Publications — Books
Governing Leadership
ForthcomingHow Boards and Executives Can Govern the Character Architecture That Governs Them
Publication date not yet set. The details below describe the intended scope and content of the book. Register your interest to be notified when it is available.
What the book is about
Governing Leadership examines the governance dimension of Leadership Character Architecture. Boards and executives are responsible for the leadership systems of their organizations, yet most governance frameworks give them no method for assessing the character architecture those systems rest on. This book provides that method. It draws directly from the governance dimension of the LCABOK and shows how the discipline's assessment framework applies to the oversight function.
How this book relates to the LCABOK
Governing Leadership is an applied expression of Leadership Character Architecture. It does not revise or supersede the LCABOK. Where the book and the LCABOK appear to conflict on a matter of doctrine, standards, or assessment, the LCABOK governs. The book has been submitted for independent alignment review under the Institute's standards. The outcome of that review will be published here when it is complete.
What the book covers
The governance dimension
The governance dimension of Leadership Character Architecture asks whether oversight, authority structures, and consequence systems hold the organization's intended character architecture in place, independently of the people they govern. Governing Leadership develops that question for the people responsible for governance: boards, audit committees, compensation committees, and the executives who report to them.
What boards can assess
Most board assessments of leadership focus on performance metrics and behavioral observation. The discipline provides a structural framework for assessing what sits beneath those outputs: the character architecture that generates them. The book shows how that assessment can be designed, conducted, and reported to a board without substituting the practitioner's judgment for the board's.
Governance mechanisms and their limits
LCABOK Law 19 states that governance mechanisms that lack genuine independence from the character architecture they are designed to govern will eventually be captured by it. Governing Leadership examines what that means in practice: how to design oversight structures that retain independence, how to recognize when they have been compromised, and what a board can do when they have.
The executive's role
Executives are not only subjects of governance. They are also architects of the governance structures that apply to those below them. The book addresses both roles: how an executive can be assessed under the discipline's framework and how an executive can build governance structures that hold character architecture accountable.
This book is an applied expression of Leadership Character Architecture and is subject to independent alignment review under the Institute's standards. The outcome of that review will be published on this page. Until the review is complete, the book should not be cited as an authoritative statement of the discipline's claims. The LCABOK is the authoritative source.
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Publications
The LCABOK™ is the authoritative reference for the discipline. Applied works, including this book, are evaluated against it.