Description
Poet and executive James A. Autry came to national prominence with the publication of his first book of prose, Love and Profit: The Art of Caring Leadership. In it, he explored for the first time aspects of office life that most of the other business books ignore: the emotional and spiritual issues that managers confront every day yet rarely discuss.His new book is a vital complement to Love and Profit and is a natural next step on the path to caring leadership. In Life and Work, Autry addresses the emerging central question now facing all working people as they try to find their way amid the increasing pressures of downsizing and competition: "How can I find the balance in life and work?"
Expressed another way, the question is: "How can I keep my life and my work properly integrated?" Autry's answers, conveyed in essays, poems, and letters to his children, bring fresh insight to issues as vital and diverse as leadership and how to teach it, strategic alliances and how to create a "whole partnership," the breakdown of civility and community, and the seductions of success and how to avoid them. There are ideas and observations here about business's destructive fads, about executive pay, and about the future of capitalism.
Most importantly, Life and Work examines management and leadership as acts of faith, and comments on techniques for bringing a sense of worth and value and dignity to every job no matter how seemingly insignificant. With a combination of sensitivity and practicality, Autry also speaks of the covenants at work and how they are to be kept in the face of restructurings and downsizings.
Though Autry's new book takes a broader view of life and work, his insights and vision are always true to his considerable experience as a businessperson, and he is able as in Love and Profit-to reach to the deepest places in the hearts and minds of all of us, to help us overcome pain, live in the present, explore true value, and celebrate the generosity of spirit that reveals itself in the exquisite balance of how we choose to live and what we choose to do.
ISBN:9780688117641
