Leading Teams - by J Richard Hackman (Hardcover)

About the Book

In this practical and engaging book, one of the world's leading experts on group and organizational behavior argues that teams perform at their best when leaders create conditions that allow them to effectively manage themselves.

Book Synopsis

Richard Hackman, one of the world's leading experts on group and organizational behavior, argues that teams perform at their best when leaders create conditions that allow them to manage themselves effectively.

Leading Teams is not about subscribing to a specific formula or leadership style. Rather, it is about applying a concise set of guiding principles to each unique group situation--and doing so in the leader's own idiosyncratic way. Based on extensive research and using compelling examples ranging from orchestras to airline cockpit crews, Leading Teams identifies five essential conditions--a stable team, a clear and engaging direction, an enabling team structure, a supportive organizational context, and the availability of competent coaching--that greatly enhance the likelihood of team success.

The book offers a practical framework that leaders can use to muster personal skills and organizational resources to create and sustain the five key conditions and shows how those conditions can launch a team onto a trajectory of increasing effectiveness.

Authoritative and astutely realistic, Leading Teams offers a new and provocative way of thinking about and leading work teams in any organizational setting.

Review Quotes

"Written with exceptional clarity and wit, and teeming with original, down-to-earth advice, Leading Teams is indispensable reading for anyone who works in teams, studies them, or wonders what makes them sink or soar." -- Harvey Hornstein, Professor, Teachers College, Columbia University

"This is the book I have been waiting for on team effectiveness. Based on findings and containing insights from the leading researcher on teams, Leading Teams has everything. It is engaging, highly readable, and full of practical, useful advice." -- Edward Lawler, Distinguished Professor and Director, Center for Effective Organizations, University of Southern California, Marshall School of Business

"Full of rich stories and organized into compelling cases, Leading Teams clearly communicates an elegant analysis of effective team leadership. A gem for practitioners and researchers alike." -- Chris Argyris, James B. Conant Professor Emeritus, Harvard University and Director, Monitor Group

"In Leading Teams Dr. Hackman takes his extensive knowledge of how to effectively lead teams and mixes it with insightful research and humor, providing the reader with a powerful prescription for improving team performance." -- Dave Bushy, Former Senior Vice President of Flight Operations and 747 Captain, Delta Airlines

"Richard Hackman provides real-world tools that challenge everything you thought you knew about creating high-performing teams. I found myself cheering each time he demolished a popular but wrongheaded conception of how to lead teams and provided a common sense answer in its stead." -- Michael Putz, Senior Manager, Business Development and Strategy, Cisco Systems

About the Author

J. Richard Hackman is the Cahners-Rabb Professor of Social and Organizational Psychology at Harvard University.