Book Review: The DNA of Leadership: Alter your Company’s DNA and Accelerate its Profits

Reviewer: Assessments Today

New book that is bound to be a must read for coaches.

More than concepts, The DNA of Leadership by Judith E. Glaser offers you a step-by-step guide to evolve your company’s DNA - towards a more profitable, sustainable and successful culture. I haven't read the book - it just came out. But I did listen to a interview of her by my good colleague, Mike Jay, and was terribly impressed.

The DNA of Leadership looks like it will become a key book on Leadership for coaches and is full of Checklist Assessments. Glaser and her associates have developed their own 360 degree assessment based on this material that sounds great. More than concepts, The DNA of Leadership offers you a step-by-step guide to evolve your company’s DNA - towards a more profitable, sustainable and successful culture. I encourage you to go to her new blog of the same name and download two very generous practical well written gifts with great checklists:

• Working in Concert
• Leadership and Coaching

Judith E. Glaser has been an executive and organizational coach and consultant for over two decades, working with CEOs, senior executives and their teams to help them develop leadership awareness and capability for handling new challenges in a world of moving targets. Judith is a master facilitator, and an executive and organizational coach. During her career she has designed, developed and facilitated hundreds of dynamic and interactive workshops. These are based on her innovative transformational leadership technologies, designed for organizations to achieve outstanding business results. Judith is one of the most innovative and pioneering change agents and executive coaches. A 21st century Organizational Anthropologist and author, Glaser, together with her team at Benchmark Communications Inc., act as advisors, coaches and executive consultants to CEOs and their teams helping them focus on competitive challenges in a world of moving targets.

Her book Creating WE: Change I-Thinking to We-Thinking & Build a Healthy Thriving Organization (Platinum Press, an imprint of Adams Media; April, 2005) made Amazon Business Book Best Seller List, and was selected by Forbes, Chicago Tribune, and Business Book Review as one of the top business books of 2005. It’s been translated into Japanese, Spanish and Russian. Her new book, The DNA of Leadership came out in March, 2006.

Buy it Now!

Book Review: The DNA of Leadership
October 13, 2006

"The premise of this book is that organizations, too, have their own 'DNA'."

Review by: Janice Love

After having reviewed her previous book Creating We, I was very interested to get Judith E. Glaser's The DNA of Leadership in my package of books this month. DNA isn't a sequel exactly, but it does build on her previous concepts about building a positive, productive organizational culture through "WE-centric" leader behavior. The metaphor of the healthy/unhealthy human body and the healthy/unhealthy organization is still a central theme but DNA goes way beyond metaphor. And, although it's helpful to have read Creating We, DNA stands on its own as another excellent book.

Glaser unveils her seven vital leadership genes and cleverly couches them in the acronym C-H-A-N-G-E-S. The seven genes are: Community, Humanity, Aspiration, Navigation, Generativity, Expressing and Spirit. Just like the genes that make up cellular DNA, these genes, she says, make up leadership DNA. She explains each leadership gene and charts the corresponding supportive organizational culture. Next, she compares the I-centric and WE-centric behavior associated with each gene. And this is all in the first 27 pages.

A detailed chapter on each of the seven genes follows, including the corresponding leadership principle, real-life leadership stories and examples from companies you will recognize, and what the organizational culture looks like when this gene is present. We get a look at each gene through both I-centric and We-centric behavior.

I especially liked the self assessment that helps individuals determine the extent to which they exhibit WE leadership, and the organizational assessment that helps determine what DNA is being exhibited in your company.

Buy it Now!

Environmental change is key in science of leadership Published May 18, 2006

Companies spend hundreds of millions of dollars on creating "mission statements" and establishing "values." They do training programs to change the culture, and then it all falls apart.

That's because the senior management team hasn't signed on for change, says Judith Glaser, author of The DNA of Leadership.

"They have to set the tone for leadership and for transparency," she says.

Consider your organization and style of leadership: Are you someone who is building a community of engagement or a community of fear and defensive behaviors?

Through such questions, Glaser helps leaders analyze themselves and their companies in her new book. It is a continuation of work in Creating WE, her earlier book which focuses on "we" thinking in work environments.

Glaser, an executive coach, identifies what she calls "leadership genes," drawing from her work with companies including VeriSign, New Wave Entertainment, Dreyer's and Edy's Grand Ice Cream, and IBM. Businesses are more successful, she says, when they create an environment in which people are encouraged to make contributions, voice concerns, exchange ideas and risk making mistakes.

In such an environment, "people can put challenges on the table and they're not labeled as incompetent. It's a whole different kind of feeling when you have that kind of openness."

It also helps avoid an Enron Corp. situation. Red flags pop up early and you get ahead of the curve, instead of having an underground culture, she says.

Leaders need to create conversational environments, Glaser says. "Everybody is part of the same conversation," she says. That means people are on the same page, working toward goals that will help develop the organization -- not just themselves.

Here is what Glaser says leaders can do to develop such a corporate culture:

Create a sense of community. Focus on engagement, involvement and participation in the workplace. That reduces territoriality, ego and fear of rejection.

Exhibit the attitude that "we're all in this together." Work to reduce blaming, victimizing and criticizing. Promote honest communication and respect for others.

Encourage a high level of learning and allow people to seize opportunities as they arise. Reduce fear: of change, of making mistakes and of being wrong.

Establish an atmosphere of mutual support and growth where there's sharing, rather than withholding. Build networks to exchange ideas and wisdom. Establish a sense of a shared future. Work together toward a higher purpose.

Sounds idyllic, doesn't it?

But it's possible, Glaser says. She has seen companies do it. In her book she points to the century-old design firm Herman Miller Inc., as one example of an innovative environment that has survived difficult times.

After the Sept. 11, 2001, tragedy, the international business went through a downturn. It was a two-year process to reorganize the company into a more centralized business.

"`I' became `we,' with one set of practices, one purpose and a common vocabulary," Glaser writes in her book.

Linda Milanowski, director of learning and development at Zeeland, Mich.-based Herman Miller, says employees have learned to connect and network with each other. They also have a shared appreciation for working together because times are more lean. "We don't have resources to go off and do it our own way," she says.

Over time through shared experiences and learning, employees have told her they've noticed how "silos have come down."

"We hold each other accountable on a day-to-day basis," she says. "We tend to reach out to one another and find where both groups can be successful."

Marcia Heroux Pounds can be reached at mpounds@sun-sentinel.com or 561-243-6650.

Reviewer: Susan Peabody

Creating WE, Judith's first book, was incredibly valuable in helping leaders see the difference between the I-Centric and the We-Centric leader! The DNA of Leadership goes beneath the surface to analyze the DNA make-up of a true We-Centric leader. This book has the depth and wisdom to make a positive and lasting impact on any person who aspires to be a leader. While the first book shared a revolutionary and new framework for what it means to be a We-Centric leader, in this book Judith goes into great detail with real life examples of the leadership genes that drive personal and organizational success.

C-Gene = Community ~ Leaders practice open communication where people feel included, involved in the strategy, engaged in the business, and accountable for results.

H-Gene = Humanity ~ Leaders create an atmosphere that values uniqueness and diversity; and respect the talents of every individual.

A-Gene = Aspiration ~ Instead of using overt and covert threats to meets targets; these leaders support and encourage individual imagination.

N-Gene = Navigation ~ Instead of hiding the "map," these leaders ask others for guidance in making headway toward common goals.

G-Gene = Generativity ~ Instead of micro-managing and enforcing compliance, these leaders nurture innovation that leads to inspired breakthroughs.

E-Gene = Expressing ~ These leaders encourage everyone to speak up, take risks, and to develop themselves and the organization.

S-Gene = Spirit ~ Instead of cold calculations and expectations, these individuals create an atmosphere of ongoing homage, accomplishment, and evolution so that everyone pulls together to move the organization toward the future.

The DNA of Leadership is a virtual navigational guide to any leader trying to move their organization forward through difficult and challenging changes. While reading about the practices for great leadership, I found Judith's prescriptions applicable to not only worldwide organizations, but to personal relationships as well. Whether you strive to lead your organization or your family unit into greatness - living by these practices will ensure success.

I reference Judith and her extraordinary books in every leadership discussion in which I am involved. I can't imagine being able to achieve my goals without them! Congratulations Judith on another exceptional piece of work.

Buy it Now!

Reviewer: Geoffrey Grenert "Executive Coach and Leadership Development" (New York, NY)

If you are a leader or if you want to become a leader, Judith Glaser's newest book, "The DNA of Leadership" is a must read. My recommendation is to read her other books, "The Power of We", and "Creating We" at the same time.

Judith's E-centric way of looking at the world is a breath of fresh air for those in our family of coaches and leadership consultants. DNA is a book about empowering ones self and others to embrace change, to share a common vision and impact the world around us in a positive way. Through her stories, Judith provides a vision of common people who find the courage to look at themselves, and see how their behaviors have impacted others. Her stories tell us that we are just as capable of making the changes in our own behaviors, changes that allow us to become better leaders. DNA has helped me to understand that what you say is not as important as how you make others feel.

Reviewer: Peter Lawrence Gray (Stamford, CT United States)

In The DNA of Leadership, Glaser takes the reader on a journey into some of the most hidden and least explored secrets behind great leadership - the power language and of our conversations to create environments that catalyze change.

Too often we focus on "leadership characteristics" to explain why leaders are great. It's their persistence, their passion or their power to create followers. Glaser shows us that this is "old style" thinking and comes from an I-centric view of leadership. In The DNA of Leadership, she brings us into a new way of we-centric thinking that helps us see our role as partners and leaders in a very new way.

She explains how great leaders are able to change the way an environment feels - from excluding to including, from judging to appreciating, from fearing to aspiring, from withholding to sharing, from group think to innovation, form dictating to developing and from compliance to commitment to mutual success. With her skillful guidance and many shared exercises, readers learn how to foster an atmosphere of change, create a collaborative environment, and promote a constructive company ethos in any size company or team.

The benefits of her lessons are many. Since employees are valued for their contributions and gain access to others that they can learn from, they are able to grow and gain upward mobility. This creates a chain-reaction of openness, learning, and a value that change is to be embraced, not feared. Additionally, these changes energize and motivate employees. This leads employees at all levels to adopt a sense of pride, ownership and empowerment... something that other leadership books claim to teach yet often fall short of accomplishing. The DNA of Leadership, and Glaser's first book Creating WE, take us into a new dimension of change and leadership that has applicability to every leaders challenges.

These are must read books!

Buy it Now!