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Leadership Is Half The Story

A Fresh Look at Followership, Leadership, and Collaboration

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Pub Date Feb 17 2015 | Archive Date Feb 22 2015

Description

Can you imagine a choreographer training only one dancer to lead while his or her partner sits in the lobby staring at the wall? Unthinkable? Yet this happens all the time in organizations. Half the partnership is missing.

In Leadership Is Half the Story, Marc and Samantha Hurwitz introduce the first model to seamlessly integrate leadership, followership, and partnerships. This research-backed, field-tested book offers a host of new ideas and practical advice for everyone in an organization – from CEO to HR director to front-line manager to consultant.

All of us lead, not just those with the formal title. All of us follow, not just front-line staff. In great collaborations, one moment we are leading and then we flip to following; in other words, leadership and followership are dynamic, context-specific, and ever-evolving. This empowering perspective opens up leadership to everyone, normalizes followership, and enables more productive and innovative collaborations. Candid discussions about both roles allow for better coaching, mentoring, skill development, and interpersonal agility that results in stronger teams.

MARC HURWITZ is co-founder and Chief Insight Officer of FliPskills. He holds a PhD in cognitive neuroscience, an MBA, and an MSc in physics and in math, and has with many years of corporate, executive, and entrepreneurial experience in various areas. He is on the faculty of the Conrad Centre for Business, Entrepreneurship and Technology at the University of Waterloo.

SAMANTHA HURWITZ, CPA CMA CHRL, is co-founder and Chief Encouragement Officer of FliPskills. She is a leadership and followership coach, consultant, trainer, and writer with twenty-five years of corporate and entrepreneurial experience, including nine at the executive level: controller of a $6 billion per year organization; IT executive with a $50 million project portfolio; and Chair of a Strategic Talent Management Program.

Can you imagine a choreographer training only one dancer to lead while his or her partner sits in the lobby staring at the wall? Unthinkable? Yet this happens all the time in organizations. Half the...


Advance Praise

“This book practically glows with energy and vision! In highly accessible, entertaining portions Sam and Marc Hurwitz have presented us with a forward thinking, prescient guide to success in business in today’s unpredictable market. Build agile, innovative, efficient teams in your organization today for greater success tomorrow!”

Marshall Goldsmith, top-ranked executive coach; Thinkers 50 Top Ten Global Business Thinker; author or editor of 34 books including the global bestsellers MOJO and What Got You Here Won’t Get You There

“Samantha and Marc Hurwitz have made leadership whole. Teams need great leaders as well as great followers.”

Razor Suleman, Founder and Chief Achiever, Achievers, Inc.

“In this timely and refreshingly quirky book, ‘Team Hurwitz’ models great leadership and followership to powerful effect. There is plenty to excite the imagination and to experiment with in our quest to create the generative partnerships that we desire, and know we are capable of, but can rarely sustain in an increasingly contingent workplace.”

Brad Jackson, Head of School of Government, Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand

“In this remarkable book, Samantha and Marc Hurwitz radically challenge the conventional wisdom on leadership. Leaders aren’t more important than followers, they say. To innovate fast, leaders and followers must be equal partners – together creating co-flow. Leadership Is Half the Story is essential reading for anyone who wants to know how companies, organizations, and governments can adapt, innovate, and thrive in a rapidly changing and increasingly complex world.”

Thomas Homer-Dixon, Chair of Global Systems, Balsillie School of International Affairs; author, The Ingenuity Gap and The Upside of Down

“Marc and Samantha Hurwitz are making the next important development in leadership and followership studies – weaving the behaviors of the leader and follower roles into a collaborative relationship that drives effective teams and organizations. This integrative approach will be of great interest to performance at both ends of the leader-follower dynamic.”
Ira Chaleff, author, The Courageous Follower

“This book is wise and entertaining. It blends research, theory, and fascinating stories from practice that can help us all to become better leaders – and followers. It is a book to read, and then read again.”
Dennis Tourish, Professor of Leadership and Organisation Studies, Royal Holloway, University of London; author, The Dark Side of Transformational Leadership


“Wow! I have never come across a book on organizational truths that combines such deep knowledge of and respect for empirical evidence, and the capacity to explain it well, with absolutely practical, hands-on tools.”

Linda J. Page, President and Founder, Adler Graduate Professional School, Toronto; co-author with David Rock, Coaching with the Brain in Mind

“By bringing the discipline of followership up to equal status with leadership, Marc and Sam introduce a new lens through which we can all re-evaluate ourselves and our performance. More than just a great read, this book is full of great tips and powerful inspirations for any business leader today. Practical, purposeful, and delivered with passion. Well done!”

Ken Whyte, President, Quarry Integrated Communications

“If you are committed to unleashing the performance of others, this book is a must read. Packed with insight, it has fundamentally shifted my approach to teaching leadership, career planning, and driving performance.”

Andrew Martin, Vice President Human Resources, Joey Restaurant Group

“What a gift! This book fills a void that needed filling in the discussion about leadership. And it is done with solid research and practical application.”

Barry Johnson, author, Polarity Management

Leadership Is Half the Story is anything but the usual self-help or how-to book. The reader has a choice to make in embracing the balanced principles of leadership and followership. If he or she does, we will see an emerging world of business leaders with a growing mastery in building and maintaining an altogether happier and more fulfilling workplace for everyone involved.”
Bill McLean, Chief Operating Officer and Executive Coaching Practice Leader, Optimum Talent Inc.

“Samantha and Marc Hurwitz truly understand the essence of happy and productive organizations. Leadership Is Half the Story is a very important book and an easy read, and it contributes to our knowledge in a kind of fresh, creative way that I have not experienced in similar publications the past number of years. The way that the authors unpack leadership-followership made so much sense and sets this book apart.”

Kobus Neethling, President, South African Creativity Foundation; international best-selling author of more than 90 books

“Sam and Marc have a novel and magic recipe to help us chart our course as we transition from a green intern to the CEO.”
James McAnanama, Senior Engineer, L-3 Wescam


“At last a balanced view! Leadership Is Half the Story is substantive but not stuffy, with wonderful use of examples from other disciplines and life experiences. Who knew that stickleback fish and 30 Rock could appear in the same work?”

Dr. Liz Monroe-Cook, Clinical Psychologist and President, Monroe-Cook & Associates (Chicago)

“It is refreshing to see a book that draws on numerous practical examples to illustrate the mutuality of the leader/follower relationship in a business context, and the roles and responsibilities that lay the foundation for the types of fruitful partnerships that are critical to agile organizations.”

Ian Hendry, Managing Partner, Karian & Associates; President, Strategic Capability Network

“I enjoyed and got personal benefit from this book! It would be a very good book to purchase for a mentee, or for a member of one’s staff who is moving up to a leadership level. This is an excellent coaching tool to be used in any leadership development program.”
Janet Pierce, Vice President Education, Certified General Accountants of Ontario

“Samantha and Marc have done an excellent job of weaving together their personal stories, the concepts of leadership and followership that underpin their work, and cases that illustrate how these concepts apply in the real world.”
Robert W. Jacobs, author, Real Time Strategic Change

Leadership Is Half the Story is a breath of fresh air. In this very readable book, Samantha and Marc Hurwitz introduce dozens of innovative and useful insights about the dynamics of effective leadership and followership. But it delivers much more than just theory. It offers practical tips, exercises, and methods for implementing more productive, more creative, and more rewarding collaboration skills. I’ve read hundreds of business books. Most are rehashes. This is a game-changer.”
Tim Hurson, author of the global bestseller Think Better and co-author Never Be Closing

“This book practically glows with energy and vision! In highly accessible, entertaining portions Sam and Marc Hurwitz have presented us with a forward thinking, prescient guide to success in...


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