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 to the interconnected setting of these problems. He suggests that a new style of leadership, a catalytic leadership style where leaders promote the creation of working groups and networks to develop various different strategies for addressing problems is what we need. He says that public leaders should become agents that promote and build collective actions from various organizations and people with different points of view and goals. He points out that no single agency or sector can effective address todays public policy problems. Part Two: The Catalytic Tasks of Public Leadership Part two discusses the necessary steps toward successful public leadership. The first thing Luke says must happen is to raise public awareness to frame the policy issue because he says we need to recognize that public policy problems are a result of social constructions. As a result, public leaders have an impact on who will respond to and participate in the resolution of the problem how quickly the problem will be dealt with guide the development of potential solutions Next, Luke says is the developing working groups using the solution advocacy approach. He explains how to choose participants, how many to chose, and how to promote and maintain group commitment. The last thing luke syays that needs to happen is to develop strategies. Luke 's remind the reader that because this process cannot be scripted and controlled the outcome can never be known for certain. This is the reason he says that public leaders must first establish a agreement on desired outcomes and this will allow for group commitment. When this …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