Leadership in Administration: A Sociological Interpretation

"Philip Selznick has profoundly affected how all serious students of organizations think about their subject. Leadership in Administration is, perhaps, his masterpiece: a lucid, rigorous, yet humane analysis of the essential task of leadership that brilliantly reaffirms the organic, value-infused character of a successful enterprise, whether private or public. The central concepts of the book--'mission,' 'distinctive competence'--have become so much a part of our vocabulary that we sometimes forget they had to be invented and that Selznick invented them. His reminder that the true exercise of leadership transcends a concern with mere efficiency is even more appropriate in today's era of quasi-scientific thought about organizations than it was when, presciently, he first set it forth in 1957."--James Q. Wilson, Harvard University

"The reappearance of Leadership in Administration will be most welcome to students of organizations because it provides the most lucid and complete statement available of Selznick's special view of organizations. This view has given rise to the institutionalist school of organizational analysis, one of the liveliest and more irrelevant alternatives to mainstream rationalist formulations."--W. Richard Scott, Stanford University

"Leadership in Administration has become a classic in the art of executive leadership. In fact, it is stimulating more managerial thought and organizational research today than ever before."--Robert H. Miles, Harvard Business School

Philip Selznick (January 8, 1919 – June 12, 2010) was professor of sociology and law at the University of California, Berkeley. A noted author in organizational theory, sociology of law and public administration, he wrote such books as The Moral Commonwealth, TVA and the Grass Roots, and Leadership in Administration.