When effective leaders take on new roles, they negotiate their way to success.

So argues leadership consultant Michael Watkins in his book, Shaping the Game: the New Leader’s Guide to Effective Negotiating (Harvard Business School Press, $26.95).

Watkins, a former professor at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government and the founding partner of Genesis Advisers LLC of West Newton, Mass., says that “if you can’t engage in effective negotiation (and its close relatives, influence and alliance building), the best analysis and planning isn’t going to take you anywhere.”

In the book, Watkins develops the theme that negotiation is the “single most important skill” that leaders exercise during their transitions to new roles. He is careful to define what he means by “negotiation.” It’s not like haggling over the price of a new car.

By negotiation, “I mean a more expansive view of negotiation as creating and capturing value in network of relationships,” he says. “This view of negotiation focuses attention on how new leaders can reach agreements (formal or tacit) with other influential players in order to pursue mutually beneficial ends. It also highlights the importance of investing to build and sustain those critical relationships.”

Using a case study approach, the book explores four “strategic imperatives” for negotiation: developing a strategy and matching it to your situation, influencing your executive counterparts, shaping the negotiation “games” you play and learning from every negotiation you undertake.

In the end, Watkins contends, successful leadership boils down to negotiating effectively with key players, both inside and outside your organization.