Paul R. Lawrence

To understand the challenges of political leadership and how top executives succeed in accomplishing an administration's objectives, business in government experts Paul R. Lawrence and Mark A. Abramson present the findings of a two year's study of top political appointees in the Obama administration. The participants—deputy secretaries and agency heads—provide case studies of how each approaches the management challenges and achieves the mission of their organization. Full of behind-the-scenes insights and practical advice from government political executives on how they face management challenges in real time, Paths to Making a Difference: Leading in Government offers indispensable insights to current and prospective political appointees and everyone interested in understanding how leaders work to make government agencies more effective.

To understand the challenges of political leadership and how top executives succeed in accomplishing an administration's objectives, business in government experts Paul R. Lawrence and Mark A. Abramson present the findings of a two year's study of top political appointees in the Obama administration. The participants—deputy secretaries and agency heads—provide case studies of how each approaches the management challenges and achieves the mission of their organization. Full of behind-the-scenes insights and practical advice from government political executives on how they face management challenges in real time, Paths to Making a Difference: Leading in Government offers indispensable insights to current and prospective political appointees and everyone interested in understanding how leaders work to make government agencies more effective.

All veterans and their families deserve the maximum benefits they earned by bravely serving their country!Veterans of the United States armed forces are entitled to a broad range of benefits and services provided by the US Department of Veterans Affairs (VA). Dr. Paul R Lawrence, former Under Secretary for Benefits in the Department of Veterans Affairs, provides an up-to-date, comprehensive and accessible guide to all the benefits and services available to veterans of the US armed services and how to make the most of these benefits and services.Guidance and Insights for Veterans, Dependents, and Survivors Include Topics:Basic Health Care Eligibility & BenefitsHospitals & ClinicsDisability & RehabilitationCounseling & Mental Health CareEmployment AssistancePensionsLoans & InsuranceMemorial ServicesMilitary Records & MedalsGI Bill, Scholarships & GrantsAnd much more…Dr. Lawrence will help you fight for the benefits you were promised when you agreed to serve your country!

Succeeding as a Political Executive: Fifty Insights from Experience is based on the real-life experience of 64 high-level executives who served in the Obama Administration. Most were at the agency head level. From 2009 to 2015, the authors conducted a series of interviews with these individuals, gaining insights into running government organizations. This book is aimed at those interested in the transition of power to the next presidential administration starting in 2017.

Succeeding as a Political Executive: Fifty Insights from Experience is based on the real-life experience of 64 high-level executives who served in the Obama Administration. Most were at the agency head level. From 2009 to 2015, the authors conducted a series of interviews with these individuals, gaining insights into running government organizations. This book is aimed at those interested in the transition of power to the next presidential administration starting in 2017.

"This book is truly amazing?actually, a masterpiece. It tells the story of the human condition." ?From Foreword by WARREN BENNIS IN THIS FOLLOW-UP BOOK to the best-selling Driven, Harvard professor Paul Lawrence applies his four-drive theory of human behavior to the realm of leadership, explaining how leadership?like all human behavior?can be understood as a function of the balance, or lack of balance, of four basic human drives: the drive to acquire, to defend, to comprehend, and to bond. We achieve an optimal state of leadership when all four drives are cultivated and balanced. In this next-step resource, Lawrence uses historical examples and current leadership crises to explain how the balance of the four drives results in one of three types of leadership: Good leadership: The best leaders, followers, and stakeholders fulfill the four drives in a balanced manner.Misguided leadership: These leaders, followers, and stakeholders fulfill one or some of their four drives while ignoring or supp-ressing the others.Evil leadership: Defines leaders who are missing the drive to bond and have influence over others and only fulfill their drives to acquire, defend, and comprehend. Driven to Lead explains the biological underpinnings of leadership behavior and offers a compelling discussion of the history of leadership. It examines the critical turning points in the leadership of political institutions, the rise of the corporation as the leading economic institution, and the leadership of religious, artistic, and scientific organizations. Based on theories that are universal, testable, and actionable, Driven to Lead brings to light a general theory of human behavior that can be used to cultivate good leadership and leaders who have a balance of the four drives.

A touchstone for understanding how we behave on the job "This is a stimulating and provocative book in bringing together important ideas from different fields, and, thereby, giving us a whole new slant on 'human nature.'" —Edgar H. Schein, Sloan Fellows Professor of Management Emeritus and Senior Lecturer, MIT In this astonishing, provocative, and solidly researched book, two Harvard Business School professors synthesize 200 years of thought along with the latest research drawn from the biological and social sciences to propose a new theory, a unified synthesis of human nature. Paul Lawrence and Nitin Nohria have studied the way people behave in that most fascinating arena of human behavior—the workplace—and from their work they produce a book that examines the four separate and distinct emotive drives that guide human behavior and influence the choices people make: the drives to acquire, bond, learn, and defend. They ultimately show that, just as advances in information technology have spurred the New Economy in the last quarter of the twentieth century, current advances in biology will be the key to understanding humans and organizations in the new millennium.

This work is organized in seven sections around major themes of socio-economics. The first section outlines socio-economics in an historical perspective, drawing on the "Methodenstreit" in the German school of economics at the turn of the century. Four additional essays view economic behaviour from the perspective of psychology, sociology and values outside the realm of economics. The second section of the book explores the process of choice and goals made by the variety of economic factors, among them factors that influence choices, values and motivations outside economics. The next two sections, each containing three papers, examine executive leadership and entrepreneurship from the broader socio-economic perspective. Section five includes papers that deal with the role of institutions in the modern political economy. It develops an institutional theory of markets, firms, human values in economic behaviour and investment in ethnic goals and morality. Section six focuses on the modern corporate culture considering collective human capital. The final three papers examine the boundaries that embrace the processes and activities of firms. They consider the bonds and relationships that develop between firms and organizations in the modern political economy.

This work is organized in seven sections around major themes of socio-economics. The first section outlines socio-economics in an historical perspective, drawing on the "Methodenstreit" in the German school of economics at the turn of the century. Four additional essays view economic behaviour from the perspective of psychology, sociology and values outside the realm of economics. The second section of the book explores the process of choice and goals made by the variety of economic factors, among them factors that influence choices, values and motivations outside economics. The next two sections, each containing three papers, examine executive leadership and entrepreneurship from the broader socio-economic perspective. Section five includes papers that deal with the role of institutions in the modern political economy. It develops an institutional theory of markets, firms, human values in economic behaviour and investment in ethnic goals and morality. Section six focuses on the modern corporate culture considering collective human capital. The final three papers examine the boundaries that embrace the processes and activities of firms. They consider the bonds and relationships that develop between firms and organizations in the modern political economy.