the rational managerial Taylorist approach and the culture excel-lence school of management typi®ed by the disciples of Peters andWaterman. We as managers, coaches, mentors; as writers, teachersand consultants; and as academics and researchers, have a materialobligation to lead our clients towards a view that leadership is acraft which is not actually reducible to the robotic adoption ofaphorisms or simplicities, or serial attention to keypoints found in atext like this.

In my (metaphorical) book, leadership is about the notion ofcreating an environment where the impossible becomes possible;about creating a culture which fosters creativity among like-mindedindividuals intent on a common purpose. Leadership is about thosecharacteristics which Peter Senge7 writes about: of nurturingpersonal mastery, of building shared vision, developing sharedmental models, enabling team work, and thinking systemically andecologically.

In my teaching I try to glimpse some of our brittle understandingsabout strategic leadership. In my three day module, the ®rst dayencourages managers to get to know themselves a little better; in thesecond day participants focus on their responsibilities and skills inthe leadership of others; and on the third day participants see howbusiness and industry leadership can be thought to be built on theissues, ideas and practice that they confront during the ®rst twodays. The three days are a mere beginning, larded with healthwarnings and resourced by references, cases and articles which,unlike this book (cf. Adair, pp. 62 et seq., pp. 92±93), avoid(fallacious) reference to military analogies and heroes as examplesand role models for business leaders to adopt.

In conclusion, I judge that our obligation as leaders should beginwith the admission to our clients that we know very little aboutleadership. Therefore, to allow our clients to presuppose that leader-ship styles can be copied, or that leadership is easy, or that `it' isreducible to a list of keypoints mugged-up from a single book havingless than 200 pages, is not only potentially misleading, but alsopotentially damaging.

Peter FranklinNottingham Business School

Trust in the Balance: Building Successful Organisations on

Results, Integrity and Concern. Robert Bruce Shaw, Jossey-Bass,San Francisco, 1997, ISBN 0-7879-0286-1, 223 pp, price £18.99(USA, $25).

There are countless books on various aspects of corporate strategy,organizational behaviour, and business performance, all purportingto offer something new to assist the busy corporate executive dis-charge his or her duties and responsibilities more effectively. What a

7Senge, P. (1990). The Fifth Discipline, Century Business, London.

Copyright # 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Strategic Change, Jan±Feb 1999

Book reviews 65

refreshing change to ®nd a text that focuses on those essentialbusiness values that are so important in driving an organization tosuccess in whatever market or industry it chooses to operate in.

According to Shaw, trust and integrity in business dealings andrelationships are a fundamental ingredient in the quest for sustain-able competitive advantage, and it is about time that corporatevalues such as these are regarded as the building blocks of respons-ible and pro-active business management. Shaw makes a compellingcase. He argues that trust, if viewed as a resource, can boost a com-pany's effectiveness, credibility and overall success in the market-place. Even though Shaw scoffs at labelling his book a `how-to-manage-manual', it is replete with many useful charts and diagramswhich I believe have real managerial guidance. The book is arrangedin such a way that a busy corporate practitioner can selectively readthose chapters that seem to offer the most help and advice. Forexample, there are sections on `strategic mistakes', `demonstratingprogress' and so on.

Be forewarned though, the book should carry a managerial healthwarning! This is not a historic breakthrough in interpersonalrelations. Shaw's `trust initiatives' mirror what the little people helddear for a long time: trust should evolve naturally if corporate leadersachieve consistent results, act with integrity (even when no one islooking) and demonstrate concern for others. In short, he hasapplied one of those long held, commonsense principles to currentbusiness models, so my recommendation is to make time availableand read this text.

Graham BeaverProfessor of Business Development,

Nottingham Business School

Copyright # 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Strategic Change, Jan±Feb 1999

66 Book reviews