AUTHENTIC LEADERSHIP - INSPIRING PURPOSE
As the owner of a business that organises events celebrating exceptional enterprises and their leaders, as well as produces publications featuring the views of enterprise leaders, I interact with such leaders daily. The recurring theme arising out of my conversations invariably centres on enterprise sustainability – how to survive and grow in the face of the many and diverse challenges brought about by a competitive and ever-changing world. Somewhere in these discussions, the people aspect of enterprises comes into play. This includes an acknowledgement that employees’ roles and productivity are key to sustainable enterprise success, but that generally, the alignment of employee behaviour to the achievement of organisation objectives remains an elusive quest.
This book emphasises the fundamental need for enterprise leaders to instil a sense of purpose into the minds of the people employed to contribute to the achievement of enterprise goals, for them to adopt the mindset of the business owners. It provides a light-hearted history lesson on how we progressed along the journey from self-sufficiency
driven by our survival instinct to a dependency on ‘the system’ where the origins of that instinct have
faded into the mists of time.
This book has prompted me, as a business owner, to reflect upon the notion that the ‘Human Capital’ available to an enterprise, requires constant attention and careful nurturing as a critical component of enterprise sustainability.
Unlike many publications about leadership, it offers neither a theory nor formula, but rather suggests a close examination of one’s style as an enterprise leader; with the authors’ intention to encourage participation in a practical programme delivered by subject experts across the spectrum of effective leadership practices..