Credible
The Power of Expert Leaders
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2.0 • 1 Rating
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- £2.99
Publisher Description
WINNER OF THE SABEW MANAGEMENT AND LEADERSHIP BUSINESS BOOK AWARD
'Thought-provoking' Wall Street Journal
'A must-read' Donald C. Hambrick
'Insightful . . . reminds us why and how expertise matters' Herminia Ibarra
What makes a great leader?
This is the question Amanda Goodall has been asking for the last twenty years. From boardrooms and F1 race tracks to healthcare and scientific innovation, her research has proven time and again that when it comes to leadership, we need bosses with a deep understanding of the worlds in which they operate. That's what makes the people around them feel happier, more motivated and productive.
Credible identifies the key characteristics of good leaders and a new model for career success, by combining expertise with the leadership development experts need to succeed.
In a world short of trust, Goodall shows us that when it comes to leadership, credible experts are needed more than ever.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Experts with technical background and experience make the best leaders, according to this cogent treatise. Goodall (Socrates in the Boardroom), a leadership professor at London's Bayes Business School, laments the rise of "itinerant CEOs" and "all-purpose managers" who jump from company to company, suggesting that their ignorance of the industries they work in has disastrous consequences. According to the author, the core qualifications of an expert are industry experience and the ability to excel at the duties of those who report directly to them; when these are met, employees are happier and more productive. Case studies illustrate the failures of corporate "generalists," as when Goodall tells the story of Andrew Hornby, who had no background in finance when he left his position running a supermarket chain to become the CEO of the British bank HBOS and pushed it to make risky investments that contributed to its demise in 2008. Contending that experts are just as important in government, Goodall shows that Canada's decision in 2019 to replace epidemiologists with cheaper "generalist civil servants" in its pandemic readiness system impeded the government's response to Covid-19. The stories of corporate and political folly enrage, and the case for how organizations can promote and reward expertise by fostering "informed dissent" and granting line managers "freedom and responsibility" is well made. This spirited defense of specialists convinces.
