The Connective Edge: Leading in an Interdependent World
By Jean Lipman-Blumen
Nominated for a Pulitzer Prize.
NEW! Now get the paperback edition,
"Connective Leadership: Managing in a Changing World." from Amazon.com
(New York: Oxford University Press, 2000).
In this tour de force, organizational sociologist Jean Lipman-Blumen explores how leadership must change in the emerging Connective Era. Everyone and everything are connected, but diversity still drives us to express our separate identities. Connective leaders, who can find the common ground among many different, even antagonistic, but interdependent groups, will have a decided edge. They do not ask, "Who will follow me? Who will support my dream? Who is our enemy?" Connective leaders ask instead, "What are our common challenges? How can we meet them? How can we share our dreams, improve our world, and find real meaning in our lives?"
Connective leaders move beyond narrow individualism, welding the advantages of diversity to the benefits of interdependence through political savvy and integrity. To do so, they use "de-natured Machiavellianism," a powerful ethical tool for bringing together groups with seemingly conflicting agendas. Using a very broad set of leadership behaviors, connective leaders seek active constituents, not passive followers. They assemble changing coalitions for different tasks. They allow for ambiguity and disagreement. In the process, their constituents discover coherence, even ennoblement, within their daily work and lives.
The Connective Edge includes interviews and case studies of leaders in for-profit and not-for-profit organizations, as well as in government. The book features interviews with a fascinating range of corporate leaders, from The Body Shop’s Anita Roddick, to Perot Systems’ Mort Meyerson, Schroder’s Robert Fisher, and former Herman Miller CEO Kerm Campbell, to Drucker Foundation for Non-Profits CEO Frances Hesselbein and Carsey-Werner TV producer Marcy Carsey. Based on 25 years of research, the book explores the findings from survey data on more than 2000 male and female executives gathered with instruments specifically designed for measuring connective leadership behavior.
Binding theory to practice, Lipman-Blumen offers leaders an exciting repertoire of leadership strategies appropriate for success in the Connective Era. This is a book for executives, organizational development professionals, consultants, social and behavioral science researchers, and individuals who want to understand their own leadership potential and the behavior of leaders around them.
"Not since James McGregor Burn's book, Leadership, have I read a work that moves so easily from one social system to another. Quite simply, a masterpiece."
-Warren Bennis, founding chairman,
The Leadership Institute at the University of Southern California
and author of Why Leaders Can't Lead an An Invented Life
"Finally - a brilliant, readable, instructive, and pathbreaking book on leadership that does not grotesquely oversimplify this paramount task/job in society. Dare I say it: Jean Lipman-Blumen's rich, magisterial 'The Connective Edge' is a 'page-turner'!."
- Tom Peters, president,
The Tom Peters Group
"Anyone working with the Overseas Chinese Network should read this book carefully because connective leadership strategies, rather than mechanical control systems, are more likely to yield success in these interactions and relationships. If you are competing against this network, you need to know why connective leadership makes it so strong. "
- Po Chung, chairman,
DHL International (H.K.) Ltd.
"This is a fantastic book that cuts across functions of leadership in corporations, political life, and throughout society. The Connective Edge opens the door to a true process of empowerment for all, reminding those in power that 'leaders must lead.'"
- Maria de Lourdes Pintasilgo,
former prime minister of Portugal
"A must-read for the leaders in the swirling, rapidly changing world of organizations today."
- Mort Meyerson, chairman and CEO,
Perot Systems Corporation
"A brilliant work, full of important insights and illuminating in every way".
- John W Gardner, consulting professor, School of Education, Stanford University
Former Secretary of the U.S. Department of Health, Education, and Welfare (DHEW)
and founder of Common Cause.
