Leadership and the Frontline Workforce

This book is for anyone who wants to lead change. It explains change methods through real-life experiences of frontline workers. Just as history has primarily been written by the victors, leadership and management theory have been written from the top. An exception is Kurt Lewin, whose action-research established that people on the frontlines are best positioned to create and sustain change. This book’s authors have practiced that approach over two generations for the past 70 years. They were deeply influenced by the blue-collar wisdom of the author’s grandfather, an hourly worker in the railyards of Pittsburgh.

Leadership and the Frontline Workforce teaches via interviews of those who were present both before and after Lewin‑style change, telling the stories of the workers who have experienced the good, bad, and the ugly of being targets of change at the bottom of systems.

A colleague of the author, Cotton Mears (1956–2019), intended to write this book but only got as far as a title, “View from a target.” He was a pot room tender in Alcoa’s Warrick aluminum smelter—one of the toughest jobs in the plant—when Robert P. Crosby arrived on the scene. Their relationship launched Cotton’s own organization development career. Following Cotton’s untimely death in 2019, Robert’s son, Gilmore Crosby, felt inspired to bring this book to life.

Gilmore Crosby’s mission is to help create a better future for humanity. He believes the most reliable means for doing so is to apply and spread the wisdom and methods of Kurt Lewin. Crosby’s credo is asserted in the title of his book: Planned Change: Why Kurt Lewin's Social Science is Still Best Practice for Business Results, Change Management, and Human Progress. He is concerned that the OD profession is distracted by beliefs such as that the human condition has significantly changed (VUCA) and by the search for what is “new.” Crosby asserts that most of what passes as “new” is more hype than true substance. Instead, Crosby advocates that change agents from all walks of life would be wise to learn and apply Lewin’s universal theory of social science, including concepts such as group dynamics, group decision, the social construction of reality, re-education, field theory, change as three steps, and the democratic principles of leadership. When integrated, these concepts form a systemic approach that can be applied by hourly workers, community organizers, and PhDs alike.

Crosby’s career dates back to 1984, following in the footsteps of his father’s OD career, which traces back to 1953 and Lewin’s inner circle. While embracing the past, Crosby experiments in the present, conducting T-group learning in organizations, online T-groups, and various uses of new technology and social media. His most recent book, Diversity without Dogma, applies Lewinian social science to addressing racism and any form of prejudice.