Leadership has never played a more prominent role in our national discourse, and yet our opinions of American leaders are at all-time lows. Private sector leaders are widely seen as greedy to the point of being corrupt, public sector leaders are viewed as incompetent to the point of being inept; and levels of trust in the government have plummeted. As the title of this book conveys, we are experiencing Hard Times. Barbara Kellerman argues that we have focused on leaders and even on followers while overlooking an essential element of leadership: context. This book is, then, a corrective. By providing a multi-faceted view of America today, it enables leaders to see the terrain that they must navigate in order to create positive change. Rather than a handy-dandy manual on what to do and how to do it, the book is structured as a checklist that introduces readers to the basic components of context. Twenty-four brief sections cover foundational aspects of the American landscape; need-to-know evolutions and revolutions that have shifted our societal institutions and norms; populations relevant to leadership practice; and, finally, futures and inversions to "the way things used to be." This crash course reveals how significantly context impacts leadership. Clearer still is the fact that today's context makes leadership in America today more difficult than it has ever been before. It is context that explains why leadership is so fraught with frustration, and it is context that makes evident why leadership will be better exercised if it is better understood. Highlighting persistent patterns that emerge from the checklist, Kellerman challenges leaders to do better with their context in full view. This fascinating read will change the way that all citizens think about leadership, business, and the future of our country
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