This book brings a new perspective on why some leaders succeed more than others when taking charge of an organization. Based on in-depth case studies-in which four new leaders and their teams in large and complex international organizations were tracked for over a year-this book uncovers that success in managing transition is directly related to leaders' ability to balance seven tensions appropriately to the context. The reader will learn how the four leaders balanced these seven tensions (mission, relationship, reciprocity, decision-making style, pace of change, development dilemmas and loyalty), with more or less successful results.The reasons for each leader's effectiveness are explored and analyzed, allowing the authors then to extrapolate some general conclusions about the ways in which these tensions are revealed during all leadership transitions. Evidently, the success or failure of a new leader is the result of the way multiple actors (the new leader, his or her boss, his organization and its stakeholders) behave-before and during the taking charge. These multiple interactions are revealed and discussed.

This volume follows the first book in the Harold Bridger Series, "Transitional Approach to Change." The chapters in the book cover a wide range of contributions that concentrate around four themes: transitional change in therapeutic communities, in working conferences for professional development or training, in organisation consulting with an emphasis on organizational learning, and in self studies of working systems in action. In all these psychic activities "time and space" was created to allow for transitional processes to become alive. A therapist, a manager, a consultant or a layman may create conditions that facilitate or hinder human beings to become engaged in these normal, healthy processes, but the persons concerned undertake the basic psychic work."It is encouraging to notice that more and more clinical institutions, organisations and even professional associations are becoming aware of the important and complex interactions between psychic processes and organisational realities. The engagement in transitional processes, however, demands courage. Courage that is proper to any pursuit of truth and social justice. At times, this search generates excitement, at other times we become scared by the realities we discover. Sometimes we need to cast aside certain realities to imagine and invent new things and subsequently face them again to make effective use of whatever we created. Society and human beings need such pursuits of truth and social justice for genuine development. The courage it takes to become engaged is only matched by the courage to live with the consequences." -- From the IntroductionContributors: Gilles Amado, Rina Bar Lev Elieli, Harold Bridger, Caroline Drevon, Ernest Fruge, J. Alan Marc Horowitz, Dominique Lhuilier, Derek N. Raffaelli, Rafael Ramirez, Dominique Rolland, Andre Sirota, Marie-Jeanne Vansina-Cobbaert, Leopold S. Vansina

Bringing together several different facets of what is termed "the transitional approach," it will be valued by consultants, management students, practitioners and all those who want to gain a deeper understanding of the processes of organisational change. It will also be a highly welcome addition to the currently available literature that aims to provide a deeper understanding of society. This book is designed to stimulate, encourage and facilitate the transitional process in people to the benefit of themselves and the social systems in which they are involved.