"The Cult of the Leader" wins the CMI Management Book of the Year award

7 February 2012

Controversial book offers a bitter pill to remedy the culture of super-ego leaders

‘The Cult of the Leader’, written by Christopher Bones, was named last night as the CMI Management Book of the Year 2011/ 2012, at an awards ceremony hosted by the British Library. Bones’ book won the competition from a field of 154 entries, triumphing over a shortlist of 25 prolific business and management authors. The book was the unanimous winner chosen by five high profile judges including Sir Anthony Cleaver, Dame Mary Marsh and Professor Cary Cooper.

‘The Cult of The Leader’ (Wiley, £18:99) demonstrates the argument that businesses have been dragged into a talent war, where we pay an ever-larger share of hard-won revenue to a handful of senior executives. Bones describes this generation of ego-driven leaders as the “L’Oreal generation”. Put simply, they think they deserve large pay cheques “because they’re worth it”.

The book sets out a timely ‘manifesto for more authentic business’ – a provocative programme for radical reform of the way business leaders are educated, selected and rewarded. This includes taking a more realistic attitude to the value of MBAs, promoting more internal candidates, removing unnecessary benefits, abolishing share options and introducing stricter expenses regimes. The issue also goes deeper than our CEOs and Bones attaches blame to business schools, HR departments and boards as contributing to the issue.

The judges, which included senior business leaders, were all in agreement that although the book made for uncomfortable reading at times and that its recommendations are likely to be resisted; yet agreed that ‘The Cult of the Leader’ was the undisputed winner and was truly the best management book of 2011.

Sir Anthony Cleaver, Chairman of Novia Financial plc and the Caithness & North Sutherland Regeneration Partnership, and one of the competition judges said: “ ‘The Cult of the Leader’ stood out for me, as it is so relevant in the current climate and its analysis of the underlying causes of our today’s economic issues is the best I have seen. There can be very few, if any, businesses which would not benefit from taking a steer from its recommendations and implementing the most relevant. This book should also be read by anyone wanting to help plot society’s way forward and should be mandatory reading for our politicians.”

The Management Book of the Year competition is run by the Chartered Management Institute (CMI) in association with the British Library. The competition seeks to uncover the UK’s best books on management and leadership and raise the profile of the great management writing published in the UK.

Christopher Bones is the first British winner of the competition as the inaugural competition was won by Canadian Henry Mintzberg. Bones is currently Professor of Creativity & Leadership at Manchester Business School and a Partner of Good Growth Ltd. He is a former director of Cadbury-Schweppes and also a Dean Emeritus of the Henley Business School.

Christopher Kinsella FCMI , Acting Chief Executive at CMI said: “In this fast paced and stressful economic climate, it is vital that managers and leaders take a step back from their day to day role and expose themselves to new ideas and innovative thinking. This rationale is at the heart of the CMI Management Book of the Year competition. A culture of bad management is damaging UK business and must be addressed and books like Christopher Bones’ can provide a real tonic for modern business and provocative thought leadership for today’s managers.”

Simon Bell, Head of Strategic Partnerships and Licensing, British Library commented: “The British Library recognises the role that management business books can play in the career of today’s professional. Our Management and Business Studies Portal - http://www.mbsportal.bl.uk/ provides a one-stop-shop to everyone who is interested in developing their business skills. The Library is proud to work with the CMI on these awards and the standard of entries this year reflects, once again the growing market and interest in this publishing sector.”

Other category winners from the night included James Reed, Chairman of recruitment specialist REED and author of ‘Put your mindset to work’ who won the Best Commuter’s Read. Mick Blowfield and Alan Murray, authors of ‘Corporate Responsibility’, Shaun Smith and Andy Milligan, authors of ‘Bold: how to be brave in business and win’, and Jeff Dyer et al, authors of ‘The innovator's DNA’, were also named as winners in their respective categories: Management and Leadership Textbook, eBook and Innovation and Entrepreneurship.

The Management Book of the Year competition, which is now in its second year, was created in response to research that showed employees are unwilling to turn to their bosses for help when they need it at work and struggle to find useful, practical books to help them develop professionally. CMI and the British Library want to identify and publicise the books that all managers and leaders should be reading if they are to get ahead in their careers and help the organisations they work for succeed in the current climate.

Find out what you should be reading to enhance your career at www.managementbookoftheyear.org.uk

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