn leadership field. Fortunately, the intriguing whole that Richards has woven is more than the amalgam of its recognizable threads.

Likewise, it would be patently unfair (to both reader and author) to dismiss this thoughtful, occasionally lyrical work as too soft, too philosophical, or too New Age-y. By moving past the sterile Insert Tab-A into Slot-B mentality that underpins so much prescriptive management literature, Richards elevates his readers, helping them to transcend the heartless transactional world so many work in. (Still, while there's more than a modicum of practicum in the book, readers probably will want more guidance on how to translate the principles into action. Perhaps Richards is at work on a "field guide.")

Dick Richards proudly writes, as his title suggests, of the Art of leading. One senses that Richards thinks as an artist, a world-savvy poet reflecting on leadership. One could mistake the book for a wizened corporate shaman's love letter to meaning-starved managers.

Bottom Line

Dick Richards' The Art Of Winning Commitment is more gestalt than how-to, more fresh synthesis of the known than breakthrough. It should ignite your little gray cells, kindle your interest in self-development, inflame your own commitment to fostering commitment in your colleagues. And help you become a better person in the process.

Buy the book here.

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Don Blohowiak, a management consultant and popular conference speaker, is the author of several business books. The executive director of the Lead Well® Institute in Princeton, NJ, he may be reached at http://www.LeadWell.com/.

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