I don't normally recommend ChangeThis! manifestos because of the PDF format, but I do recommend Bet This! A Gambler's Guide to Leadership. It's from Eileen Shapiro, the co-author of Make Your Own Luck. Previously with McKinsey &Co., Inc., she's also the author of Fad Surfing in the Boardroom. Here's an excerpt - what do you think?
"Style and technique are secondary characteristics. They enhance a person’s leadership abilities but they are not the core.
The core of leadership is this: the ability to bet well, to act in the face of uncertainty to create the futures that the leader and ultimately the followers of the leader desire. Effective leaders are, in fact, first and foremost great gamblers. They bet better than other people, and so other people cede their own bets to the leader in order to create the future they jointly desire. To lead is to bet on a really big scale.
And, yes, I do mean bets and I am talking about gambling. If you are thinking that I am using the language of betting to dress up a discussion about decision making, let me try to disabuse you of that notion now. Decision-making has come to mean making a statement of intent. I declare that I have decided to do whatever - lose weight, become a market leader, listen to customers - and what I say may sound great but if my declaration isn’t accompanied by concerted and focused actions, then that's all it is, a declaration. Bets always require action: to do this or to do that or to continue doing some other thing. Decisions without action aren't bets, they are just words.
Real leaders place bets. Effective leaders bet smart and deliver on their promises bigger and more of the time than other people. Over time, the best leaders build the kind of betting records that get other people to willingly cede their bets for some area of their lives..."
A number of interesting ideas follow, including four tests and one proxy for action-based leadership. You can find the manifesto's HTML page here.
It put me in mind of Armed Liberal's essays on Risk, Reality & Bullsh-t and even more to the point, his short series on Risk.
This appears to be a re-tread of the ideas of Colonel John R. Boyd (USAF) and much of the tactical doctrine of the Marine Corps (see OODA loops). If a reader really wants to understand these concepts, he/she should go straight to the source. Do not waste time on Shapiro's un-original workover.
Here are some links:
But alas, why would one expect something original from a McKinsey consultant?
Well, I'm normally not huge on McKinsey consultants myself. But - your criticism of Shapiro's work is unjustified. While the OODA loop concept Boyd pioneered can be found in the background, Shapiro's conclusions that flow from that, thoughts re: bets and leadership, and metrics to look for aren't anything Boyd himself talked about.
So, they're somewhat original. I say "somewhat" because she had, as noted above, a co-author.
In addition to the John Boyd links you posted, I might also advise looking through the Boyd-related posts we've done here on Winds.
I don't really like the terms luck and gambling in this context, but I understand how they are being used and I really have no better alternative.
I would point out, however, that "luck" and "gambling" in this sense are also integral parts of the way a modern, decentralized economy operates: the key idea is that each economic agent has goals, incomplete information, and plans based on that information to achieve those goals. The uncertainty of the information spread across large numbers of agents with disparate goals turns many economic activities into a form of gambling.
It has always struck me that many intelligent people of principle who cringe at market economies are cringing, perhaps sub-consciously, perhaps fully consciously, at the notion that success is neither gauranteed nor will it necessarily flow from leading a moral life; rather it is in a very large sense amoral, luck-driven, and unequal.
It also seems to me that many intelligent people of principle who cringe at politics with which they do not agree (and this runs both right and left over time, as one side or the other gains ascendancy) are also cringing at the notion that these great political motions-- the New Deal, the Cold War hot spots, Free Trade, the War on Terror, etc-- are themselves great gambits and gambles... that there are no gaurantees in politics any more than economics.
The danger lies in those fringes who will insist on perfect foreknowledge of results before action is taken, knowing that since such perfect foreknowledge is impossible that they are effectively calling for no action without actually making the call in words.