supplemental read for my first grad course. excellent. loved the examples

Read the headings, read the chapter summaries at the end, but - especially if you're new to leadership - read the last chapter first. Then burn the rest.

Not inexpectedly, it's all one-dimensional feel-good success stories. This might be inspiring to some, but for me, it's just insipid.

Yet another book on leadership that doesn’t really define what leadership is - other than by a series of anecdotes related to people who are presumably successful leaders. The main problem here for me is that it is never clear that the remarkably positive stories being told reflect something other than the story the leaders might want other people to hear or to tell about themselves. As someone who quite likes to read fiction - even if I haven’t for far too long - the one thing such reading has taught me is that stories can be dangerous things. They can uncover the truth, highlight it, or they can do as much to hide the truth – they can be incredibly self-serving. And that isn’t always just because the person telling the story is nasty in some way. You see, a story demands a narrative arc and that requires a kind of directionality that is often only able to be understood after the event. And we like to shine the best of all possible lights upon ourselves. We don’t want to be remembered as fools or nasty. Rather, it is only after the event that we see what felt at the time like false starts were necessary learnings or incremental steps towards ultimate victory. So, when a book is basically a series of happy stories about success - well, I am left more than a little cold.

Central to this book is the idea that leadership is about change. Having worked in too many organisations where change was more or less randomly imposed - or rather, change was something that was about improving the CEOs CV and proving them a ‘change leader’ than being necessary to the organisation itself - I found this central vision particularly problematic. As soon as someone is convinced that one side of any tension is the only side worth worrying about (change, in this instance) then you just know that ‘consolidation’ is a trap about to come and bite them on the bum. But if success is something that is ultimately defined by where a leader leads you – then they have to lead you somewhere other than where you currently are – no matter how nice that current place is.

So much of this book was about how great leaders find ways to empower those they are leading. And this is something I also found particularly interesting. Not least because it implies very particular kinds of workplaces - workplaces where there is the opportunity for the majority of the workers to actively contribute to the overall success of the company in potentially innovative ways. Now, overwhelmingly, when this kind of ‘leadership as inspiration’ was discussed the people being inspired were mostly people at the top levels of the organisation – second-tier managers, that sort of thing. Only once that I can remember was a ‘lowest-level staff member’ mentioned as someone whose contribution needed to be recognised - and even then only in a patronising sense - you know, we all need to remember the important job the driver does… Yeah, of course. Though, how this person might contribute to the overall direction of the company wasn’t as clear.

The point is that our world is composed of essentially two types of employees. One sort of employee has a series of skills that are costly to reproduce and are not generally available. These employees are often treated remarkably well. Their opinions are highly regarded and they are constantly asked their opinions, the organisation finds as many ways as possible to make the jobs of these employees as pleasant an experience as it can. It offers multiple reward systems, high wages, stock options and god knows what else. The rarity of the skills these employees hold make such considerations essential - and these, I’ve found, are the types of employees who are mostly discussed in books on leadership like this one – that is, employees the company needs to keep and attract.

However, there are a whole class of other employees who are just as invariably never discussed in books like this - and they are the employees whose jobs face the neo-Taylorism of ‘scientific management’. Their jobs are standardised to the point where the employees themselves probably don’t even do all of any single job per se. And their jobs are measured to within an inch of their lives. The division of labour enacted upon these people makes much of what they do personally meaningless to the person doing the work and they have no say in the type, pace or quality of the work they do. Often this lack of voice is quite literal - and with the increasing casualisation of employment this is increasingly true - that is, often these employees are ‘on call’ (yet another ‘just in time’ resource the real employees of the organisation need to manage) and therefore are never available for workplace meetings – neither invited nor welcome. The fact that books like this never make any mention of such employees presumably implies that leading such people requires no skills at all. And this is probably true. The other uncomfortable fact here is that such jobs are on the increase – in fact, the precariousness of most current employment is precisely due to the increase in these ‘gig’ jobs. The course of history seems to be pointing toward either the elimination of most jobs through automation or the increasing automation of the jobs that remain so that they become endlessly mindless and deskilled. This is, after all, the path of Capitalism. That books on leadership make no mention of this makes them read more like moral myths that need to be learnt in theory and disregarded in practice.

It is now about a week since I read this book - and I’m struggling to remember any of the little stories here used to justify the 12 of this and the 5 principals of that. I come away from these books basically wanting to hear about Hitler - you know, a counter-example of leader. I want someone to tell me the negative side of leadership and, if it has a negative side, then how might an organisation (or society more generally) go about defending itself from that side of leadership. I also want to hear some discussion of why we need our workplace organisations to be quite so anti-democratic. Why is democracy such a good idea for a nation, but a terrible idea for a company? Are there any examples of democratic organisations that have been successful - oh, I don’t know - like cooperatives in the UK or even small family businesses called something like ‘I Quattro Fratelli’ or something, where there is no ‘leader’ as such, but rather a more democratic means of making key decisions. The primary assumption is always that what we need is a great leader - but as someone who has watched on in horror at US politics over the last few decades - a nation that has prided itself in laying entire nations to waste (think Vietnam, Cambodia, Iraq…) a nation that spends more on its military than all other nations on the planet combined (I think that is right, but won’t even bother checking) and that is currently lead by a madman - then maybe it is time to question putting infinite power into the hands of one person. 

And don’t get me wrong - Obama was better than the current loon, but only a little better. Before he was elected he spoke of disarming and reducing the US nuclear weapons arsenal. He went on to dedicate something like a trillion dollars to upgrading those very weapons. We really need to rethink ‘leadership’ in all its forms. It isn’t at all clear to me that we have much time left on this planet - our addiction to ‘leaving the big decisions’ to ‘leaders’ seems to be at least part of the problem we face and one that is leading us to our doom.

None of these problems are discussed in any way here - this is, instead, a book on the glories of leadership. It suffers from the simple mindedness you might expect from such a book.

This book was too academic to be really engrossing. As an academic treatise on leadership, it was fine. As a practical manual on leadership, it was lacking in specifics.

Amazing book. One that I will definitely read again and again as I continue in my career!

Goodreads' algorithm had this on my "recommended" list for a long time, so I knocked it out. All leadership books overlap or draw from each other; occasionally one, like this one, cites a particular survey. The survey in this book identifies "characteristics of admired leaders" and was done internationally, but the majority of responses were from the US. It was updated in each edition from 1987-2007, without much significant change between the initial survey and the latest. This book reminded me the most of Jim Collins' Good to Great or Built to Last; much of what they advise leaders and managers to do jives with the stories in those. I'd recommend this book to any leader from middle-manager with any goal-setting authority to pastors, parents, etc.

The authors identified a culture of trust as the key to having motivated employees "authentic leadership is founded on trust." Credibility is the foundation- the First Law. 89% of survey respondents identified "honesty" as a characteristic of admired leaders. (No wonder in 2016 we have the two must unpopular presidential candidates of all time, both score low on surveys measuring their perceived trustworthiness.) The leader must be trustworthy and know where the group is going, he or she must have a direction they're taking the team. Around the time of writing this, I heard someone else say that "trust is the intersection of integrity and competency," and that hit the nail on the head. Reading The Leadership Challenge solidified my decision to leave my previous job because the organization lacked trust, a clearly stated values, consistent competency, and a clearly stated vision. The job I moved to has the vision and values hung up on posters in highly-visible areas.

In the book, those rated as good leaders are those who make the vision clear-- everyone should know the mission statement and what's expected. Expressing the vision is the "most difficult" of all the leadership skills, but leaders have to also state their values clearly and then live by them. Team members should be expected to maintain the values or be shown the door. Shared values make a difference in work ethic, quality, pride, teamwork, etc. Companies with shared values perform "measurably better," (again reminiscent of Good to Great and probably every John Maxwell book).

There are five practices:
1. Model the Way
2. Inspire a Shared Vision
3. Challenge the Process
4. Enable Others to Act
5. Encourage the Heart

Besides the top quality of honesty, the next characteristics were being "forward-looking, inspiring, and competent." Competence was cited by 68% of respondents, whereas the next highest quality--intelligence-- showed up in less than half (48%) of the responses. You don't have to be the smartest, but you do have to be competent.

Leaders try, fail, learn, then repeat. They grow. They use "we" instead of "I." They know what they want and why. "They do what they say they will do." The most admired qualities in the surveys were honesty, competency, and inspiration. The authors suggest leaders communicate with stories to better illustrate their vision. The vision/mission statement should be a slogan for easy transmission and memorization. Goals should be stated clearly and be measurable. True leaders have to tap into a system of intrinsic rewards by creating an environment where people take pride in their work and are passionate about the work itself. One way to foster pride is to give ownership to employees for their work. Leaders have to show trust by delegation, "those who cannot trust cannot lead because they cannot delegate." You need goals and standards to release employees' creative energy and focus the values into real application.

Another way to release followers' creativity is for the leader to listen to them. "Devote 25 percent of your staff meeting to listening to new, outside ideas." This requires dreaming-- dream big but start small. Leaders should start small and then celebrate the wins along the way. Employees should be knowledgeable about the entire organization, how everyone fits into the mission. The authors don't mention but ISO standards essentially require this. Their example was one I was knowledgeable about, and was once featured on PBS Newshour-- Springfield, Missouri's SRC Holdings owned by Jack Stack. At SRC, all employees have a stake, are trained an included in meetings on the basic financials of the business, know everyone's task and where they fit in-- they have ownership from the janitor to the managers.

How a leader spends his or her time signals importance. To borrow from Colin Powell (not the authors), that doesn't mean being a "busy bastard" trying to work weekends or longer hours than your employees, but your values should rather be shown in how you spend your time on task. Your employees see what you do and chalk that up as an expectation for their own behavior. If family and social life are important to the organization, it should be demonstrated by what the boss does. Leaders use the word "love" frequently, they have a passion for the values they espouse, for their work, the organization, and employees.

Leaders need to avoid favoritism, and I don't think the authors stressed this point. They write that leaders should celebrate employees who fulfilled values the best, this can sometimes be subjective. The authors encourage developing friendships and trust in the workplace, but in my experience and listening to other managers, it's best the environment allow employees to foster those friendships with each other rather than their boss (though they should always be comfortable with and trust the boss).

Leadership is learnable. Leaders should always remember their humble beginnings to avoid the "curse of hubris." (There is much psychology that the authors neglect.) One remarkable trait the authors point out is that teams which have been together longest communicate the least, and look for outside ideas the least, becoming less innovative. (I was reminded of how Steve Ballmer forbid Microsoft salespeople from using an iPhone, even though they found it helped them do their jobs better). In the organization I left, the team I was a part of was pretty isolated both from the larger office and other outside ideas. This failure to seek the "outside view" leads to stagnation and other dangerous problems for the organization. We have to learn from each other but also other divisions and organizations.

Accountability, adherence to vision and values, is crucial. The authors mention the FAA which has a self-reporting system for mistakes that gets published. People may be shocked to see the sheer number of mistakes that get reported, but few of the mistakes are actually consequential, it's the system that's important. Leaders should strive to create an environment where stakeholders admit mistakes so that they become part of the learning process; systemic and habitual problems can be identified and fixed.

In all, I give this book 4 stars out of 5.

It is important to know what you value in life, and most of the book was really interesting and easy to understand. It did make best seller so I did not want to lower the rating just for that fact, but when I started reading chapter 2 on values you just couldn't get away from this word. I found the entire chapter annoying and to the point of frustration. It still is a good Leadership book, but not the best for me to read to much repetition of one word seems almost brain-washing. Let me know if you find a better Leadership book. I would be interested.

By my standards, this was not a bad textbook. Am I happy to be don’t with it?? Yes. Yes I am. MBA 530 ✔️

The content of the book is not necessarily wrong (who could argue that to be a good leader you need to listen to your employees or be competent?), but it is nothing new, and the book unnecessarily repeats its points over and over. This was my first book on the topic, and frankly I do not know if I am going to read more of the same kind, because I fear that I might see the same formula applied: take some common sense advice, and stretch it for 400 pages.

This book isn't 5 stars because of its prose or its persuasion. It is a very mundanely delivered book. It gets 5 stars because it is so right. I think I read the 5th edition, by the way. It just nails core-leadership. It hits the 5 main attributes, it delivers two actions on each, it goes into what it means to be developed in each of the 5 areas, it has a couple 'regular' corporate leader examples, and then it moves onto the next area. It's just rock solid leadership exposition, made very practical, backed with lots and lots of qualitative evidence. I want to go through this with a fine tooth comb and just list it all out outline-style. Like, you know it is so spot-on classic leadership traits that you wish there was some extra sauce out there that really makes the leader. And while creativity adds the flair and sees the end goal, it really comes down to mastering the application of these five areas. Definitely need to get the workbook and get at this one.

I really enjoyed this book on leadership practices. It is not and does not claim to be a one size fits all approach to leadership, as one does not exist. This book does a great job of taking you through five proven methods of improving you leadership potential. Although you can never fully engage 100% of the people with any group of techniques, the practices taught in this book will improve your overall quality of leadership no matter the circumstances.

If you want all of the answers, then no book will work for you. If you want to step up your game and gain some vital insight into proven leadership methods, than this book should be right up your alley.

I am neither an expert or a rookie on leadership, but I feel this book and its lessons can help someone at either end of the spectrum. The section that left me thinking the most concerned rewarding team members and celebrating. I am now thinking each day about how to make the team feel appreciated and vital. It is not a new concept to me, but reading the chapters here about recognition and reward renewed my enthusiasm and attention to the benefits.

Even if you are not a leader yet, even though you probably are and just do not know it, this book can help guide you into becoming a leader in any area of life.

If one message is clear in the book and in life, it's that leader does not always mean authority figure. Leadership is a state of mind and a way of life, not a title or position.

Really handy and relevant leadership book, but I disagree with the comment that this is a good read for everyone, regardless of where they are in their career. The content is solid, it brings in excellent and evidence-based points, but these are all things that the experienced leader will already be familiar with. I would argue with those reviewers who said that this book doesn't explain the concept of leadership - it does so simply and encouraging heart and sentiment, which reflects its message perfectly. It focuses on the sentiment, initiative and taking-the-people-with-you aspect of leadership, and it flat out says that you can demonstrate it regardless of position or placement.

The chapters are structured based on a set of principles: Model the way, Inspire a shared vision, Challenge the process, Enable others to act and Encourage the heart.

Style-wise, it relies on story-telling. I've read another book by these authors earlier in the year that is much more preachy without having any evidence to support it, but this is such a natural read, it's almost like talking to a friend about their experiences and taking what you need from them. It's easy to get into and it doesn't feel like you are reading something for work.

What pushed it over the line for me in this genuinely being a book I would recommend is that at the end it does bring reality to the surface: even following all of these principles won't automatically make you successful. Overindexing on some of them may bring you to operate in a silo, develop blind spots and not accept differentiating opinions. I appreciated that the end of the book is a warning, rather than a now you've made it, you're the expert type of thing.