姝 Academy of Management Learning & Education, 2011, Vol. 10, No. 3, 535–539. http://dx.doi.org/10.5465/amle.2011.
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Book & Resource Reviews
The Handbook for Teaching Leadership:
Knowing, Doing & Being, edited by Scott
A. Snook, Rakesh Khurana, and Nitin
Nohria. Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE. Forth-
coming October 2011. 917 pages. E-book
option.
Reviewed by James G. S. Clawson, University of Virginia.
A first look at the Handbook for Teaching Leader-
ship edited by three Harvard Business School pro-
fessors, Scott Snook, Rakesh Khurana, and Nitin
Nohria (now dean there) brings to mind Olive
Oyle’s description of Bluto: “He’s large.” At over 900
pages and 30 chapters this is, as the authors agree
in their introduction, a heavy reference volume
rather than something to be read from front to
back. Their stated goal was to pause amidst the
exponential explosion of leadership books that has
occurred since the 1980s, take stock at a “critical
stage,” and provide a single eclectic reference
point for educators who are responding to bur-
geoning demand for courses on leadership. To be
more specific, “to share what we (meaning writers,
researchers, consultants, scholars, and practitio-
ners collectively) have learned after almost three
decades of accumulated experience teaching lead-
ership.”
Drawing from authors from all over the world
and of many different backgrounds, the volume is
indeed a tour de force. Contributors represent such
institutions as the Harvard University, Massachu-
setts Institute of Technology, Nottingham Univer-
sity, University of Pennsylvania, London Business
School, University of Oklahoma, University of Chi-
cago, McGill University, Duke University, INSEAD/
ESMT (Berlin), University of Toronto, University of
Rochester, the U.S. Military Academy, the Aspen
Institute, and several consulting firms and private
corporations. Many of the authors are well-known
bright lights in leadership and its perhaps larger
relative, management. These include, among oth-
ers, Deborah Ancona, Henry Mintzberg, Manfred
Kets de Vries, James O’Toole, Michael Useem, and
Rosabeth Kanter.
The editors asked the 30 plus contributors to
follow a 3-part structure for their contributions: a
description of what they do to teach leadership,
connections to theory including their own, and an
assessment of their approaches’ strengths and
weaknesses. A review of the chapters, though,
535
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makes it clear that this structure was often quickly
(perhaps not surprisingly given the topic and the
contributors) abandoned.
The book is organized around a 3-part model
developed in the U.S. Army and previously pub-
lished by lead editor, Scott Snook, namely “Know,
Do, Be” with an additional 4th section devoted to
Context. Clearly, edited volumes need some kind
of organizing framework, although for a field as
broad as leadership, finding such a framework can
be a challenge. The authors acknowledge that this
framework emerged from a U.S. Army leadership
manual in a different sequence, BE, KNOW, DO
which actually makes more sense to this reader
than the Know, Be, Do structure of the book. These
first three sections imply some very important
leadership questions: Who are you? What do you
know? And, what can you do? Each is a profound
and provocative question that could (and have)
easily command(ed) a volume of their own. A com-
mon book review might summarize each chapter to
give potential readers an overview of the book’s
content. The editors do that quite nicely in their
introduction, though, so no need to repeat that
here. Rather, I propose to give a high-level over-
view with a few intentionally provocative com-
ments on each section, summarize the book’s con-
tributions, and offer some thoughts on what might
be missing. Perhaps this approach will stimulate
the browsing reader to acquire, read, and conclude
for him- or herself.
KNOW
The 8 chapters in the Know section focus on the
cognitive aspects of leadership, that is, what does
one know or need to know about leadership and
the situations in which leaders function? The chap-
ters address such issues as sense making, cases in
learning, leadership “literacy,” teaching modern
princes to lead, global leadership, new directions
in leadership education, the HBS approach, and
creating a template for avoiding leadership disas-
ters. Deborah Ancona’s statement that at MIT “we”
teach the 4-CAP model, sense making, relating,
visioning, and inventing was impressive; how was
she able in 2007 to get three other colleagues to
agree on a common framework? She clearly is a
better leader than I! Her chapter focuses primarily
on Karl Weick’s concept of sense making and its
importance to leadership. I agree that a big part of
536 Academy of Management Learning & Education
a leader’s job is to clarify what to others seems
fuzzy, foggy, impenetrable, and perhaps bewilder-
ingly diffuse.
The chapter on the use of cases in leadership
presented a self-referencing series of arguments
about how cases structure leaders’ learning, and
therefore, thinking. Having been trained at Har-
vard in the case method, and given that the volume
is edited by HBS faculty, I found the treatment of
the case method unusual and orthogonal to my
own experience. The premise of the chapter on
teaching modern princes and princesses to lead
was spot on: “[H]ow is an academic to teach a
phenomenon so alien to his or her nature?” Indeed.
Yet, the best players are often not the best coaches
and vice versa. Mansour Javidan at the Thunder-
bird School of Global Management introduces a
Global Mindset Inventory that one can use, to the
AACSB’s delight no doubt, to assess the degrees of
students’ global mind-sets. The Nottingham team
cautions us against allowing current events such
as the global financial crisis to cloud our need for
a multidisciplinary search for leadership funda-
mentals. Tom DeLong and Linda Hill outline their
approach in the HBS LEAD course, which includes
five modules: leading teams, designing and align-
ing organizations, developing your path, enhanc-
ing interpersonal effectiveness, and leading
change. The section ends with Michael Useem’s
invitation to develop leadership checklists or tem-
plates that can help leaders avoid Pfeffer and Sut-
ton’s “knowing– doing gap” and thus creating their
own downfall.
What do we need to know about teaching lead-
ership? What do leaders-to-be need to know about
how to lead? How do the topics presented here
compare with your understanding of the field and
your answers?
DO
The Do section contains 7 chapters: how leading is
reminiscent of the performing arts, how sociology
and relationships influence ability to lead; teach-
ing executives how to be high-performance lead-
ers; how self-awareness can be developed; how to
develop leaders in an organization in a “natural”
process; developing mental strength to lead; and
the Duke 6-domain model: personal, relational,
contextual, inspirational, supportive, and respon-
sible leaderships. Lessons from performing on
stage seem immediately relevant to modern lead-
ership, embedded as it is in a sea of sound-bytes.
YouTube clips of Steve Ballmer on stage at a Mi-
crosoft annual meeting underscore the point, as do
historical accounts of how Leonardo DaVinci’s pos-
September
ture implied power and influence. Clearly, leaders
are nothing without followers, so interpersonal
skills and network building are important. We
might ask, how does one teach naturally shy indi-
viduals to perform socially and become network
builders? Surely leaders must be mentally tough;
the examples given in Csoka’s chapter focus on
managing one’s own emotions amidst high-
pressure situations. Is this another name for emo-
tional intelligence (EQ)? How does one develop
this kind of mental toughness in the classroom?
This section included many theoretical models
and frameworks that reminded me of the cognitive
Know section. At the same time, we learn more
about how other schools and firms teach leader-
ship, so our awareness of the rich diversity in the
field is deepening and widening.
BE
Does who you are affect your ability to lead? In this
section, the premise is “yes.” It begins with a trea-
tise on the nature of being and teaching students
to be leaders by course’s end, and then adds 6
chapters on creating long-term change, values-
based leadership, leadership as creating identity
spaces, authentic leadership, developing con-
science in leadership, and a description of the Har-
vard Kennedy School of Government’s approach.
Who better to begin a section on the being of
leadership than Werner Erhard and colleagues Mi-
chael Jensen and Karl Granger? Their course fo-
cused on how to have students finish a course as
leaders, not simply students aware of leadership.
Integrity (“a never-ending endeavor”), authenticity,
commitment to something larger, and the combi-
nation of the three, “using you” in a natural expres-
sion of you are key themes in their course. The Kets
deVries/Korotov collaboration between INSEAD
(France) and ESMT (Germany) begins with the par-
able of a wise king who shapes the learning of his
kingdom. I loved the way they identified underly-
ing premises to provoke our thinking. James
O’Toole pokes us in the ribs to get us to avoid
getting too deeply ensconced in single disciplines
(like social anthropology or psychology) and their
narrow approach to understanding leadership.
Chapters, 17 and 18 together make a very nice
discussion of how underlying values, assumptions,
beliefs, and expectations about the way the world
is or should be can shape our attempts to lead or
be led. These are reminiscent of Ed Schein’s cul-
tural anthropological framework (artifacts, ritu-
als, and assumptions) and at the other extreme,
Albert Ellis’ concept of rational– emotive behavior.
Petriglieri pushes us to think about how leaders
2011 Book & Resource Reviews
can and should shape workplaces as venues in
which employees are molding their identities of
who they are and how they relate to the world.
CEO-cum-professor, Bill George describes his ex-
perience of translating a third of a century of se-
nior leadership practice into MBA classroom expe-
rience. His approach brings to mind Noel Tichy’s
concepts in The Leadership Engine. Mihnea
Moldoveanu stimulates us to think about how we
might help leaders-to-be develop consciences.
This can happen, he says, if we can get people to
be rigorously self-aware and then willing to tinker
with who they are. At the Kennedy School, they
also use a 5-module model. Who am I being when
I lead? Am I always being that person, or am I
someone else when I lead? Is that authentic? If I
lead using techniques I’ve learned, even mastered
so that they are as the first chapter in this section
states “natural” to me, am I being authentic? To the
new me? So many questions. . .
CONTEXT
The book ends with 8 chapters on the importance of
context: the role of neuroscience on leadership,
teaching leadership outside formal (military) com-
mand structures, teaching leadership with na-
tional service, the Project GLOBE approach, the
Wall Street approach, the CCL approach, combin-
ing profit and social value in leadership, and last,
with Rosabeth Kanter’s description of Harvard’s
advanced leadership experiment in “even higher”
education. In other words, how does the structure
of things affect our ability to lead?
I was delighted that the volume includes a touch
point on the brain and its miraculous functioning.
Then, surprisingly, a West Point perspective (ste-
reotypically hierarchical) on peer teaching of lead-
ership. Go figure. If experience is the best teacher,
then why not have all learn to lead through na-
tional service as Max Klau describes in the chapter
on City Year? Project GLOBE comes next, creating
a nice national/global perspective on how experi-
ences can shape one’s leadership story. We then
get the perspective on leadership development of a
single firm, Goldman Sachs, followed by another
nice one-two punch of the Center for Creative
Leadership’s take after working with thousands
upon thousands of private sector leaders. In the
next chapter, I’m remembering the dry blue sky
and quaking aspens high in the Colorado Rockies,
visiting the Aspen Institute and glad that they are
included here with a call to remember a balanced
scorecard, to include social impact along with the
leadership of profits. This theme is a nice one in
the penultimate chapter, as it reprises page one of
537
the editors’ introduction to the purpose of business
schools, many of them to better society by prepar-
ing leaders. The volume ends with Rosabeth Kant-
er’s description of a grand vision she and two of
the editors had to create a new forum for leader-
ship development in which experienced and suc-
cessful leaders worldwide would enjoy a denoue-
ment chapter in life by sharing what they’d
learned in more academic, widely influential cir-
cles. Certainly Bill George, above, would be an
example the program she describes.
WHAT’S THERE
This is a delightful volume, filled with myriad per-
spectives on how to teach leadership. If you want
to learn how they do it at Harvard, MIT, CCL, IN-
SEAD, ESMT, Chicago, Oklahoma, ESADE, Notting-
ham, Wharton, London, McGill, Duke, Denver, West
Point, and Iowa, this is the book for you. One can
hear Johnny Cash singing in the background, “I’ve
been everywhere, man. . .” Here you get much more
for than four stanzas though. Detailed descriptions
of how successful teachers of leadership think and
how they design and implement their courses. The-
oretical assertions. Models of learning and course
construction secrets. Inside views on leadership
from academe, private industry, NPOs, and con-
sulting firms. Wonderful references. Pithy para-
bles, analytic analogies, and even a Sufi tale. In
some ways what we have here is a nice cross
between Henry James’ Varieties of Religious Expe-
rience and Studs Terkel’s Working, that is, a care-
fully reasoned analysis of the difficulty that a
ubiquitous phenomenon presents and a series of
primary descriptions only loosely constrained by
an overarching framework.
You’ll also see (or am I inventing?) nicely woven
threads of connective tissue throughout despite the
fact that most of the authors are dispersed. Ger-
mans would comment on “the red thread” as the
dominant theme of a conversation or set of data.
Here there seem to me to be threads of many hues.
Below are some of the patterns I saw:
• Harvard Connection. There is a distinct Har-
vard flavor here, not surprising, given the com-
position of the editors. At least 7 of the chapters
have Harvard connections. It’s great company,
though. We learn about the HBS required
course and the Advanced Leadership Initiative
and more.
• Interdisciplinary Studies Hold the Key. We get
the message repeatedly that no single tradi-
tional discipline will likely hold the key to how
best to teach leadership. Only when we are
able to expand our own training and assump-
tions can we begin to fathom, much less teach,
the essential bits of leadership.
538 Academy of Management Learning & Education
• Self-awareness. Another recurring theme is the
apparent importance of self-knowledge. We
might also cite powerful leaders in history who
were not so self-aware, but it seems clear that
many of the writers here believe that some
form of reflection, self-analysis, self-“tinker-
ing” as one author put it, is necessary to de-
velop in leaderlike ways. This thread even in-
cluded the development of a conscience.
• Bigger Cause. There was a tone throughout of
the need to rise above concern for one’s self
and to see, engage, and enact a larger purpose.
I distinguish between “type I” leaders and
“type II” leaders. Type I are more interested in
the perquisites of the role, while type II are
more interested in doing something of signifi-
cance and really don’t care about the power,
wealth, and status that accrue.
• Multiple Methods. Taken as a whole, these ef-
forts at teaching use multiple methods of in-
struction. Theory, cases, literature, plays, film,
experiential methods, self-analysis, journal-
ing, and more are evident throughout.
• Change. Since we could easily argue that
maintenance of the status quo is more of a
bureaucratic or managerial function, leader-
ship logically implies change. Some courses
and approaches described here were explicit
about this, others implied as much. Without
change, there’s no leadership. We might ask
WHAT is changing?
• Social Nature of Leadership. A fairly constant
background thread was the obvious observa-
tion that leadership is a social phenomenon.
Although we can write about leading self, the
theme here, of course, has been on social net-
works, influence structures, and getting others
to do what you want them to do.
• BE-KNOW-DO: the Army model bubbles up
from time to time, leading one to infer that
the authors were aware of the model in ad-
vance. This may or may not have shaped the
thinking and subsequent writing that ap-
pears here. To that degree, the chapters be-
come less primary and more secondarily
gray (influenced) observations.
• Theory–Practice Gaps. The authors here wres-
tled mightily with the challenges of Pfeffer and
Sutton’s Knowing–Doing gap. All seemed well
aware that what one says, or preaches, may or
may not line up with what one does in normal
daily activities or in moments of tension and
stress. The paradox was heightened by the au-
thor who asked if one could teach that which
was not a part of one’s nature.
• Things Change. Many of the narratives shared
here describe evolutions in thinking and prac-
tice. Like modern cell phones, as soon as the
book is published, the authors themselves will
continue to adapt, change, and improve their
courses and thinking. This will mean that read-
ers should engage the book early to be as close
to the authors’ thinking as they can be.
I’m sure there are more threads in the magical
September
carpet fabric that this book presents. The carpet is
well woven and transports us like any good mag-
ical carpet to various parts of the globe to see
things in different ways. As a whole, the carpet
accomplishes well one of its major objectives, to
share the experiences of 30 people over a third of a
century of teaching leadership.
WHAT’S NOT THERE
At the same time, there were some holes in the
fabric for me. Another reviewer would have a dif-
ferent view no doubt; I wonder what you would see.
Here are the holes in the carpet my foot slipped
through as I read along:
• Integration of the BE-KNOW-DO (BKD) Frame-
work. At the end of section 3, the jump to Con-
text felt discontinuously abrupt to me. Given
the tightness of the BKD model presented in the
Introduction, I thought a short analysis by the
editors at the end of the third section would
have helped illustrate how the various chap-
ters, in their view, fit into and illustrated the
model. Perhaps, like Studs Terkel, they were
giving room to the reader to do that. And it’s a
complex set of readings, so a little guidance
might have been helpful. The Context section
as they explained was clearly a different do-
main and not so clearly illustrated in the gen-
eral BKD framework. What that observation
also implies is that perhaps the BKD model is
less descriptive than it could have been. We
want a better model. And here’s a challenge
with any venture like this, “I think I have a
better one.” What leadership author does not?
Each author in the volume implies devotion to
their approach.
• Habituality in Humans. One of big challenges
in teaching leadership, it seems to me, is the
tendency of humans to be creatures of habit. By
“habit” I mean mindless repetition. Mindless-
ness could be a manifestation of the “mastery”
described in chapter 16, or perhaps more com-
monly, simple Ellen-Langer-described “mind-
lessness.” More than 1,200 senior executives
across the globe have estimated in their own
experience that people tend to be between 75
and 99% habitual. Whatever the level, we ask
how does human habituality factor into the
equation of trying to teach leadership?
• Career Concepts. This volume takes a signifi-
cantly linear (upwardly mobile) approach.
That’s appropriate given that it’s about teach-
ing leadership. Yet what about Mike Driver
and Ken Brousseau’s work on multiple career
patterns (or Ed Schein’s career anchors for that
matter) suggests that we may have many in our
classrooms who are not aware of the linear
alternatives? How can teachers of leadership
become more sensitive to the natural tenden-
cies of their students, many of which may not
include leadership aspirations?
2011 Book & Resource Reviews
• Learning Theory. This book is about teaching
leadership. The natural next question might be
how do people learn how to be leaders? Al-
though the authors’ theories-in-use about this
are sometimes described and sometimes im-
plied, those who teach leadership might need
some guidance on how to facilitate the learning
of leadership as well. Work on andragogy and
executive learning abounds, yet was largely
muted here.
• Choice Versus Obligation. One’s implicit defi-
nition of leadership surely affects one’s strat-
egy for teaching it. If one conflates those fol-
lowers who comply with those who engage,
one’s ability to help students learn to be effec-
tive will be eroded. When people go from
choice to obligation, bad things happen to pro-
ductivity, energy, innovation, and satisfaction.
This volume commented little on the outcomes
of leadership in terms of follower-to-be re-
sponses. One can easily imagine an analogue
scale ranging from passion to active resistance
and revolt. Teaching people to develop and use
power without concomitant understanding of
follower response could be dangerous.
• Strategic Thinking. When one talks about lead-
ership, one must soon ask, “To what end?” This
implies the need for strategic thinking beyond
the pressures of the moment. While a few chap-
ters hinted at visioning and the future, the em-
phasis on how leadership relates to strategy
was understated for this reader. In the end, it
seems any conversation about leadership
quickly becomes “leading strategic change” be-
cause one asks first, “To what end?” and then,
“How do we get there?” wherever “there” is.
• Other Perspectives. The stated goal of the book
was to pause, take stock, and assess where the
“profession” of leadership was. As I read
through, I missed what I thought were some
important perspectives. These would include
the genetic approach (Nigel Nicholson at LBS);
the evolutionary psychology approach (Ivey
School at Western, Ontario); nondegreed expe-
riential programs (although in fairness there
was some mention of these here); the Stanford
approach (e.g., Pfeffer, Sutton, and also David
Bradford); Schein’s cultural anthropological
approach (e.g., his book Organizational Cul-
ture and Leadership and my own Level Three
Leadership); the challenges of teaching smart
people to learn (e.g., Chris Argyris, although
Harvard folks are already well represented);
the Dartmouth approach; the Northwestern ap-
proach; and the Michigan approach.
539
CONCLUSION
The editors of A Handbook for Teaching Leadership
bit off a monumental challenge, to summarize the
status of leadership education by sharing 30 years
of teaching experience in what they hoped would
become a foundational and comprehensive vol-
ume. In the end, the book did not reach this lofty
goal; it is not comprehensive, contains some imme-
diately apparent gaps in description, and will not
likely live up to the billing of becoming a “founda-
tional reference for educators.” Not that any single
book could do that.
What this book does do is add a very rich, valu-
able array of international perspectives, a library
of teaching approaches couched in the first decade
of the 21st century, and a significant line-up of
courses from which others may browse and draw.
In that browsing and reading, you’ll find midlevel
outlines of courses being taught at various (not all)
major schools. You’ll be stimulated to think more
deeply about your own implicit model of leadership
and how to teach it. You’ll be invited to stretch your
thinking and your aspirations in the classroom.
Every business school library should have one
on the shelf. Every teacher of a leadership course
should have access to it. But it won’t answer all of
your questions or concerns about how to teach
leadership or facilitate its learning. Will this vol-
ume lead to an increasingly concentrated view of
the best practices for teaching leadership? More
than marginally, yes. Will that process contribute
to what a colleague calls the great homogenization
process that will lessen the distinctions between
teaching institutions? Perhaps. Will this volume
enrich your understanding of how others teach
leadership? Absolutely. But read it now. . . because
things change.
James G. S. Clawson is the Johnson & Higgins Professor of
Business Administration (Leadership and Organizational Be-
havior) at the Darden School of Business, University of Virginia.
He is the author of several books including Teaching Manage-
ment: A Field Guide for Professors, Corporate Trainers and Con-
sultants, with Mark Haskins; Level Three Leadership Fifth Edi-
tion; Powered by Feel: How Companies, Teams, and Individuals
Excel, with Doug Newburg; Balancing Your Life: Executive Les-
sons for Work, Family and Self, and Creating a Learning Cul-
ture, with Marcia Conner.