This comes from the International Public Management Network Listserv.

For anyone interested in the role of leadership in economic growth and development, you may wish to take a look at a new paper from the World Bank Institute (WBI) that links theories of leadership and organizational change in the context of development, and offers a new analytical framework for improving our understanding of how leadership actions create space for change and reform.

DEVELOPMENT AS LEADERSHIP-LED CHANGE

A Report for the Global Leadership Initiative and the World Bank Institute (WBI)

Matt Andrews, Jesse McConnell and Alison Wescott (February 2010)

http://www.ssrn.com/abstract=1551375

From the abstract, you can download the paper.

The Psychology Archives at the University of Akron will continue its fall colloquium series by welcoming psychologist Dr. Florence L. Denmark, on Tuesday, Nov. 17, from 2 to 4 p.m., in Student Union 312. Denmark’s lecture, “The History of Women In Psychology and the Development of the Psychology of Women,” is free and open to the public.

Denmark is an internationally recognized scholar, researcher and policy maker. She received her Ph.D. from the University of Pennsylvania in social psychology and has five honorary degrees. Denmark’s most significant research and extensive publications have emphasized women’s leadership and leadership styles, the interaction of status and gender, aging women in cross-cultural perspective and the history of women in psychology.

The Partnership for Public Service has done a lot of really good work on HR issues in government. In the most recent (September) issue of IPMA HR News Magazine, Bob Lavigna has an excellent article on senior leadership in the federal government. The main points of the article can apply to many organizations:

1. Many leaders have technical competencies rather than managerial or leadership competencies leading to an overemphasis on agency specific issues.
2. The recruiting and selection process is broken. One result is a failure to bring in external talent.
3. Agencies fail to assist external talent with transitions to government roles.
4. Competencies are not integrated.
5. Development is not a priority.

I guess a simple summary would be – apply basic principles of HR.

Marshall Goldsmith’s Succession: Are You  Ready (2009) Harvard Business Press

This book is in the Memo to the CEO series. I previously reviewed the book by Steve Kerr on rewards and was highly impressed by Kerr’s title in the series.

The Memo to the CEO series involves very small, short books. As such, they could easily be read on an airplane or, by those so inclined, in the bathroom.  The brevity is both a plus and a minus; given the length of the book there is no real depth. I realize executives are busy people, but I often wonder whether one of the problems with business in America is that our top decision makers spend so much time with Reader Digest versions of complex topics.

First, Goldsmith is a top coach and educator. He did not reach such a lofty status without being able to listen well, tell a good story, and deliver useful information in a compact form. All three of these skills are on display in this book.

The book covers the behavioral side of choosing a successor including preparing for the transition, choosing a successor (although the assumption is there is one primary successor), coaching the successor, and passing the baton. The section I found most valuable and interesting was the discussion on why Goldsmith has a preference for internal successors. I found his thoughts on internal succession to be worth the price of the book. On the other hand, if there was a missing piece, I was disappointed that there was not more attention paid to identifying the successor.

Other than the discussion of the preference for an internal successor, there is not a lot in the book that cannot be found elsewhere. However, by design, this is a short summary. I did find it odd that although the book is in the memo to the CEO series, and Goldsmith says it will be written as a series of memos, I never really did see where the book followed a memo structure. But that is a small point.

As Goldsmith admits, the book may have greatest value to the entrepreneur or to the CEO of a small company. Those individuals may not be able to afford or find a coach of Goldsmith’s quality. For those individuals, I except they will find comfort in reading this book from the standpoint of being able to say – “wow, what I am feeling or thinking is not that much different that the experience of others before me.”  Sort of like Chicken Soup for the Executive’s Soul.

Overall, Goldsmith delivers an important message in an effective but still compact form.