Scaling Leadership Building Organizational Capability and Capacity to Create Outcomes that Matter Most

Praise for Scaling LEADERSHIP

"Pixar is a creative company that has made it a priority to constantly re-examine itself, but even in a company like ours, certain leadership impediments can become impossible to see, and detrimental calcification can set in. As a consultant to me, Bill Adams has been an astonishingly quick study who was able to identify leadership issues and put me on a constructive path to remedy them. Bill's ability to see complex problems and help me generate gettable, actionable solutions has been both remarkable and pivotal in allowing us to bring a fresh leadership reset to a company in its 30th year. Bill and his partner Bob have captured the essence of the wisdom and the tools they bring to helping leaders in Scaling Leadership. I cannot recommend the book strongly enough—especially if you think you don't need it!"

—Jim Morris, President, Pixar Animation Studios

"The Leadership Circle lens is a gift that keeps on giving! Its enormous database has long provided unrivalled quantitative power. Now, in Scaling Leadership, Anderson and Adams open up the corresponding qualitative treasure-trove to further illuminate the paths to truly transformative leadership. A must-read for all leaders, and those who help them!"

—Robert Kegan and Lisa Lahey, Harvard University faculty and co-authors of

Immunity to Change and An Everyone Culture

"The future of capitalism is conscious capitalism. A conscious business can only emerge through conscious leadership at scale. Anderson and Adams, in Scaling Leadership, clearly and practically show you how to become a more conscious and effective leader, how to replicate that in your teams, and how to scale conscious leadership throughout the organization. Read this book and put it into practice!"

—John Mackey, Co-founder and CEO, Whole Foods Market, Co-founder, Conscious Capitalism Inc.

"Scaling Leadership is an excellent read—really on the mark. I am enthused to endorse. It hits any number of themes that are essential to leading well. I will call out two that resonate strongly with my experience. First, we lead people, not balance sheets or machines. In the end, our ability to call forth discretionary energy is what distinguishes us as leaders, and the ability to do that is learnable. This book will challenge you to do just that and will show you how. Second, as I transitioned into the President and later the CEO role, I needed to rethink my role and understand where my leverage came from. The migration was from what had gotten me there—business/financial acumen, strategic skill, problem solving, focus, etc.—to a far greater focus on understanding how to create a highly engaged culture tied to purpose/aspiration and cultivate leaders who could do the same. The prior skills are really important (I still use them routinely) but would have been limiting if I hadn't augmented them with new skills. The emphasis this book places on these themes—and the way the authors develop the case—makes great sense. I strongly recommend this book to anyone in (or aspiring to) a senior position of leadership."

—Gerry Anderson, Chairman and CEO, DTE Energy

Transform Your Organization by Scaling Leadership

How do senior leaders, in their own words, describe the most effective leaders—the ones that get results, grow the business, enhance the culture and leave in their wake a trail of other really effective leaders? Conversely, how do senior leaders describe the kind of leader that undercuts the organization’s capacity and capability to create its future? This book, based on groundbreaking research, shows how senior leaders describe and develop leadership that works, that does not, that scales, and that limits scale.

Is your leadership built for scale as you advance in today’s volatile, uncertain, dynamic, and disruptive business environment? This context puts a premium on a very particular kind of leadership—High-Creative leadership capable of rapidly growing the organization while simultaneously transforming it into more agile, innovative, adaptive and engaging workplace. The research presented in this book suggests that senior leaders can describe the High-Creative leadership with surprising clarity. They also describe with equal precision the High-Reactive leadership that cancels itself out and seriously limits scale. Which type of leader are you?

You scale your leadership by increasing the multiple on your leadership in three ways. First, by developing the strengths that differentiate the most effective leaders from the strengths deployed by the most Reactive and ineffective leaders. And second, by increasing your leadership ratio—the ratio of most the effective strengths to the most damaging liabilities. Third, by developing High-Creative leaders all around you.

Scaling Leadership provides a proven framework for magnifying agile and scalable leadership in your organization. Scalable leadership drives forward-momentum by multiplying high-achieving leaders at scale so that growth, productivity and innovation increase exponentially. Creative leaders multiply their strengths beyond technical competence by leading in deep relationship, with radical humanity, passion and integrity.

Drawing upon decades of solid research and experience enhancing individual capability and collective leadership effectiveness with Fortune 500 companies and government agencies, the authors provide an innovative and efficient framework to help you:

• Take stock of your own personal balance of leadership strengths and weaknesses
• Scale your leadership in deep relationship and high integrity
• Proliferate high-achievers throughout your organization’s leadership system
• Identify ineffective leadership and course-correct quickly
• Transform your organization by transforming leadership

Scaling Leadership is an invaluable tool for executives, managers, and leaders in business, academia, nonprofit organizations, and more. This innovative resource provides effective techniques, real-world examples, and expert guidance for organizations seeking to improve performance, align and execute strategies, and transform their business with scalable leadership capability.