The Arrogant Leader: Dealing with the Excesses of Power, a new book by Stephen Jenks & Fritz Steele

3720 20th Street NW The Arrogant Leader: Dealing with the Excesses of Power, a new book by Stephen Jenks & Fritz Steele

"The Arrogant Leader is a book everyone should read, whether they have a boss or are the boss. Jenks and Steele put arrogance in the workplace in perspective, explaining why so many leaders can’t find humility. The authors provide helpful strategies for dealing with arrogance in others and, even occasionally, in oneself."

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"The Arrogant Leader"

Dealing with the Excesses of Power

a new book by Stephen Jenks and Fritz Steele

The Arrogant Leader by Stephen Jenks & Fritz Steele Leadership roles in today's organizations have been heavily populated by people who tend to take an arrogant "I've-got-it-and-you-haven't" stance toward those around them. This is due in part to this type of person being attracted to such roles, and in part to the experiences people have when in these roles, creating an inflated view of their abilities.

Arrogance is an attitude that tends to work against the requirements for leaders in today’s environment, because it tends to block quick solutions in reaction to change, excellent reality-testing and learning from experience. Arrogant leaders are overly enamored of their own view of the world, and contradictory data are an annoyance to be suppressed as "incorrect." They tend to hold on to perceived "wisdom" long past its useful life. They can't learn from experience because their basic assumption is that they have nothing to learn. They often demand to be told what they already believe and want to hear, which makes them the last to know about new developments or unexpected changes in the environment.

The upshot is that arrogance is a luxury that organizations can no longer afford (if they ever could), either in their leaders or in the destructive, inhibiting climate they set for members, customers and their communities.

This book is intended for several types of readers: executives and other organizational leaders; those interested in organizational effectiveness and the quality of life in organizations, people who are having difficulties dealing with dismissive power figures, and others. It could also serve as a rich supplementary source in Organizational Behavior and Leadership courses in graduate schools of business and undergraduate business/management courses.

This book covers several aspects of the neglected area of arrogance:

Defines and describes a variety of forms of arrogance in individuals and organizational climates;
Identifies the key sources of arrogance and the forces that maintain it.
Examines the effects—costs and gains—of leaders’ arrogance on themselves, those around them, and the organization;
Suggests approaches for dealing with arrogance: diagnosing it; reducing it; coping with it if you are working within an arrogant setting; recognizing and dealing with arrogance as a factor in your own stance toward your world.

The reason that the book is particularly timely is that it has a lot of examples from the recent financial crisis and the arrogant behavior of corporate executives, politicians, and institutions—the banks, insurance companies, government agencies. Companies like Enron, Bear Stearns, Lehman Brothers, British Petroleum, Rupert Murdoch and News Corporation.

The book draws on a number of sources, including:

The authors' consulting experiences and observations drawn from them;
Cases described by colleagues;
Notable examples in the public eye, including both historical and contemporary sources.