LEADERSHIP CHALLENGE

Abstract

The Leadership Challenge is about how leaders mobilize others to want to get extraordinary things done in organizations. It’s about the practices lead ers use to transform values into actions, visions into realities, obstacles into innovations, separateness into solidarity, and risks into rewards. It’s about leadership that creates the climate in which people turn challenging oppor tunities into remarkable successes. Certainly there are no shortages of challenging opportunities today. In these extraordinary times, the challenges seem to be increasing—and through our responses, we have the potential to profoundly change the world in which we live and work. When we published the first edition of this book in the late 1980s, the entrepreneurial spirit was blossoming. When the second edition was released in the mid-1990s, the flower of inventiveness was in full bloom. Then, as we turned the corner on the second year of the new millennium, it all seemed to wither and wilt. The freshness was gone, and people began wondering if what was true about leadership seven, fifteen, or twenty years ago still applied and whether leadership mattered at all. How is leadership different today? Will it be different tomorrow? Does leadership make a difference?