Tempered Radicals

How People Use Difference to Inspire Change at Work

Nearly all of us feel at odds with the organizations we work for at one time or another. Managers who are also parents struggle to succeed — and be there for their families — in companies that don’t offer flextime. Women and people of color want to make their organizations better for others like themselves without limiting their own career paths. Environmentally conscious workers seek to act on their values and climb the executive ladder at firms more concerned with profits than pollution.

While many who don’t “fit in” with the corporate culture choose to assimilate or leave, Tempered Radicals offers an inspiring alternative. In this provocative book, Debra Meyerson argues that this tension — between expressing our “whole selves” and building careers in companies that leave little room for differences — can pave the way for learning, leadership, and positive change in organizations.

Based on fifteen years of research and observation, Tempered Radicals reveals that adaptive, diverse, family-friendly, and socially responsible workplaces are built not by revolutionaries but by those she calls “tempered radicals”: people who successfully walk the tightrope between conformity and rebellion. While “untempered” radicals use drama and heroics to effect change, these individuals work toward transformational ends with incremental means; where radicals lead episodically, tempered radicals lead every day with conviction, patience, and courage.

Through stories of tempered radicals from doctors to teachers to CEOs to entrepreneurs, Meyerson illustrates how these “everyday leaders” stick to their values, assert their agendas, and provoke learning and change without jeopardizing hard-won careers. Whether one’s difference stems from race, gender, sexual orientation, values, beliefs, or social perspectives, the book presents a spectrum of effective responses to the pressure to conform that range from resisting quietly to leveraging “small wins” to mobilizing others in legitimate but powerful ways.

Putting self-realization and change within everyone’s reach, this book shows how to turn threats to our identities into opportunities to make a positive difference in our companies and in the world.

Debra E. Meyerson is visiting Professor of Organizational Behavior at Stanford University’s Graduate School of Business, and at the Center for Work, Technology, and Organization within Stanford’s School of Engineering. She is also affiliated faculty at the Center for Gender in Organizations at the Simmons Graduate School of Management. She lives in Northern California.