run, but it would not constitute adaptive work. Nor would political efforts to gain influence and authority by pandering to people’s longing for easy answers constitute leadership. Indeed, misleading people may be likely over time to produce adaptive failure.
Ronald A. Heifetz is King Hussein Bin Talal Lecturer in Public Leadership at John F. Kennedy School of Government (KSG), Harvard University. Founder of the Center for Public Leadership, KSG, Harvard University
[1] Ronald A. Heifetz, Leadership Without Easy Answers (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1994), p. 76. [2] Ronald A. Heifetz and Donald Laurie, ‘The Work of Leadership,’ Harvard Business Review, January 1997, republished December 2001. [3] Ronald A. Heifetz and Marty Linsky, Leadership on the Line: Staying Alive through the Dangers of Leading (Boston: Harvard Business School Press, 2002), Ch. 1. [4] Ronald A. Heifetz and Donald C. Laurie, ‘Mobilizing Adaptive Work: Beyond Visionary Leadership,’ in Conger, Spreitzer, and Lawler (eds.), The Leader’s Change Handbook: An Essential Guide to Setting Direction and Taking Action (New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1988). [5] See Ernst Mayr, Toward a New Philosophy of Biology: Observations of an Evolutionist (Cambridge: Belknap/Harvard University Press, 1988); Marc W. Kirschner and John G. Gerhart, The Plausibility of Life: Resolving Darwin's Dilemma (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2005). [6] See Roger D. Masters, The Nature of Politics (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1989). [7] Ronald A. Heifetz, Leadership Without Easy Answers (Cambridge: Belknap/Harvard University Press, 1994), pp. 30-32.
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