ORGANIZATIONAL BEHAVIOUR

AND LEADERSHIP
BOOK REVIEW
LEADING QUITELY
BY JOSEPH L. BADARACCO, JR.

STUDENT NAME : FAHAD ALI

ERP # 10598
Date: 7-09-2015

The author rightly pointed that leaders are realistic. They are aware of the fact
that world is full of people with different attributes. A person in this world can
be a monkey and leopard at same time, these words are said by Colonel
Aljaron Durand ,who was the in charge of Northern Areas during British Era.
Personalities of the people varied by the way of their up bringing but good
leaders always know this basic fact. He know how far an idealism can be
achieved where to stop to accept the reality facts.
Let discuss here the example of Ms Olson ,she was hired as the CEO of St.
Clements Hospital .Although some of the Board members are not in the favor
of Ms Olson but after a good deal of debate, they come to consensus of hiring
her. She was energetic and can bring the hospital to the path of prosperity as
hospital faces many problems like declining medical facilities, high turnover
ratio etc.
An important issue she immediately faces after her hiring was of Mr. Miller.
He is a tough man and having 25 years of experience with the hospital. He is
also most favorite candidate for CEO but the board hired Ms Olson. The issue
is that Mr. Miller is accused of harassment charges by one of the employee of
hospital and accuser might go to state employment agency. This will result in a
big scandal for the hospital whose reputation is going down as well .Ms Olson
has qualities of good leader; she took her time to analyze the problem and
divide it into small steps.
She consults with lawyers many times and also discusses her approach with
board members personally. She also take into account the 25 years long
association of Miller with hospital but there should be an example be set
regarding the harassment charges. Therefore she decided to ask Miller for his
resignation instead of quick termination of his job. And this theory of Olson
works very well.
She also recognizes that there are two types of employees in any organization,
one who are insiders and second who are expendables. To become an
insider in any company is not an easy task as it takes a lot of skills and
consistency. If we consider younger organizations the insiders provide
benefits to company in many ways while they are the likeable to get to
the top positions.
As I understand from the saying of famous American president Eisenhower is
that you should build plans but you cant trust on them. There is always
a chance that these plans might not work.
The trust is the factor that alters ones life, as too much trust is dangerous too
little is damaging as well. We have a fair line between the two. Olson
when started the job, she has not able to gain the trust of all the board
members at once ,it take time. But in the mean while she has to develop
such strategy that will guarantee the appropriate solution of Millers
issue. Some people take reality as an excuse, thats not right thing to do,

although it is very easy. According to author you should have to fight the
situation but step by step approach is always rewarding.
The quite leaders not only care for other people but they protect their interests
as well. Being a quite leader is a long term task, one has to be very very
consistent to achieve this. This path is not thrilled by the chanting of mass
crowd. There should be some personal motive involve in all this exercise as we
know a human being has desires and has lot of desires. Always do work for the
well being of others is not practical especially in the long run. Many people
starts very enthusiastically but later they lost their energies as they not find the
inner satisfaction.
The author quote the example of Mr. Cortez, he is a sales rep at pharmaceutical
firm .Firm sales a medicine that is primarily for depression treatment but
there are other uses as well like weight reduction, smoking treatment
etc. But the important fact is that these other uses are not approved by
the drug authorities. As the sales of medicine go down overtime, the
company orally encouraged their sales rep to promote the other uses, but
they not give them any thing in writing. Author writes that this situation
is very demanding from Mr. Cortez as he not want to lose his sales on
the other hand he also not want that any patient in his territory die from
the over use of this drug. If this happens he might caught in an illegal act
and in that case company will not stands not behind him.
So what should Mr. Cortez do, he act by force which comes from his inner self.
First he stop recommending doctors on the other uses of this drug,
secondly he inform his manager about his concerns. And this approach
works very well for him. Author also mentions that are able to
differentiate between your initial thinking and true feelings. True
feelings lead you when the initial enthusiasm about the subject comes to
an end.
Author repeatedly narrated the fact that Mr. Cortezs mixed motives are the
major reasons that enables him to take right decision. If he goes to
government and un load all the details, govt. may do a little but at large
they cant be able to sue company because company leaves no paper
trail. On the other hand if he just left the issue as it is, he will be
regarded as insane and immoral. He do best thing, he act on his moral
caution as well as not hurt his career.
Author describes the case of Ms. Jefferson very effectively by starting the topic
with the example of ten headed snake. Generally people believe that if a
person has only one, unique thought I mind, then he will be able to
tackle the problem successfully. But this theory not works always as we
not have to decide between true and false in this real world. Instead we
have man trues and many false. In such a condition many thoughts in a
single mind can effectively solve the problem. As author mentioned
Alice has some real problems at home that affect her performance at the

company so Vice President wants Jefferson to fire her. But she take her
team and analyze the situation from both aspects ,personal as well as
ethical.
She wants an advance in his job but also feels the problem the Alice is facing
,so she decided to re design her job. By doing this she achieve two
things ,one Alice has a balance work-home relation, second it give a
message to other team members that their new manager is very caring
and not fire any one without knowing the facts.
Author summarizes the discussion in four points. Firstly discuss your motives
with someone else, as it give you clear picture of yourself. Second,
making a base of your complex motive dont think that you are not
eligible of a leadership role. Third, have trust in yourself and last,
always take some time in before jump in to the solution of any ethical
problem. Relate this to your inner feeling that you really care for it. If
you pass this test then go ahead.
It is very important to buy time in case of any urgent problem. Life is full of
complexities and there are many factors which have to be considered. If
any person take decision in hurry ,he would get into trouble in the
future. By giving the examples of Willey and William author emphasis
on the importance of buying time in tough conditions. Willey receive an
email from senior that she will not be attending an email as it would be
in appropriate for him to take the female at meeting. She get very
furious and emotions occupied her but soon she realizes that this not
going to work. She calmly go to his senior and registered her complain
in nice tone with careful selection of words .After that he use another
imaginary meeting as excuse and leave the office. This strategy is know
as quick fixes where your single act enable you to buy some more time.
There are many modes of communication, like emails, voice mail, face to face
meetings. A manager should choose wisely from this list depending on
the situation. For buying time the selection of right communication
channel is critical. As author mentioned that in the case of Williams ,if
he wants to fire a loan officer ,there will be huge consequences on ,local
customers. On the other hand Janet removal from office takes a good
deal of time on behalf of legal requirements. Therefore William need a
lot more time for solving these problems as well as he need to assure his
seniors regarding branchs performance. He can use creative accounting
for this purpose as top management mostly believe in numbers of
revenue and cost.
As his boss thinks that by cutting the cost they will make the branch more
profitable, this will not going to help in the opinion of William. By
taking some time he also provide a chance to his boss to reconsider the
thought of cutting costs. Also in the meantime he will develop a new
strategy that will make the branch profitable. Author rightly mentioned

that these tactics are helpful as well as disastrous at same time s

choosing the right tactic is an art that a manger should have

Author brought here the term Political Capital, it is the capital that quite
leaders earned very hardly and they didnt want to loose this. They know
what are the right things and how to apply right things at right time.
They not want to be an hero instead they want to achieve a goal through
consistent policy. May some one says that being only ethical is only
right decision but real world is very different from this. To say such a
thing is quite easy but applying in real world is much more difficult.
The example of Matthews is very accurate for the understanding of political
capital. She is company commander in the Air borne Cops. The supply
room area under her command is not in proper shape as the supply
sergeant is inexperience and also he has some personal issues. Matthews
is very worried as annual inspection will be carried out days later. She
spent lot of hours in supply room area to get it in order. On the
inspection day she is very astonished when she see the result of
inspection because the inspectors give her the Perfect score for supply
room area. She is unable to accept thesis as she knows the reality of
area. This attitude of inspectors is also very critical because they belong
to rapid deployment force and in case of emergency any problem in that
area can cause a disaster. She is stuck between two options first ignore
the duty requirements and be happy with the score. Second, act
according to her instinct and tell IG, the truth. She chooses the second
option and she found that IG is very happy with her honesty and also her
not to re inspect if she get the area in order by herself. So we learn that
being truthful is also a quality of quiet leader.
Author asked three basic questions regarding political capital. Number one ,
how much political capital you have ,this is depend on two things
reputation and relationships and this depends on the situations. Second,
how much one should risk, this is a tricky question as risking a large
amount instead of small one can be disastrous. The third and last
questions is what reward are we getting from having that risk, again this
vary case to case but it should be sufficient to enough to cover the risk
otherwise this will a loss deal. For every situation a person face in his
life there lies some risk that should be calculated. Some people might
say that by doing so a leader can become an accounts manager but thats
not right. Courage should be accompanied with wisdom. An act based
on just courage might keep you away from your goal. First you have to
calculate the risk and reward as well then compare that whether reward
is enough to cater that risk. After this comparison you have clear picture
for doing a right decision.

Being a wrong or right is not enough; quite leader should have mix of those
qualities which lead him to right decision. At the other hand he should
be determinant and wise enough to select the right thing at right time.
The world today is very much different from the world before 20 or 30 years
ago. Today the world is much more complicated and infused with different
problems that one might imagine 30 years ago. Author quoted the example of
computer privacy which 20 years ago unknown to most corporations. So the
world is changing and ethics too. That dose not means that moral values are
changing but the method to apply these value differ to very large extent from
the methods used earlier.
The important quality of quite leader is that they follow the rules but if any
situation come, that required to bend the rule, quite leaders bend it. Here
the meaning of bending is not synonym with breaking. It all depends on
the situation, a person might say that breaking a rule is sin but there are
some situations in life where people have to bend them in order to get
the right thing. Author discusses the example of Nick Russo ,who is an
investment banker and a volunteer at Aims center. This center help
young teenagers and give them shelter, food. There is a rule not to reach
distracted teenagers with out supervisors and anyone who break the rule
will be fired. The reason for this rule is that might a volunteer involve in
drug dealing or abuse a teenager. The consequences of such an act are
tremendous regarding funding and recruitment of center. On one
evening Ross find a boy named Jerome who is aged about 11 and is

lonely on the street. Russo first try to keep himself away from that boy as not to
break the rule but after sometime he managed to bend the rule. He offer
boy a shelter at center and also try to convince him but boy not agreed.
The streets of that area of New York are full of dangerous and a lonely
boy could easily be victimized by any person there.
Any other person instead of Nick would easily ignore Jerome because he want
to obey the rule but Nick ha the quality of quite leader. He knows how to
keep the balance between bending and breaking as the consequences of
breaking are much more higher. As we read previously in the cases that
there are consequences of money but here in this case there are
consequences of life and death. Jerome might became the victim of any
mentally retarded person as they are many in that area

The book offers a great deal of information on the qualities of quite leadership.
The way of writing is also very unique and illustrious as writer give
numerous examples and relate them with the theory. One might get nice
pack of knowledge after reading it .The content of this book can be
easily applied in our lifesI suggest every student should read this
book ,it will guide them through out their career.