Takes a very relatable, practical, down-to-earth approach to teaching the importance and impact of good leadership. The author draws from a very diverse range of leadership examples, from small to large organizations, men and women, from all around the world, and different levels within an organization. This helps the reader see that they can begin practicing positive leadership no matter who they are or where they are in life, whether at home or in the workplace, in the public or private sector, whether young or old. The only criticism I have is that they spend a little too much time "proving" the importance of good leadership with their survey data and not enough time on the "how to" of good leadership. They present many great examples that show you how other leaders have demonstrated good leadership, but I think a little more could be done to aggregate the many leadership examples into some practical steps or frameworks.

One of the best primers I have encountered on leadership. A good summation of leadership best practices enfolded in and supported by stories and charts of studies. Encompassing, but realistic and centered.

One of the things that stuck out to me by the end, however, is just how pervasive good leadership is. There are certainly "best practices", but so much boils down to what sort of person you are, and being the kind of person who genuinely loves and cares for those around him: bosses, employees, and the company as a whole.

The 5 principles are: model the way (do it yourself), inspire shared vision, challenge the process (always be looking to improve and change), enable others to act (empowering those around you), and encourage the heart.

If I had to select one to drill down into, it's the complex but essential development of trust. That has never changed and never will. That doesn't necessarily help that much, though, because trust is so all encompassing. All of life - your words, decisions, actions, priorities are demonstrating whether or not you are a trustworthy person of integrity. If you are, people will follow you, especially if you have a secondary quality, that of competence.

Fun and engaging book on leadership.

This book was given as a recommendation from someone who absolutely loved it. I’ve read plenty of leadership books at this point and I see this as a decent guide for a person in a position of power utilizing their personal power of influence as well. It’s nothing ground breaking however to me, I found that its depth was particularly helpful and would serve as a guide in my future. Not bad not great.

I read this one for work … and while not entirely inspiring, there was good nuggets of information and ideas to help oneself become a better leader. It was primarily focused more on the corporate world, which is not where I work, but there were similarities to be drawn. The endless amount of anecdotes and stories from companies all of the world had a purpose, but were exasperatingly overused.

Encourage the Heart was my favorite section.
Challenge the Process was the section that I struggle with the most.

Overall, a decent book and can lead to better leaders!

i’m not reviewing this

2022 Review:
My company has embraced the Leadership Challenge as the model for how our leadership team should act, so I decided to get the updated 6th edition and re-listen. In November of 2022, my company brought in the Author (Posner) to do a talk outlining their 20ish years of research.

My 2015 comments aside (they still stand), I found that I have naturally been leading this way without actively knowing it. The 5 practices (Model the Way, Share the vision, Challenge the Process, Enable others to act, and encourage from the heart are all principles that simply come naturally to me.

Modeling the way you need to clarify your values and set the example. One thing that was taught to me by my father (a 40+ year railroad supervisor/manager) was to never ask anyone to do something you wouldn't do yourself. I've carried that close to the vest my whole life.

Sharing the vision is something that I've struggled with in past, but have really found my voice over the last couple years. As I work to engage my company in a lean transformation, I have a clear vision for the future and how we will get there. I've worked hard to not only engage those I directly lead, but to encourage those that I am being asked to indirectly lead.

Challenging the process is at the heart of my passion as a Continuous Improvement Professional. I'm constantly looking for opportunities to improve and use experimentation as the primary method for learning.

Enabling others to act by fostering collaboration and strengthening others. One of the best books I've read on how to do this is John Maxwell's Good Leaders Ask Great Questions. This is probably my biggest challenge as it's so easy to "give answers". I have learned by asking questions you move from do to coach and really enable others fully.

Encourage the heart by recognizing contributions and celebrating values and victories. I am still learning on this. I was a student of primarily Baby Boomer generation, I'm a member of the GenX, and I'm finding myself for the first time leading and managing Millenials and younger. Each "class" of person has different values and sees victories differently. I know a great deal about Boomers and GenX, but I really am learning what the next generations truly value so I can learn how to celebrate them properly.

Again a good book, a bit dry at times, and some of the examples they use are a little "sterile", but a must-read (perhaps find an abridged version) for any leader or anyone who aspires to be in leadership.

2015 Review:
Some books have nuggets of wisdom...Leadership Challenge has the entire mine.

The only reason this is getting 4 stars from me not 5 stars is due to the Audible version. It was read well the problem was that it felt like the authors were reading a text book. It was missing that...something...that kept my focus.

I am going to put this on my re-read list but next time I will read it. My guess is the score will go from 4 to 5.

At the core, this book is really about finding your inner voice and using that to lead and inspire yourself and others. What's the problem you're here to solve and why is it calling to you? If you look at the main headers / labels, they seem like pretty standard stuff that you'd expect in leadership books. Andif you're well-read and/or have attended enough leadership training, you'll have heard them all before.
Practice 1: Model the Way
Practice 2: Inspire a Shared Vision
Practice 3: Challenge the Process
Practice 4: Enable Others to Act
Practice 5: Encourage the Heart

But, I personally found the book inspiring. Maybe because I could feel the authors' passion and heart for the topic through their words (as opposed to ego, like so many other leadership books). And, when I honestly reflected on the points, I'd have to admit that I "know" most of the stuff, yet I don't apply them in my life and work.

In short, my take on the book: not a great "how-to" book, but a powerful "reminder-book" for self-assessment and reflection.

Book summary at: http://readingraphics.com/book-summar...

Read this for a business class. It was OKAY, though it is a commonly recognized and accept staple in a business library. The book is best suited for individuals who have no acquaintance with leadership or managerial practices, as it does do well to cover all the basics, albeit in an ideal scenario. Though, to be fair, many business books are written this way. It lacks fundamental pragmatic approaches and the authors focus on the leader as the focal point in all things related to employee motivation, morale, and disposition toward the organization. I personally find this to be an overreaching mistake the authors make, as well as the generalizations they make throughout the text from their "research."

The biggest leadership challenge I faced in reading this book was getting through it without getting entirely frustrated and abandoning it all together.

What this book is about?
This is a book that has pioneered leadership training across the world. It is a set of 5 practices that leaders are suggested to embrace and about 10 behaviors in each practice to adapt. According to the writers if anyone can internalize these 50 or so behaviors across these 5 practices then he can become a successful and respected leader.

The charm of of this book is that the writers took their time by interviewing and investigating 1000+ leaders of various fields around the world to find out what they did ‘right’. After making lists of characteristics, personality traits and actions, the authors were able to crystalize their finding into the famous 5 practice leadership this book is about.

There are 13 chapters in this book with stories of leaders who exhibit those 5 practices. Each chapter is about especially one particular practice and the leaders highlighted are champions in that particular practice. The stories are engaging like a novel and the beauty is that at the end you understand the leadership behaviors very clearly.

The 5 leadership practices are:
Based on https://workplacepsychology.net/2017/...


Practice #1: Model the Way
Commitment 1. Clarify values by finding your voice and affirming shared values.
Commitment 2. Set the example by aligning actions with shared values.

Practice #2: Inspire a Shared Vision
Commitment 3. Envision the future by imagining exciting and ennobling possibilities.
Commitment 4. Enlist others in a common vision by appealing to shared aspirations.

Practice #3: Challenge the Process
Commitment 5. Search for opportunities by seizing the initiative and looking outward for innovative ways to improve.
Commitment 6. Experiment and take risks by constantly generating small wins and learning from experience.

Practice #4: Enable Others to Act
Commitment 7. Foster collaboration by building trust and facilitating relationships.
Commitment 8. Strengthen others by increasing self-determination and developing competence.

Practice #5: Encourage the Heart
Commitment 9. Recognize contributions by showing appreciation for individual excellence.
Commitment 10. Celebrate the values and victories by creating a spirit of community.

Top 4 Characteristics of Admired Leaders (Kouzes & Posner, 2017):

1 Honest: this is the most common expectation from leadership across the world. Sadly, leaders fail in this very crucial component by giving in to short term gains like profits, family, or simply saving face.
2 Competent: Leaders are expected to be smarter than followers in terms of conceptual understanding, macro level thinking, and insightful thinking.
3 Inspiring: Leaders are expected to make followers inspired, energized and motivated by their actions, comments and reactions.
4 Forward-looking: Leaders don’t dwell in the past. Bygones are bygones. They don’t keep grudges. If strategy demands past betrayers must be trusted again because if he doesn’t someone else will.
How is it useful to you in your :
Life
It is important we apply these principles in our lives also, especially at home as a parent:

1 Model the way: simply lead by example. If you don’t want your children to use their phone, first stop using it.
2 Inspire a shared vision: tell them how you see your children succeeding in whatever line of work they are born for
3 Challenge the process: children also have dogmas like ‘my friends do this so I too must do that.” challenge those assumptions and enable them to rise above the crowd
4 Enable others to act: don’t stifle your spouse. Support him or her
5 Encourage the heart: Reward their effort as a ritual

Business
In business many owners and manager think paying their staffs is enough. No. They need leadership from you and not just a title.

1 Model the way: if you don’t want them to procrastinate , stop complaining yourself and show action
2 Inspire a shared vision: link the vision you have for the organization with their own personal visions. It takes time yes but then that is the way to success
3 Challenge the process: don’t keep any sacred cows. Question the old processes and systems that are causing problems and make new ones
4 Enable others to act: Facilitate change, be a cheerleader
5 Encourage the heart: celebrate even smal victories of your staffs

Careers
x


Conclusion

I started my management consulting and training career with book in Singapore. That was in 2000. I have come a long way since them, adding tremendous amount of my own new knowledge through research, experience and reading. Today I can say, this model of leadership is not universal enough and I have a better model.

However if ever I get a chance to prove my theories to the world, I will need a lot of serendipities to occur like:
1 meeting someone who understands my work and has connection with mainstream global knowledge industry
2 myself being ready with the capacity to express succinctly my knowledge when serendipity (1) occurs

I have not given hope. Serendipity (1) is not occurring for good reasons that:
1 my current knowledge is not the final one
2 I need to add more details to my theories

So I meet with lot of failures so that I can start anew to find new knowledge.

I wish the process to Serendipity (1) was faster but Serendipity (2) would be missing and I would either fail or I will selling to the world false knowledge. The world is ready to be revealed the truth of existence.

Aha! I know I am sounding prophetic and hazy, may be delusional. I would not blame you. But this is who I am and if you have read this far you must already be used to my blabbering.

Listen, it was the same corporate bullshit as usual. But, at the same time, there is value to the same corporate bullshit as usual.

Practical, attainable, and credible - makes you want to do a better job and gives you a roadmap to evaluate and execute. The spine looks good on your shelf