Review

Author(s): G. Jason Jolley

Review by: G. Jason Jolley
Source: Academy of Management Learning & Education, Vol. 6, No. 1 (Mar., 2007), p. 149
Published by: Academy of Management
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/40214527
Accessed: 10-06-2016 01:28 UTC

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 2007
dynamic and change, outsource, insource, off-
shore, and finally change your DNA)? Or is it pos-
sible that managers do not want to believe the
system is crappy and issues are the result of the
people in the system? The problem that exists with
any evidence-based approach is not on how to
measure (the systems and delivery), but instead
what should be measured. Getting the organiza-
tion to agree on common measuring points could
be a project that would rival an ERP install. A
further discussion on how to determine what
should be measured would be greatly beneficial.
Also, measuring everything is not possible and
will cause paralysis through analysis. Greater
stress could have been applied to the fact that if an
organization refuses to become a learning organi-
zation, it will never profit from evidence-based
management. Company's that do not have a core
belief in continual learning in everything will al-
ways explain away any evidence-based derived
truth.
Leadership Can Be Taught: A Bold Ap-
proach for a Complex World, by Sharon
Daloz Parks. Boston, MA: Harvard Busi-
ness School Press, 2005. 287 pages, hard
cover.
Reviewed by G. Jason Jolley, University of North Caro-
lina at Chapel Hill.
Is leadership an innate quality bestowed on those
in formal positions of authority, or is leadership a
learned behavior that can taught to others? In
Leadership Can Be Taught: A Bold Approach for a
Complex World, Sharon Daloz Parks recasts lead-
ership as an "adaptive" process and challenges
the established myth that leadership is a trait-
based characteristic, associated with command-
and-control structures, power transactions, and
personality. She utilizes the case-in-point teaching
method developed by Harvard Professor Ronald
Heif etz and his colleague to demonstrate that lead-
ership is a learned quality, which can be taught to
others.
In the first five chapters of the book, Parks draws
on the classroom experiences of Heifetz to demon-
strate that the case-in-point teaching method is the
best technique for teaching leadership. While
case-in-point teaching draws on established edu-
cational techniques such as seminar, simulation,
presentation of ideas, discussion and dialogue,
and case studies, the method features four critical
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distinctions: (1) authority versus leadership, (2)
technical problems versus adaptive challenges, (3)
power versus progress, and (4) personality versus
presence.
Authority versus leadership recasts leadership
as the ability to mobilize people, resources, and
groups to address difficult problems. It challenges
the presumption that formal authority is a neces-
sity for leadership. Technical problems versus
adaptive challenges distinguishes between tech-
nical problems that can be solved through existing
knowledge and adaptive challenges that require
new learning and innovation. The power versus
progress distinction posits personal power is less
important when leadership is defined as the pro-
cess of making progress on adaptive problems,
and the personality versus presence distinction
posits the presence to make progress on complex
issues is more important than charisma.
Unlike traditional case studies which draw on
the practical experiences of others, case-in-point
builds on the advice of John Dewey and other ed-
ucators who argued that students learn best from
their own experiences by using the classroom's
social system and their personal and professional
experiences as case studies. Parks takes the
reader inside Heifetz's classroom and traces the
experiences of students as they interact with Heif-
etz and their classmates. Heifetz challenges stu-
dents to learn about their own leadership suc-
cesses and failures through a variety of interactive
approaches including questionnaires, small-group
leadership activities, and classroom presenta-
tions. Throughout this experience Heifetz con-
stantly encourages his students to move from "the
balcony to the dance floor" to understand the
larger pattern of interactions. Heifetz uses the bal-
cony and dance floor as metaphor of leadership
interactions. Being on the dance floor allows for
active participation in a complex scene, yet partic-
ipants have difficulty understanding the patterns
of interaction occurring among the various actors.
By moving to the balcony and removing oneself
from the dance floor minutia, students gain a bet-
ter understanding of the sociopolitical and cultural
patterns influencing these interactions. Successful
leaders operate through the complex engagements
on the dance floor with occasional movement to
the balcony to gain new perspectives.
Chapters 6-10 examine the transferability of
these leadership lessons to the students' work-
places and whether this teaching method is trans-
ferable to other teacher-practitioners. In chapter 6,
Parks formally interviews 15 people who partici-
pated in the leadership course in the past 3-10
years. She also interviews a supervisor or co-