Catalytic Leadership Book Review

In his book Catalytic Leadership: Strategies for an Interconnected World Luke tries to answer his question about, "How to provide effective leadership to address interconnected problems with a reduction in fiscal resources, a lack of consensus on options, and involvement of many diverse, independent minded stakeholders?”. Luke talks about the most prominent feature that distinguishes the new era from the past is that today the world truly is interconnected. Luke gives the reader a detailed description of what is required for public leaders to become successful change agents, and how they can be successful.

Part 1: The Challenge Facing Public Leaders

This is where Luke discusses how interconnected public problems are and that because of this nature a quick fix is almost never possible. Because public policy problems have grown in size and complexity, it is no possible for a single policy maker, organization or agency to properly address them. Trying to address theses issues in the traditional leadership styles that include hierarchical structures will be inadequate because they are not easily transferrable …show more content…
First he says catalytic leaders need to not only be able to recognize the interconnectedness of everything but also be able to identify the important leverage points among systems. Furthermore, to be able to clearly distinguish between means and ends. The next skill would be the ability to facilitate, negotiate and mediate. This skill set would be especially helpful when working with groups with conflicting goals and ideas and be able to come up with ideas and make agreements. Finally the third skill is more of a quality and Luke says that character is the key to success in public leadership. He says that character that can be found in the passions for results, the ability to sense the related nature of things and also