BOOK REVIEW

LEADING CHANGE, HBS PRESS

JOHN P KOTTER (1996), 186 pages.

Harvard professor and prolific writer on leadership and management issues, John Kotter is certainly an authority on leadership, how it differs to management, and what it is.

The book is an easy read and at less than 200 pages can probably be digested in one sitting.

The first two chapters set the scene and explain why so many organizations fail to transform themselves and indeed why so much emphasis is placed on management in the traditional sense of the word. He goes onto explain the difference between management and leadership and the importance of the latter in delivering successful change.

The following eight chapters present a framework for initiating and sustaining successful change in the organization starting with the need to establish a sense of urgency. Kotter is an academic with much first hand experience of change programmes and he distills the key ingredients into an eight step process.

He then finishes off with some implications for the future.

The book is certainly practitioner oriented and does a very good job of arguing for the importance of leadership in modern day organizations. The fact that so few managers seem to understand the basics of human motivation is a sad reflection of the work environment that is a reality for many. If you wish to grasp the fundamentals of leadership and its importance then you won't do much better than reading Leading Change.