The Unfinished Leader: Balancing Contradictory Answers To Unsolvable Problems

"A leader's work is never done--not only because of long to-do lists and frequent meetings, but because every leader must confront complex dilemmas that don't have easy answers, and in fact may not have any right answer at all. In business, as in life, the most perplexing issues aren't like math problems with a single solution. They are paradoxes: situations in which there will never be a single right answer, and they will be familiar to anyone in a leadership role. Should your company prioritize long-term investments, or short-term profitability? Will your incenitive plan measure and reward the performance of individuals, or teams? How can you devote enough time and energy to both your family and your coworkers? The Unfinished Leader is a guide for managing through paradoxes like these to ensure success across the organization. Leaders must first learn to recognize the problems they won't be able to solve, and confront the obstacles--in their own heads and in the organizations where they work--that will push them (wrongly) towards finding single solutions that don't exist. Then, they must develop the mindsets and skills that enable them to balance contradictory directions, fulfill competing demands, and adapt their approach over time. Based on over 30 years of consulting work with senior executives, as well as a series of exclusive interviews with 100 CEOs and top leaders in a wide range of companies about the paradoxes they face, The Unfinished Leader provides tested advice. The authors include vivid stories highlighting leaders and the real-world challenges they've faced at organizations such as Avon, Nike, Colgate, DeutschePost DHL, Johnson & Johnson, and many more.No one can, or should, look for perfect solutions to impossible solutions. The Unfinished Leader will help leaders at all levels understand that their true task is to guide themselves and their teams through impossible-seeming, ongoing situations--and, by reconciling competing outcomes, drive lasting success for themselves and their teams"--

David L. Dotlich is chairman and CEO of Pivot Leadership, one of the world’s largest providers of customized executive development for top leaders of Fortune 500 companies, including Walmart, Johnson & Johnson, GSK, Nike, Microsoft, Ericsson, Aetna, Kimberly-Clark, KKR, Deutsche Post DHL, AbbVie, and many others. He is a successful entrepreneur who has started multiple companies and is a former executive vice president of Honeywell International. He is coauthor of eleven books, among them Head, Heart, and Guts and Why CEOs Fail. He lives in Portland, Oregon, and New York City.

Peter C. Cairo is a consultant who advises CEOs and boards at companies such as BlackRock, Colgate-Palmolive, GSK, Avon Products, ITW, PepsiCo, Thomson Reuters, Interpublic Group, KPMG, Boehringer Ingelheim, and the Carlyle Group. A noted author and speaker, he is coauthor of six books, among them Head, Heart, and Guts and Why CEOs Fail. He lives in upstate New York.

Cade Cowan is the head of Pivot Leadership’s global Leadership Practice and has led programs in thirty-one countries on five continents with firms ranging from Walmart to GlaxoSmithKline to Aetna. He was director of all global learning for Coca-Cola University, Bottling Investments Group (BIG), and program director at GE’s Crotonville. He lives in Atlanta, Georgia.

For more information, please visit pivotleadership.com