Leading Quality
An unorthodox guide to doing
the right thing
A Practical Guide to
Resolving Everyday Leadership Dilemmas
Most of us think of leaders
as courageous risk takers/ orchestrators of major events in a word/ heroes. Yet while such
figures are inspiring and admirable/ Harvard Business School Professor Joseph Badaracco
argues that their larger-than-life accomplishments are simply not what makes the world
work. What does/ he says/ is the sum of millions of small yet consequential decisions that
men and women working far from the limelight make every day: how a line worker for a
pharmaceutical company responds when he discovers a defect in a' product's safety seal;
how a manager deals with a valued employee suspected of stealing; how a trader handles a
transaction error that will cost a client money.
Badaracco calls them
"quiet leaders" people who choose responsible/ behind-the-scenes action over
public heroism to resolve tough leadership challenges. These individuals don't fit the
stereotype ^ of the bold and gutsy leader/ and they don't want to. What they want is to do
the "right thing" for their organizations/ their coworkers/ and themselves but
inconspicuously and without casualties. They do so by being baldly realistic about the
complexities of their own motives and those of the dilemmas they face. In today's fast and
fluid business world/ nothing is as it seems. And they know it.
Drawing from a four-year
study of quiet leadership/ Badaracco presents eight practical and counterintuitive
guidelines for confronting situations in which right and wrong seem like moving targets.
Grounding each strategy in an engaging story/ he shows how these "non-heroes"
succeed by managing their political capital/ buying themselves time/ bending the rules/
and more.
From leaders in the executive
suite to aspiring leaders in the office cubicle " Leading Quietly compellingly shows
how patient/ everyday efforts can add up to a better company and even a better world.
Joseph L. Ba1`daracco, Jr. is
a Professor at Harvard Business School/ the Chair of the M.B.A. Elective Curriculum/ and
the author of Defining Moments: When Managers Must Choose between Right and Right (HBS
Press, 1997).
201 pages