The Executive and the Elephant: A Leader's Guide for Building Inner Excellence

“I put off writing my monthly report until the last day every time.”

 “I always point out people’s faults and failures. I am trying to help people, but they do not appreciate it.”

 “Something will tick me off and I will react.”

Have you ever had a clear intention then failed to follow through? All managers and employees know what they should be doing, how to do it, and why they should do it. We know or can figure out the correct thing to do, yet often we do not act accordingly. It seems to be a puzzle that our intention and behavior often refuse to align. That puzzle is the focus of: The Executive and the Elephant: A Leaders’ Guide to Building Inner Excellence (Jossey-Bass; 978-0-470-37226-5; August 2010) by Richard Daft.

Professor Richard Daft has written this book to help people understand this struggle and direct themselves more productively. He has spent several years studying the psychological and management research findings about the intentional vs. the habitual mind and posits the dilemma as a struggle between instinct (as embodied by the “elephant”) and the create mind (as embodied by the “executive”). Ins this book Daft draws on research from psychology, social psychology, management, Eastern spirituality, dozens of great examples from manager in his classes and from his consulting experiences, and his own experience. Daft aims to address the problems managers face and provide realistic solutions to both their personal struggles as well as ways managers can help managers the intentions of others, that is, how to trigger right behavior from other instead of making things worse. 

The Executive and Elephant is ideal not only for managers, but for executives, professors and students alike. The absence of inner struggle – one part wanting to do one thing, the other part the opposite, is a feeling of freedom. It will give the readers a similar feeling of peace and self-control. As readers learn to master the practices themselves, they can become a master leader of other people.