Common Purpose:How Great Leaders Get Organizations to Achieve the Extraordinary

What is leadership?  How do leaders develop?  And how does one become an effective leader?  Tens of thousands of books, articles, studies, and theories have focused on the topic of leadership, with thousands more arriving each year.  Yet, despite all this research, there is still no consensus about the answers to these questions.

In our summary of Common Purpose:  How Great Leaders Get Organizations to Achieve the Extraordinary, Joel Kurtzman offers new insights on how to approach a leadership mindset, as well as how to implement it, by establishing an inspiring goal that motivates people to perform at their best.

Kurtzman is chairman of the Kurtzman Group, a research and consulting firm focusing on issues relating to knowledge management, strategy, economic development, global risk, and thought leadership.  He is a senior fellow at the Milken Institute and at Wharton’s SEI Center for Advanced Studies in Management.  He is also an advisor to the World Economic Forum and to the U.S. Council on Competitiveness.

In the following summary, Kurtzman sheds light on the meaning of leadership, the crucial qualities of leaders, and, most importantly, how to lead.