Book Description
The power of top management is pervasive and profound. It affects the quality of economic life, but also our personal and social lives. Equally strong is its impact on the sustainability of a free enterprise system. Psychoanalyst, teacher, and management consultant, Elliott Jaques argues that great as this power is, it is being squandered, not because of what managers do but because of what they don't know. Serious misconceptions about managerial leadership--and equally serious misunderstandings of people--abound. Jaques argues that the problems inherent in the way management is practiced are attributable to gravely dysfunctional systems of managerial leadership, systems that have evolved over the years and are now, despite their ineffectualities, taken for granted. The result of more than a half century of thought, observation, analysis and experimentation, Jaques' book is essential reading for academics, students, consultants, top management, and executives on the way up throughout the public and private sectors.


About the Author
ELLIOTT JAQUES is Research Professor of Management Science, Department of Management, George Washington University, and Professor Emeritus of Social Science at Brunel University, England. He holds an M.D. from Johns Hopkins, a Ph.D. from Harvard, and is a member of the British Psycho-Analytical Society. Dr. Jaques was cited by (then General) Colin Powell for ". . . his outstanding contribution in the field of military leadership theory and instruction. . . ." He is author of numerous articles, in one of which he created the concept of the mid-life crisis, and more than 20 books, among them The Life and Behavior of Living Organisms, published by another imprint of Greenwood Publishing Group, Praeger Publishers.

FROM THE PUBLISHER

The power of top management is pervasive and profound. It affects the quality of economic life, but also our personal and social lives. Equally strong is its impact on the sustainability of a free enterprise system. Psychoanalyst, teacher, and management consultant, Elliott Jaques argues that great as this power is, it is being squandered, not because of what managers do but because of what they don't know. Serious misconceptions about managerial leadership--and equally serious misunderstandings of people--abound. Jaques argues that the problems inherent in the way management is practiced are attributable to gravely dysfunctional systems of managerial leadership, systems that have evolved over the years and are now, despite their ineffectualities, taken for granted. The result of more than a half century of thought, observation, analysis and experimentation, Jaques' book is essential reading for academics, students, consultants, top management, and executives on the way up throughout the public and private sectors.

SYNOPSIS

Jaques argues that the power of management is often squandered due to lack of knowledge. He offers a fresh, creative approach to managerial leadership and propounds a unique system of managerial organization.

FROM THE CRITICS

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