Leading from Example: A Short Guide to the Lsessons of Literature

The aim of Leading from Example is to help the reader to perform more effectively in his or her sphere of influence. This book is intended to stimulate reflective practice and to extend it beyond personal experience to learn from the experience of others. The process of falling for a character, becoming irrevocably intrigued and sympathetic, seems out of place in organizational life, where it must be juxtaposed with the norms of bureaucratic impersonality. But most organizations are awash with gossip and storytelling, much of it scurrilous. When people spend time talking about what is going on behind the closed doors of the management meeting, or what motivates their leaders, or speculating about the outcomes of a current change programme, they are creating fictions, and using them to conjure a place for themselves as both authors and characters in a constantly woven narrative. In Leading From Example Peter Villiers teases out lessons for leadership using a diverse yet coherent set of readings from, among others: Rudyard Kipling ( Kim , Stalky & Co.
, Captains Courageous ); Jack London ( The Sea Wolf ); Ernest Hemingway ( For Whom the Bell Tolls ); Joseph Conrad ( The Secret Agent ); George Orwell ( Homage to Catalonia , Animal Farm , Nineteen Eighty-Four ); and, R C Sherriff ( Journey’s End ).