Still Surprised: A Memoir of a Life in Leadership Hardcover - 2010

If many of our organizations have become more democratic, moreresilient, more adaptable, and more transparent, it is becauseWarren Bennis has provided much of the intellectual and ethicalfuel over the past half-century to our most influential andsuccessful leadership experts and practitioners.

Still Surprised illuminates how the world-changing ideasof Bennis and his colleagues resulted from the searing crucible oftheir own encounters, events, and experiences-- not within asterile laboratory of ideas. It demonstrates how students ofleadership are formed by what they discover about themselves onroads that are opened to them by circumstances--and by theroles they choose to carve out for themselves as a result.

The memoir begins, appropriately, with the surprise of anawkward and confused teenage Warren Bennis being prodded into hisfirst leadership position, in vicious combat during the latterstages of World War II. This child of the depression is thensurprised by the opportunity to attend college, thanks to the GIBill, at the raucous and revolutionary Antioch College. Next come anumber of breathtaking roles: working alongside some of the world'smost intriguing and celebrated figures, from Cambridge to Calcutta, to reshape organizational life; successfully putting his owntheories into practice as a university provost and president; andcoaching not only U.S. presidents and top corporate CEOs butsuccessive waves of ambitious young women and men.

This is also a memoir of our times, seen through the prism ofBennis's own development during crucial inflection points of recentdecades. His own medley of insecurity, hard work, determination toinvent a new life, and growing capacity to engage others all cameinto play amidst transformations within our society.

The art of leading well is not based on quick formulas formoving people, Bennis has noted; it flows from becoming anintegrated person, one who is able to discover and define--andredefine--oneself in the face of surprises and challenges. Theannals of modern leadership would be incomplete if our foremostauthority on leadership had not detailed his own journey ofself-discovery, as he finally does here--to the delight ofdevotees and admirers around the globe.