Windward Leadership: Taking Your Organization into the Prevailing Winds and Political Seas

by James Ruprecht

Overview

Windward Leadership: Taking Your Organization into the Prevailing Winds and Political Seas is a field manual for leading durable change in today's political, neurotic, time-starved, and resource-poor, organizations.

A key measure of sailing performance is the degree to which you can sail into the wind-to sail to windward. A key measure of leadership performance is the degree to which you can lead organizational change-to sail your organization into the prevailing winds, often on political seas. Windward Leadership is about leadership and leading organizational change.

Leaders at all levels who aspire to more than just reducing costs, leaders who aspire to building organizations that add value and create competitive advantage, will take pages from Ruprecht's book of wisdom gleaned from his long and distinguished international career building new organizations, renovating under-performing ones, and revitalizing those that have been neglected.

With clear and sometimes provocative language, Ruprecht writes with a distinctive voice. Weaving together helpful analogies, metaphors, and good sense, Ruprecht shares his own experience and lessons learned applying the counsel of leading experts in the areas of leadership and organizational dynamics. Moving quickly from theory to pragmatic issues, Ruprecht shares key lessons, and provides concrete tools and methods for turning principle-centered leadership and team-oriented management into operational action.

Ruprecht's pragmatic approach remains unconstrained by today's conventional thinking. A manifesto for change from the middle out, Ruprecht's message is designed to open leaders' minds and steer them away from the dysfunctional habits, assumptions, and tendencies that are prevalent in today's typical organizations. It is the necessary journey, and it is one filled with both adversity and adventure.

Whatever the prevailing winds and political seas in which you sail, whatever kind of organization yours may be, no matter where your organization may be in the hierarchy, no matter how big the organization you lead may be, Windward Leadership will help you make that corner of the planet, which you have the good fortune to lead, a better place.

Product Details

BN ID:	2940156996537
Publisher:	Two Harbors Press
Publication date:	01/11/2010
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
File size:	3 MB

About the Author

Jim Ruprecht is a Fortune 250 executive and intrapreneur, a small business owner and entrepreneur, a consultant and author. He has distinctive competency in leading organizational transformations, and is a high energy consultant, coach, speaker, and facilitator, experienced working with teams from 3 to 300.

Currently a cofounder and principal consultant with agilityIRL, LLC, Jim is a pragmatic leader with strong business acumen, an entrepreneurial spirit, combined with a talent for building high performing teams, and creating competitive advantage by weaving culture, process, and technology. An inspirational leader, Jim brings a sense of adventure, diversity of thought, and a combination of creativity and experience to make a difference. He likes to push the edge of the envelope not only in what he designs and builds, but also in how it is designed and built. With quality at the heart, whatever Jim designs and builds is done in ways that are honorable, fun, and produce results in which the craftsman can take pride, and the customer will exclaim, “Cool!”

Although Jim's Degree is in Quantitative Methods/Operations Research, his career has been one of leading increasingly challenging transformations—building new organizations, renovating under-performing ones, and revitalizing neglected ones. Most of Jim's career has been spent leading technology organizations at an eclectic variety of large and small, centralized and decentralized, and public and private firms, during economic conditions ranging from times of dramatic growth to times of dramatic cost and competitive pressure. He also has extensive international experience having led teams in Europe and the Far East.

Jim was fortunate to be honored with Cowles Media President's Award while at the Star Tribune newspaper, and at Medtronic was honored with their highest award for leadership, the Win Wallin Leadership Award. He shares his experience by serving on the boards of several small organizations, through articles and speaking engagements, consulting engagements, as a mentor in the various organizations at which he worked, and in the Mentiuum Minnesota 100 mentoring program.

Jim is the father of two daughters, and his therapist is Dr. Harley Davidson.

Editorial Reviews

What others promise Ruprecht actually delivers--an insightful, strategic yet pragmatic approach for changing your organization to create competitive advantage.

Michael Boylan

Told through the lens of Jim's own experience, the book is a collection of time tested theories and practical methods explained with terrific quotes, entertaining stories, and theoretical frameworks.

Dave Marver

Here is a leader who has been in the trenches and shares what works and what doesn't. Ruprecht's approach to getting things done is honest and straightforward. Windward Leadership is food for the thoughtful leader, written with great style about making things better for the organization and all stakeholders by how one leads and serves.

Dr. Bowen White, M.D.

Windward Leadership is a thoughtful, pragmatic, sometimes irreverent look at what it takes to successfully lead an organization through change. Ruprecht has synthesized leading organizational theories and thinking from his experience implementing them. He demonstrates what it takes to be successful, and not from a lofty theoretical perspective, but from someone who's been there and lived it.

Kim Albee

Drawn from his years of hands-on experience, Ruprecht brings his pragmatic approach to leadership of business and technologies. He is experienced with a broad range of businesses from new ventures through Fortune 100s. He is an inspiring leader, and has successfully nurtured organizations from introverted, mediocre performers to highly energized, business engaging, consultative, service-driven contributors.

Rick Strahl