The Leader's Edge: Six Creative Competencies for Navigating Complex Challenges

I've used the Center for Creative Leadership to provide leadership training, executive coaching, and career development programs for myself, for senior managers on my team and for many executives that I have supported around world. So when CCL's 40 years of experience are channeled into a how-to book on not just creative leadership strategies but specific steps that result in improved work performance, it's on my bookshelf along a small library of other CCL books.The Leader's Edge was published in 2002, and still possess all the relevance necessary for today's rapidly changing world. The book takes 7 years of research on effective leadership by it's authors, faculty at CCL, and organizes it into 6 competencies that must be added to the skill-set of any traditional leadership model: paying attention personalizing imaging serious play collaborative inquiry craftingFilled with practical tips and relevant examples, The Leader's Edge is a how-to book for managers to self-evaluate their own skill-set, and a guidebook of real-world steps to implement the 6 competencies.

This is definitely a book that you will want to add to your leadership library. Palus and Horth take a creative approach to leadership and have focused their research on key competencies that sucessful leaders employ to tackle complex challenges.The authors provide an interesting counterpoint to much of traditional leadership theory. I believe that this book will be very helpful to leaders who are seeking to improve creativity, teamwork, and innovative problem solving. The book steps through new ways of thinking about leadership and gives detailed examples of how these concepts are put into practice.All leaders, and business leaders in particular, are constantly seeking new ways to inspire, motivate and improve performance. "The Leader's Edge" provides fresh new ideas that may be helpful to you.

one of the best leadership books i have ever read. Palus and Horth really nail it. It is an academic read so put your cap and gown on but when you finish it you will be glad you did.

Great book, very insightful

Great read.

As a leadership development consultant, I found this book a refreshing break from current best sellers that emphasize and glorify the characteristics of individual leaders--I read it cover to cover, word for word. Using long term research and case studies as support, Palus and Horth describe 6 competencies needed to go beyond traditional leadership as we typically know it in order to handle today's complex challenges. The 6 competencies are quite different from those we are familiar with, even opposite of what we often hear: paying attention, personalizing, imaging, serious play, co-inquiry, and crafting. Recognizing that much leadership of complex challenges occurs in a variety of ways-within individuals, between individuals, and within groups, when Palus and Horth give advice on developing the competencies, they discuss developing your own, other people's, and what these competencies look like at the group level. They include two more neat ideas that fit in well with the point they are trying to get across in the book. If you are skeptical about any of the competencies, they invite you to experiment and expand. Second, they include discussions regarding when these competencies are important and when they are not--recognizing that not all situations call for these competencies. I can't wait to incorporate these ideas into my own leadership and into my development of others.

The "Leaders Edge" is a unique book telling the story of thedevelopment of a "leading creatively" program and some of themajor outcomes and findings. I was privileged to experiencepart of that process and it literally changed my life.The process and this book have you sampling the creative parts of yourself, and believe me, you do have them. Prepare to come away quite amazed.It is not only what you've tried but what you've discoveredabout yourself and how you might now be thinking a little bitmore creatively and approaching problems with more of a wholebrain bent instead of the more often left brain mode so prevalent in business these days. Quite useful concepts and tools are presented in this book to help facilitate that process.The creative journey depicted is interesting and practical. The book is most representative of the main thrusts of thecourse, still available at the Center for Creative Leadership. All you need do is take the stuff from the book, suspend your disbelief for a week, and add a whole lot of fun. Highlyrecommended for those looking to widely broaden horizons andcreative solution seeking.

I am an organization development consultant who specializes in innovation and have been using the practical tools that Palus and Horth highlight succinctly in this book with clients such as Exxon/Mobil, Los Alamos National Laboratory and others. Without exception, leaders in these organizations have found the tools insightful and enlightening when applied to unique, complex challenges.Based on long years of research from the Center of Creative Leadership, the authors have truly put their learnings into a book that is refreshing and easy to read. This is a must read for anyone who is looking for novel ways for groups and teams to interact-- by putting something different "in the middle"--in order to breakthrough (to understand this, you'll have to read the book!) Powerful favorites for me have been "visual connections" and new ways of looking at R&D scorecards.Have fun with this book and most of all-- experiment!