The book “Senior Leadership Teams; what it takes to make them great” is an excellent example of research work done by a group of authors. The book provides a great guidance on management of brilliant work force and to get best out of them. The book is a result of research work which was carried on 120 best performing teams from the top organizations.
Part one:
The book provides a deep insight on the process how CEOs of top organizations successfully formed team of great leaders. The most interesting thing about the book is that it covers all the aspects related to the formation of team including but not limited to requirement of leaders, size, number of members, job skills etc. Another interesting thing covered in the book is that it describes the problems faced by CEOs in developing a team of senior leaders. The book could be a great help for CEOs in order to identify the circumstances when they are required to form team of leaders and when team is not required. All the thoughts are supported by real examples and analysis of data collected from various renounced executives and organizations. Just by reading the topic we get an idea about the main theme of the book that focuses on senior leadership teams. This is one of the major challenges faced by the executive’s of various organizations to successfully form a team of senior leader thereby the topic stimulates a positive feeling about the book.
Part two:
The topic is based on six strategies which help effectively in forming ‘senior leadership team’. The six strategies do not provide any guarantee that team formed as per these strategies will be successful. The performance of the team depends upon various factors which need to be tackled by executives. The uncertainty attached to the topic stimulates negative feeling.
Part three:
The book is a complete solution for formation of senior leadership team. All the significant aspects are broadly covered under two parts; essentials and enablers. Essentials part helps us in understanding why and when the formation of team is required. It details out that the team should be a true team in the real sense with solid purpose. One should never form a team without any purpose. Essential part highlights three conditions: real team with clear purpose and with all the desired skills, knowledge. All three conditions play an important role in laying a strong foundation for the team to carry out any type of tough task.
The second part enabler talk about three the major things required by support team to perform the job in effective manner. The three conditions are: concrete team structure, encouraging organizational framework and right training for the team. It is not necessary to fulfill all three conditions at the beginning. They may introduce over the time, depending upon the requirements.
All six conditions are supported with real life examples and discuses how executives from different organizations dealt with those situations. There is no single rule or process by which one implements all these six strategies it vary from situation.
There are various advantages of forming a team of leaders. Executive can share their responsibilities and decision making with the team. The team will work as knowledge pool that is having experience, talent and creativity, in situation when a decision needs to be taken.
Bottom line:
Essential and enablers conditions serve as primary requirement for excellent team work and their growth over the time.
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Bibliography
Ruth Wageman, Debra Nunes, James Burruss, and Richard Hackman. (2007). Senior Leadership Teams; What it takes to Make Them Great . Boston: Harvard Business School Press.
