Review from: Carole MacNeil, Ph.D., California State 4-H Youth Development Program Director.

 Bolman, L. and Deal, T. (1991). Reframing Organizations: Artistry, Choice, and Leadership. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass Publishers.

In this book, the authors explore several "frames" for looking at organizational structure and leadership, including the structural frame; the human resource frame; the political frame; and the symbolic frame. Rather than proposing one primary framework, as other leadership scholars have done, the underlying assumption of this work is that effective leaders and managers need to be able to examine their organizations through multiple conceptual frameworks. They argue that leaders often "live in psychic prisons because they cannot look at old problems in a new light and attack old challenges with different and more powerful tools—they cannot reframe" (p. 4). For these authors, the process of reframing is an essential skill that enables a leader to "generate creative responses to the broad range of problems that they encounter" (p. 4).

Of the various frameworks that they describe and explore, Bolman and Deal suggest that the human resource framework is the most pervasive framework in contemporary leadership literature, with some growing attention given to the symbolic frame. At the same time, they argue that there is almost no literature that addresses leadership from a structural frame, even though the organizational context (public versus private; large versus small; wealthy versus poor) influences—if not determines—what leaders can and should do.

The discussion on political frames incorporates an interesting and useful exploration of the concept of power. Bolman and Deal suggest eight forms of power (drawing from and expanding on previous literature on this topic). These forms of power include: positional power; information and expertise power; power from control of rewards; coercive power; power from alliances and networks; power from access to and control of agendas; power from control of meaning and symbols; and personal power.

While the book is fairly theoretical, and focuses on presenting and discussing its conceptual "frames," it also intersperses the discussion with a wide range of practical and real-life examples from the private and public sectors. As a result, the book is highly readable, and easy to digest. While much of their literature base comes from organizational theory, the book makes a contribution to leadership theory in its discussion of the application of these frames by contemporary leaders. It provides useful tools and food for thought for the practicing leader.