Leading Through: Activating the Soul, Heart, and Mind of Leadership
Kim B. Clark, Jonathan R. Clark, and Erin E. Clark
Harvard Business Review Press (September 2024)
“If you’ve always done it that way, it’s probably wrong.” Charles Kettering
I was reminded of Kettering’s comment as I began to work my way through Leading Through. Kim Clark, Jonathan Clark, and Erin Clark have co-authored a book in which they offer what they characterize as a proposal for “a new way of thinking, behaving, and organizing: a living paradigm that is flexible and adaptable. This book is our proposal for that new paradigm. One wherein we are all leaders — or can be. One that consciously seeks to do good and to make things better for the long term; that cares for people, helping them to thrive; and that mobilizes people to solve tough problems. This is the soul, heart, and mind of leadership. The new paradigm is designed to activate them through the organization.
“This is what we call Leading Through.”
These are among the dozens of other passages that also caught my eye, listed to indicate the nature and scope of the Clarks’ coverage:
o Preface (Pages vii-xiv)
o Understanding the Power Over Paradigm and Its Effects (8-16)
o A Paradigm of the Soul, Heart, and Mind (23-25)
o Leading Through Is Personal (28-31)
o A comparison of two paradigms: Poswer Over and Leading Through (33)
o The Soul of Leadership: From Darkness to Light (44-46)
o Animating the Soul of Leadership through Purpose (56-62)
o LIVE: A Framework for the Heart of Leadership (66-80)
o The Leadership Process (85-87)
o Identify: Assess Problems and Opportunities (88-90)
o Mobilize: Team and Partner (93-97)
o A Modular Leadership System (110-114)
o The Framework for Action in the Leading Through Paradigm (124-125)
o Everyone owns Improvement and Innovation, Not Just Those in Authority (139-144)
o Visible Information (149-151)
o Making Information Visible (158-159)
o Negative Power Dynamics in the Power Over Paradigm (174-176
o Harnessing Power in People and Power in Teams (179-181)
o Empathy (194-196)
o Getting Started: Three Steps (214-220)
o Beyond Getting Started (220-227)
The Clarks also make effective use of a series of Tables that are strategically inserted within their lively and eloquent narrative. For example, Table 3-1: “The moral context of leadership: Actions, behaviors, practices” (48) “and Table 11-1: “Questions for the senior team to guide realization of the new paradigm of leadership” (215).
I commend them on their their brilliant, substantial contributions to thought leadership throughout the global marketplace and highly recommend this material to all C-level executives and those who aspire to become one as well as to those who are now preparing for a business career or have only recently embarked upon one.
Long ago, in Future Shock (1970), Alvin Toffler made this prediction: “The illiterate of the 21st century will not be those who cannot read and write, but those who cannot learn, unlearn, and relearn.”
Leading Through will help those who read it to complete a transition from Power Over People to Power Through People. This book will also help others to gain a wider and deeper understanding of why it is so important to be able to “learn, unlearn, and relearn” in ways and to an extent that will activate the soul, heart, and mind of high-impact leadership at all levels and throughout all areas of the given enterprise.
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Here are two suggestions while you are reading Leading Through: First, highlight key passages. Also, perhaps in a notebook kept near-at-hand (e.g. Apica Premium C.D. Notebook A5), record your comments, questions, and action steps (preferably with deadlines). Pay special attention to the aforementioned Tables as wsell as the end-of-chapter summaries that review key points. These two simple tactics — highlighting and documenting — will expedite frequent reviews of key material later.