Editorial Review:
A leader is: someone people follow. But why do people follow? Books abound on leaders, but much less is known about followers. In The Leaders We Need, Maccoby steps into this yawning gap in the literature.
This insightful book shows that followers have their own powerful motivations to follow. Many relate to their leader as to some important person from the past—a parent, a sibling, a close friend. With major shifts in family structure and other social changes (especially transformations in technology and work life), these “transferences” have grown complex—making leaders’ work more challenging.
The key for modern-day leaders? Being sensitive to how a group’s collective psychology and social context shape its leadership needs. For example, factory workers in a large city during a period of relative calm would need very different leaders than people working in a star management consultancy during a time of stiffening competition. The author outlines the profound shift from a more bureaucratic society and leadership model to an interactive, collaborative one—and provides crucial advice on how to become a “leader we need.”
Offering provocative psychological insight and thoughtful analysis of social and cultural changes, this book examines leadership through an entirely new lens.
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Customer Reviews
Average Customer Rating: 
A very good reference in leadership literature  2008-03-11
When I started to read this book I got engaged inmediately, it has a fresh language that make us think about what leadership means since the first chapter, several examples and concise quotes let us create our own idea of what the people need from a leader, what they are looking for and why they follow certain people in differente circumstances, a must read in this knowledge age.
A Contrarian 2007-12-14
I have been reading Maccoby's work for years. He is very thoughtful in his approach and willing to call life as he sees it through a trained lense of keen observation. I find the book refreshing because he looks at leadership from a much richer and deeper perspective than most other writers on the subject. For instance, his work on narcissistic leadership challenges many of the cherished notions held by Jim Collins and others. I get tired of those who extol "goodie goodie" leaders as the norm. Maccoby helped me understand the different leadership types who are out there and how I need to think both about those I want to follow and about those I hope will follow yours truly.
If you want a five step approach, then the book is not for you. If you want to be challenged to think and evaluate both yourself and your own organization, then I think you will really enjoy the book.
Significant and practical 2007-12-12
We need Michael Maccoby's insights about leaders and our world today to follow or become The Leaders We Need. People don't want to be managed by autocratic father figures, though they will follow and better yet, collaborate with, the right kind of leader. This book is trenchant and practical.
Disclaimer: Michael Maccoby and I have worked together for 35 years. For some this might imply a lack of objectivity. For others, this qualifies a reviewer who knows his subject. You are free to make up your own mind.
Dr. Maccoby's insights are based on over 45 years of research (for example, with Erich Fromm in Mexico), teaching (Harvard, Chicago, Oxford, the Brookings Institution), consulting (IBM, AT&T, World Bank, ABB, etc.), and writing. He facilitated a national health care coalition, and directed a foundation-funded research project on exemplary health care systems. He advises diverse leaders and organizations, being trusted by both corporate and union leaders. He is a fellow of the American Psychological and Anthropological Associations, a psychologist, psychoanalyst, and anthropologist.
The Leaders We Need And What Makes Us Follow provides many examples of leaders and their organizations from this rich body of work. It is his most comprehensive book, giving readers the fruits of his productive lifetime in what might be called a grand integrated theory. His wisdom is useful for those who would lead in any way or at any level of an organization, or for understanding leaders we may choose to follow.
He raises the question why none of the existing authors on leadership give a convincing definition of leadership. Many describe leadership traits, others define their ideal leader. Maccoby's definition of a leader is deceptively simple: a leader is a person others follow.
Since both Hitler and Gandhi were people others followed, Maccoby asks: why and how do people follow a leader? Winston Churchill, a great wartime leader, was rejected by voters both before and after the war. Different contexts require different leaders.
Maccoby understands leaders in their historical context, relationship to followers, and results sought. Personality is also important. The most effective leaders will develop their Personality Intelligence, a combination of conceptual and emotional understanding, head and heart.
At the national level, we need leaders who can respond to a world aflame with fundamentalist ideologies, the global ecological crisis, and an increasing percentage of the world facing inadequate food, water, shelter, health. At the organizational level, we need leaders who can organize and inspire knowledge workers in healthcare organizations, schools, and innovative global companies. Traditional bureaucratic managers who built great corporations and government agencies of the industrial era lack the personality and understanding needed to engage a new social character, raised in dual career families rather than the paternalistic families of the past.
The new interactive social character is composed of free agents motivated by continual learning, teamwork, transparency, participation and above all, meaningful purpose. If led as collaborators they are a source of ideas, energy, and solutions. But they are turned off by rules and carrot and stick-based managers. Maccoby describes the changing attitudes of the interactives who don't idealize father figures; and the various kinds of intelligence needed to lead today.
Maccoby writes that leaders need foresight and systems thinking, and he models it. He describes leaders who are resolving today's challenges: transforming health care; creating schools that educate poor minority students who go on to college; an orphanage run on humanitarian principles where graduates lead the organization in eight countries. Maccoby shows that in the most effective knowledge creating organization, different leadership roles-- strategic, operational, and networking-- work together, and that these roles are best filled by different personality types. In "The President We Need" chapter we gain understanding to help us predict how candidates will act once elected. This book is a significant contribution, useful for would-be leaders and followers.
A study of leadership that puts followers, social change, personality type and public policy in context. 2007-12-07
Anthropologist and psychoanalyst Michael Maccoby has been writing about leadership for more than three decades. Here he ventures an argument with an unusual perspective for managerial literature. His fundamental thesis is that changing times demand a leadership model that leaves the industrial, bureaucratic era behind. He explains that new family structures and contemporary ways of working - especially knowledge work - have created a different kind of follower. Maccoby calls these workers "Interactives" and explains their demands in psychological terms. His emphasis on "Personality Intelligence," collaboration and teamwork is not really new, but his explanation of why these factors matter and what impact they have upon public policy is striking. We find his willingness to tackle big leadership challenges - health-care policy, education and even the U.S. presidency - fresh and thought-provoking.
Michael Maccoby batting a thousand! 2007-11-07
Dr. Michael Maccoby continues to dominate the leadership arena, with his latest book being relevant to today's leaders and followers alike. His book provides insights not found in other books on leadership.
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