In 1987, Jim Kouzes and Barry Posner were scheduled to present on leadership at a two-day conference following Tom Peters, a leading management guru at the time. Academics from Santa Clara University, Kouzes and Posner decided to focus on individual leadership skills and the challenges that arise to “make extraordinary things happen.”
After the presentation they published The leadership challenge– a successful business book that has sold more than two million copies. On the 25e On the anniversary of its publication, they released the fifth edition of the book.
In 2010, Kouzes and Posner published another book titled The truth about leadership: the no-nonsense, key facts you need to know. As they indicate, the context of leadership has changed dramatically since they first asked people in the early 1980s to describe their personal best leadership experiences and their most admired leaders.
However, as the context of leadership has changed, the content of leadership hasn’t changed much at all. The basic behaviors, actions, and practices of leaders have remained essentially the same since Kouzes and Posner first began researching and writing about leadership nearly forty years ago.
Click here for more from Kouzes and Posner
