And Dignity for All: Unlocking Greatness with Values-Based Leadership

Jim Despain and Jane Converse   With a Foreword by Ken Blanchard

Retail Price: $24.95 LS Price: $18.70 You Save: $6.25 (25%) Availability: Usually ships within 24 hours. Format: Paperback, 224pp. ISBN: 9780131005327 Publisher: Financial Times Prentice Hall Pub. Date: February 2003 Average Customer Review:

Order This Book!   Secure Order Guarantee Item No: 9780131005327

I am not your typical senior executive. I don't have an MBA. I wasn't born with a silver spoon in my mouth. No, this is the story of someone with an unlikely resume for success. I was married when I was 16. I didn't go to college. What I learned, I learned on the job.I watched and I listened. I read and I asked. I tried and I failed. I learned and tried again.

This book is the story of a lifetime of experiences and the lessons I learned that enabled me to become a true leader of people. I began my career as a sweeper in a factory that makes the largest earth moving equipment in the world. I ended it at the same company—a vice president of a $20 trillion corporation. This story includes how we transformed a factory and an entire division into highly profitable leaders in our corporation and industry. It tells you how to do the same in whatever business you find yourself.

In the end, through my own experiences, achievements, and struggles, I discovered that values, defined as shared beliefs with standards for behavior in the workplace, are the key to succeeding in changing and challenging times. These values aren't a moralistic code based on personal or company ethics, although ethics are integral. Instead, they are a blueprint for creating a work environment that drives success because they provide people a context for their decisions, broad boundaries for their ideas, and more freedom to make a difference.

And what a difference people with values can make. The Track-Type Tractors Division of Caterpillar Inc. saw unprecedented improvement—improvement in everything from profit to employee satisfaction. And we did this without extraordinary capital investment, forced "right-sizing," product replacements or additions, new marketing strategies, or any other traditional idea. By establishing workplace values, we caused employees to feel an investment in the organization. We inspired rather than constrained and, in the process, created a high-performance organization.

This book is the story of the transformation of a man and the transformation of a business. Its purpose is to enable you to become a more effective leader and to shorten your journey by telling you what took me a lifetime to learn—that true leadership is very different from management. Leadership is about others and not about self. It is about trust and not about power. It is about producing results by creating cultures where people know it's okay to be unique and different, so they willingly take off their masks, express themselves, and do great things. Their clash of opposing ideas generates sparks that light the path to progress. My hope is that this book and my story will help unlock greatness for you. —Jim Despain

Excerpted from And Dignity for All: Unlocking Greatness with Values-Based Leadership by Jim Despain, Jane Converse, Ken Blanchard, James E. Despain. Copyright © 2003. Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.


Find Items On Similar Subjects
The Cycle of Leadership: How Great Leaders Teach Their Companies to Win