Stuart Wells offers a deceptively simple and very rich framework for thinking about the leadership function and for building personal and organisational leadership capacity, consisting of nine management roles, framed within three foci of managerial effort and three principal leadership processes. The whole of the book is an explanation and elaboration of the model.
Points to notice about the model are:
* first, that the explicit articulation and demonstration of a coherent set of core values lies at the base of the effectiveness of all the roles;
* second, that the author is concerned with roles, all of which contribute in different ways to the success of the organisation, that collectively make a difference to organisational success and that may be exercised cooperatively by different people within a team or group. The model is not about the superhuman abilities of the 'hero' leader;
* third, that each role lies at the intersection between one of three leadership processes and three foci of managing effort - at different times and in different situations different combinations of roles may be critical to moving forward. Each role is itself distinctive and different from the others;
* fourth that the nine roles are learnable, but that in each individual they will be differentially developed and each individual with have natural preferences, strengths and weaknesses.
The model is focused on observable roles and their impact, rather than on: * the inner qualities of a leader (eg Jaworski 'Synchronicity'), * the stance of a leader in relation to the authoritarian/participative continuum (eg Bower 'The Will to Lead'), or * the way in which a network of leadership may be developed within an organisation (e.g. Senge: 'The Dance of Change').
These different perspectives are complementary to each other. Wells' distinctive contribution is to separate the discussion of important and continuing roles from the mythology of the 'hero' leader that is implicit or explicit in so much writing about leadership.
The author's claims for the book are modest. He explicitly recognises that leadership is learned from practice, not from books and he offers the book as a guide to self assessment and a guide to building practice and confidence in each role.