The single most important book on leadership for formal or informal leaders to read and reread. The same is true for followers. Every time I dip back in, I find it ever more relevant both to my own role and responsibilities and to the political scene. ( )

Ronald Heifetz is a wonderfully deep thinker in the area of leadership and has a number of books out on the topic. This was his breakthrough book. In it, he presents a new theory of leadership for both public and private leaders in tackling complex contemporary problems, ones that tend to be impervious to simple answers such as crime, poverty, and educational reform, which require innovative approaches and courageous effort. Four major strategies of leadership are identified: to approach problems as adaptive challenges by diagnosing the situation in light of the values involved and avoiding authoritative solutions, to regulate the level of stress caused by confronting issues, to focus on relevant issues, and to shift responsibility for problems from the leader to all the primary stakeholders. Together these approaches offer an appropriately complex and systemic way of understanding and leading large complex change.

THE book to read if you work with "diverse" populations ( )