FOREWORD

      I came to know Allan Bonner through a series of training courses that the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) conducts around the world to help promote the safety and good management of nuclear power plants and nuclear facilities. I have organized a number of these courses at the Argonne National Laboratory located near Chicago, Illinois in the U.S.A. Allan has lectured in many of these courses, and I had come to look forward to his exciting and dynamic presentations on the importance of good facility management and the need for developing good relations with the public-especially people who live in the vicinity of these large plants. When he told me that he was working on a new book on the topic of leadership, I immediately asked to see an advanced copy, hoping that it would lead to new lectures by him.

      I have read other books by Allan Bonner, and they are all written in a crisp, succinct style that drives home a sequence of thoughts, ideas and concepts, in a manner not unlike the SOCKO^s method that he advocates. Bonner likes to select a bite-sized topic and present it with both scholarship and style in a way that it is both enjoyable and memorable. In his new book,Wounded Leaders, he uses this writing style to identify a serious and growing problem that is plaguing the world of business.

      There are many books today that talk about success in business. Bonner has chosen to approach this topic through the ‘back door’ and talk rather about the epidemic of failures-sometimes catastrophic-that we have seen in the recent recession and which continue to the present. We tend to ascribe much of the credit (or blame) for a company’s success (or failure) to the goals, strategies, tactics and style employed by the company leaders.

      Regarding failures or lacklustre performance, he asks, “Why do so many business leaders fail to recognize the danger signs that prevent them from reaching their full personal and corporate potential?” In this book he whisks through an extensive list of findings and examples that he learned of while conducting his doctoral research on the topic of leadership. He offers a number of cases and vignettes that might explain the shortcomings of corporate leadership. Several of these stand out-the case of the wounded child who eventually becomes a wounded leader who goes on to head the wounded organization. Much wasted time, energy, inefficiency, and loss of productivity, stems from these wounded leaders. In searching for the roots of these problems, Bonner finds a shocking lack of traditional values: hard work, short turnaround times, respect for tradition and rank, humility, clean simple living, and an old term that has taken on a new meaning-followership-the capacity to learn from others.

      Bonner seeks to find a model organization, that works well and implements the traditional values that he cherishes.