The Practice of Managerial Leadership

The Practice of Managerial Leadership describes the comprehensive, science-based set of principles and practices called Requisite Organization, developed by Dr. Elliott Jaques and his colleagues through consulting research work over 55 years in 15 countries. Nancy Lee worked with Dr. Jaques for more than 20 years. The book is written for managers at all levels and is focused on the managerial role because this is where guidelines are most needed to accomplish the goals of the organization. The use of these ideas results in increased productivity and profitability, enhances trust and provides employees with a healthy working environment conducive to personal growth. His thinking was a monumental reformulation of the basis of human capacity and organizational structure, reflected in thirty books. Jaques not only posited different levels of conceptual thinking among human beings but also elaborated the curves of that thinking over an adult lifetime. In turn, his conceptualization gave rise to a new logic for organizational structure, an area that had had no logic for organizational leadership and accountability. Jaques' work requires readers to take the necessary time to grasp his innovation. It also requires radical change in how executives are chosen and companies are organized. Like all new thinking his work necessitates testing the applications in one's own organization. But grasping complexity need not be an overwhelming task. In this book Nancy Lee, herself an organizational consultant long immersed in Jaques' conceptualization efforts, has made his thinking much easier to grasp. That, in turn, should make this volume, highly useful to executives, consultants and graduate students who seek to make organizations more effective. Dr. Harry Levinson, Emeritus Clinical Professor of Psychology at Harvard Medical School has provided a brief background on Dr. Jaques.