Managers and Leaders Who Can: How you survive and succeed in the new economy

FOREWORD

When the CBI contributed to the Leitch Review of Skills in 2006, we said addressing the shortfall of management and leadership skills should be a national priority.

Although much has changed since then, this skills shortfall remains, and has the potential to hold back the economic recovery.

As Chartered Management Institute (CMI) data show, only one in five managers currently has a management qualification.

In this important book, Ruth Spellman highlights ways that this can be tackled, and how managers and leaders can develop their professional skills.

The practical insights from business leaders and many distinguished companions of the CMI provide an excellent guide to managers from any profession. They show how leadership roles are expanding and changing, and how issues like risk management, carbon emissions and, above all, ethics and values are becoming more and more important.

We now have higher expectations of fairness and openness, and we saw in the recession how improved communications were invaluable in holding off job losses, as better-informed staff had a clearer picture of their employer’s business situation.

As we look for growth in the years ahead, managers and leaders need the right learning resources and positive role models to develop and refine their skills.

The CBI worked closely with Ruth Spellman when she led Investors in People, and so knows her views on better people management must be taken seriously.

So we welcome and recommend this book to managers ...