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GEEKS AND GEEZERS – Warren Bennis & Robert J.Thomas
GEEKS AND GEEZERS – Warren Bennis & Robert J.Thomas
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GEEKS AND GEEZERS : How Era, Values And Defining Moments Shape Leaders

Robert J.Thomas, Warren Bennis
BRAND NEW, HARDCOVER
Robert J.Thomas, Warren Bennis
BRAND NEW, HARDCOVER

RM22.00

Presents A Model That Predicts Who Is Likely To Become And Remain A Leader & Why

ISBN 9781578515820
Book Condition BRAND NEW
Format HARDCOVER
Publisher Harvard Business Review Press
Publication Date 2/9/2002
Pages 256
Weight 0.61 kg
Dimension 24.5 × 16.5 × 2.5 cm
Availability: 2 in stock

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2 in stock

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Description

★★ How Tough Times Shape Good Leaders & Adversity Brings out the best in real leaders★★

Geeks and Geezers is a book that will forever change how we view not just leadership – but the very way we learn and ultimately live our lives.

Today’s young leaders grew up in the glow of television and computers; the leaders of their grandparents’ generation in the shadow of the Depression and World War II.

 

In a groundbreaking study of these two disparate groups – affectionately labeled “geeks” and “geezers” – legendary leadership expert Warren Bennis and leadership consultant Robert Thomas set out to find out how era and values shape those who lead.

What they discovered was something far more profound: the powerful process through which leaders of any era emerge.

“Geeks and Geezers” is a book that will forever change how we view not just leadership-but the very way we learn and ultimately live our lives.

It presents for the first time a compelling new model that predicts who is likely to become – and remain – a leader, and why.

At the heart of this model are what the authors call “crucibles” – utterly transforming periods of testing from which one can emerge either hopelessly broken, or powerfully emboldened to learn and to lead.

Whether losing an election or burying a child, learning from a mentor or mastering a martial art, crucibles are turning points: defining events that force us to decide who we are and what we are capable of.

 

Through the candid and often deeply moving crucibles of pioneering journalist Mike Wallace to new economy entrepreneur Michael Klein, from New York Stock Exchange trailblazer Muriel Siebert to environmental crusader Tara Church, “Geeks and Geezers” illustrates the stunning metamorphoses of true leaders.

It also reveals the critical traits they share, including adaptability, vision, integrity, unquenchable optimism, and “neoteny” – a youthful curiosity and zest for knowledge.

Highlighting the forces that enable any of us to learn and lead not for a time, but for a lifetime, this book is essential reading for geeks, geezers, and everyone in between.

Successful leaders young and old share numerous qualities, say Bennis and Thomas.

The authors, who bring considerable experience to the table (Bennis has written over 30 books on leadership and Thomas is a senior fellow with Accenture’s Institute for Strategic Change), interviewed more than 40 leaders—who they deem either “geeks” (aged 21–34) or “geezers” (aged 70–82)—to evaluate the effect of era on values and success.

The two groups vary in terms of their ambitions, heroes and family lives, but members of both sets share one common experience: all have “undergone at least one intense, transformational experience,” which the authors call a “crucible.”

In some cases the crucible was an actual hardship, e.g., geezer Sidney Rittenberg spent 16 years in prison in China for speaking out against the government.

For others, it was a dramatic experience, such as NYSE pioneer Muriel Siebert’s entry into male-dominated Wall Street in 1967 or geek Liz Altman’s stint working at a Japanese Sony factory before becoming a Motorola v-p.

The authors offer interviews and statistical data as evidence for the value of the crucible experiences.

Among the survey results: of the geezers, 87% had mothers who worked at home, while only 7% of the geeks grew up similarly; 8% of the geezers had divorced parents, versus 44% of the geeks, both facts no doubt reflecting their eras.

 

As an overview, the book lacks the practical applications of some of Bennis’s other works, but it’s revealing and entertaining nonetheless.

Highlighting the forces that enable any of us to learn and lead not for a time, but for a lifetime, this book is essential reading for geeks, geezers, and everyone in between.

Based on a cross-generational study of 45 leaders ranging in age from 21 to 93, Geeks and Geezers proposes a new model of leadership.

Whereas most of the leadership literature focuses on the traits and habits of successful leaders, Geeks and Geezers introduces several novel concepts to describe the underlying patterns of experience that characterize great leaders.

These include the concepts of a “crucible,” the confluence of transformative events and circumstances through which individuals learn resilience and adaptability, and “neoteny,” a term borrowed from zoology that suggests the vitality or “innocence in action” that impels great leaders to drive toward the future.

 

The book also explores the role that mentoring – not simply focusing on the importance of being coached, but on the ability to identify the right teachers and to be “first-class noticers” – plays in the development of lifetime leaders.

 

Geeks and Geezers is rich with stories from well-known leaders (including, in the geezer category, architect Frank Gehry, coaching legend John Wooden, the SEC’s Arthur Levitt, Jr, television journalist Mike Wallace and, weighing in for the geeks, high-tech entrepreneur Sky Dayton, social philanthropist Wendy Kopp, and environmentalist Tara Church).

 

Taken together, these stories offer much more than a collection of useful and memorable anecdotes.

Rather, Geeks and Geezers is nothing less than a compelling new theory of leadership, one that explains how leaders develop the capacity to grow for a lifetime and how their response to personal tragedies and professional challenges have uniquely shaped them.

The basic premise of this book is that all leaders must go through a “crucible” of some kind.

The kind of leadership characteristics we have may be different because of our environments (Geezers defined by WWII, Parental fallibility, etc. and Geeks by abundance, opportunity, technology and globalization), but every leader is tested somehow.

The different environments and experiences affects the needs, wants, character and maturation process for these people and therefore define the differences in leadership style.

After exploring historical experiences and interviewing both groups, the authors complete their leadership model with Era and Individual factors feeding into the crucible of Experiences.

The crucible heats up experiences and organization of meaning that develops Leadership competencies.

The crucible might be military service in the case of the Geezer of business failure in the case of the Geeks, but whatever that life changing crucible is, it is the one thing that is common to leadership.

This book is worth your time and consideration if for no other reason than to understand the value of the crucible we may now be going through in our contracting economy – this so called job-less recovery.

 

“This invaluable book identifies the special qualities and experiences that help good managers become great leaders. It should be required reading for every aspiring leader.”
Howard Schultz, CEO, Starbucks

 

“Geeks and Geezers is both Warren Bennis’s most important and his most enjoyable book.”
Peter F. Drucker,

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