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Leading Change 1996 By John Book Review

(Again, to refer once again to wartime parallel, one battle victory or capture of an enemy leader increases motivation, but does not justify or provide a vision for winning an entire conflict.) With the value of Kotter's 1996 insights, one can see the folly of simply pleasing immediate investor expectations and seeking a quick fix was the source of the later accounting mismanagement scandals at HeathSouth and Enron, where figures were manipulated to make it seem as if the companies were more solvent than they actually were in reality. Some of Kotter's more contentions assumptions might be found his stress upon leadership, and the personalities of the leadership of an organization, almost more than the value of the change itself. If Kotter were a historian, he would be of the 'great man' school of history -- focusing on the good and bad decisions of Napoleon, for example, rather than upon the historical conditions of the time. Conversely, he also blames the heads of organization for failure, rather than places the fault in the sources of the change or external conditions.

Ultimately, a leader cannot control the environment, he or she can only control his or her decisions and ways he or she implements change -- and part of this decision making process for a good manager, paradoxically, is understanding how other persons think and function. This can help a manger understand how to motivate him or herself to lead persons more effectively. And Kotter also stresses, time and time again, the need for truly creative change, and showing concern for the ideas and creative solutions of others. A leader takes risks that may challenge conventional wisdom, but a leader is not an island. A leader must transcend his or her comfort zone, but also the comfort zones of others. A leader must change from within before he can hope to change the souls others, before he or she can encourage others to implement change.
Works Cited

Kotter, John. P. (1996) Leading Change. Cambridge: Harvard Business School Press.

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Works Cited

Kotter, John. P. (1996) Leading Change. Cambridge: Harvard Business School Press.
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