We’d like to send you a copy of CRUCIBLES OF LEADERSHIP – How to Learn from Experience to Become a Great Leader (Harvard Business School Press; publication date, March 24, 2008) for possible coverage in your blog. Could you please send us your mailing address?

In this book, author Robert J. Thomas explains that what matters most is what one makes of experience, particularly the traumatic and often unplanned crucible events that challenge one’s identity as a leader. Like accomplished athletes or artists, they practice as strenuously as they perform. And because the line between performance and practice is often hard to discern, they learn how to practice while they perform.

Thomas offers a practical, actionable guide to devising a Personal Learning Strategy through self-assessments, exercises (including videotaping yourself at work), and Setting an Agenda to move forward. In addition, he includes lessons to alert to the “warning signs” of an impending crucible and identify the skills necessary to cope, respond, and learn. “The goal of this book is to render that process visible and practical,” Thomas continues.

Much of the data analyzed in Crucibles of Leadership comes from interviews with leaders in business, government, the performing arts, non-profits, and sports (from organizations as diverse as Marriott International, the U.S. Marines, and the Mormon Church). Many of the interviewees’ crucibles, that led to a new or altered sense of identity, were based in family life, wartime trauma, athletic competition, or personal loss, rather than in work-related situations.

There were Four Major Findings from this research:

* Crucibles contain two lessons – one lesson is about leadership and the other is about learning. When addressed in a disciplined way, lessons can accelerate learning in the future – not just in learning from crucibles, but in learning from everyday experiments.

* Practice can trump talent in leadership just as much as in sports and the performing arts. In business as well as in the arts, outstanding performers are remarkably attentive to the opportunities for polishing basic skills – and testing new ones – that crop up in the midst of crucible experiences and day-to-day work.

* Outstanding leaders, consciously or unconsciously, devise a personal strategy for recognizing and transforming crucible experiences into lessons that keep them refreshed and responsive.

* Organizations can grow more leaders, and grow them faster, by helping individuals learn from their experiences. Thomas examines innovations being used in a number of organizations “to leverage experience to grow leaders” – including Toyota, General Electric, Accenture, and Boeing.

“Nearly three decades of teaching, consulting, coaching, and leading have brought me to the conclusion that the ability to learn is the all-purpose tool, the Swiss Army knife, that leaders need to carry at all times if they hope to fulfill the expectations they’ve set for themselves and that others have of them,” Thomas explains.

What distinguishes men and women who grow through a crucible experience is their approach to learning. Crucibles of Leadership is about leaders who are skilled at transforming crucible experiences into lessons that make them personally more effective and that result in improved performance on the part of the organizations they lead.