This book equates leadership with problem-solving. Don proves this with 30 years tutoring experience and by the rationale (and examples) in the written pages. Leaders solve problems. Don's book shows the methodology of collaboration, i.e. how-to collaborate. The initial section depicts collaboration as facilitated by a third party. It recommends this as a learning tool before engaging in deliberations where the facilitator "owns" a stake in the problem. A follow-up section discusses collaborating amid anger, hidden agenda and two-party collaboration. In other words, when a stakeholder and facilitator are one. In this manner, learning is incremental, develop-mental; knowledge is added to what has already been learned.
A Handbook for Collaborative Leaders: Millennials Assess the Workplace of Today introduces a twin-poled leader model to replace the Situational Leadership of Paul Hersey and Ken Blanchard. It argues that H/B's accepted model, now some 60 years in use, misidentifies the situation as revolving around internal measures such as knowledge, trust, and closeness. Rather, the actual situation must be defined by external measures -- chiefly, what is confronting workers and what problem does this situation present. Bi-Polar leading reconciles authority-based leading with participatory models as challenged by jurist Michael Josephson in 1989. Until now, that challenge has gone unanswered.
Throughout the book, readers will find a sense of supervisors and the rank-and-file bonding into something greater than themselves. Examples of such are found in the case studies, all written not by Don, but by his former students. Without a one-size-fits-all, workshop participants design their unique leader template, one which offers a menu of more than 24 intervention styles.
