I would say this is a great book where you can be sure the advice is valid. It may sound slightly cliche but then that's the point I guess. I think it is a great study that can help leaders figure out where they can correct their behavior. I also think that it would be useful to make notes as you read this so you can get back to bullet points that will be customized towards your own needs and areas of improvement. I like that there are plenty of stories in there that go a long way to prove the point the authors are trying to make. In training I noticed the leaders I work with mention some of the same things as the authors of the book and in my opinion that only proves that they are on to something. It wasn't just abstract material but actually proven with my real life communication.

I had to read this as part of a group project (for a class in the nonprofit management certificate program).

While I think this book provides some great ideas and insight for leaders, I think it could be shorter. It's a little repetitive and redundant at times. I don't think it provided me with much information that I hadn't heard before--though some of the examples were nice illustrations.

Honestly, I've just read half of it--and will only read one more chapter (the chapter I'm responsible for presenting to the class). My awesome group members will take care of their chapters and I'll get the key points from them instead of reading 150 pages. This book does not motivate me enough to want to read it all for myself.

I guess this would be a great/useful read for anyone who hasn't been enrolled in a leadership program for five months or has recently started a career in a management/executive position.

Practical and insightful book, full of anecdotes and principles that discuss what leadership is and should be. Three particular quotes stand out.

"Self-development is not about stuffing in a whole bunch of new information or trying out the latest technique. It's about leading out of what is already in your soul. It's about liberating the leader within you. And it starts with looking inside."

"Leadership is an observable pattern of practices and behaviors, and a definable set of skills and abilities. And any skill can be learned, strengthened, honed, and enhanced, given the motivation and desire, along with practice, feedback, role models, and coaching."

"Leadership is not an affair of the head. Leadership is an affair of the heart."

The second quote is the crux of this book, and it really sinks in after a few reads. Highly recommended for anyone who wishes to understand leadership-management theory.

3.5 stars

A great, great book...very practical advice...I thoroughly enjoyed it...Dr. Pozner was one of my professors at SCU Graduate Business School...I advise this book for all my colleagues, especially my friends in Sri Lanka...read it...noodle on what is revealed...look around...look inside...you will know in your hearts who are the leaders! Enjoy!

This is an excellent book on leadership, which Kouzes and Posner understand as a process that can be learned, not a matter of inherent traits. They list Five Practices of Exemplary Leadership: Model the Way, Inspire a Shared Vision, Challenge the Process, Enable Others to Act, and Encourage the Heart. This book emphasizes the humility, vision, and personal involvement needed for leaders in creative, well-illustrated, and well-structured ways. While possessing a lot of substance, this book is also well-written and quite readable. I can recommend it to anyone involved in a leadership process in any way.

من کتاب صوتی ش رو از نوار کرفتم و گوش کردم. صدای گوینده به شدت نامناسب برای خوانش چنین کتابی بود به طوریکه نمی تونستم موضوع رو دنبال کنم.
تا جایی که تونستم با کتاب ارتباط برقرار کنم یک کتاب درباره رهبری با موضوعی تکراری بود.

I consider Leadership Challenge by Jim Kouzes and Barry Posner to be the best research-based book ever written in the field of leadership.

What I love about this book is that it is actually written for its readers!

Let's face it--very few readers of business books are CEO's of multi-billion corporations. Yet many business books follow the same over-used formula--interviewing CEOs--talking about what they are doing so well--and suggesting that you do the same thing.

Leadership Challenge is based upon learnings from leaders at all levels--and shows how "regular people" can make a huge, positive difference in their organizations. It is written in a way that can help executives, mid-managers, first-line supervisors, project leaders--and even individual contributors--better understand how they can lead--and be able to immediately apply what they have learned in their work.

So this was the textbook for my leadership class and at first I felt like this book was just trying to throw examples in my face of great leaders which was a little distracting. Yet, the further I got into this book, the more the examples felt justifying to the points the authors were trying to make. I started to realize the situations that I had been in that were similar and how better to handle situations. It showed that this book had something for everyone. There still felt like there were times of too many examples but I understood why.

I also really liked the breakdown pages at the end of every chapter. They highlighted those pieces that you needed to really know and sum up the information in a very digestible way.

This is a good leadership book. I am tempted to give it a five after reading the last chapter, but the bulk of the book is four-star material. The last chapter is absolutely leadership gold? Intrigued? Pick it up and read it!

Meh. I can see how the 5 practices and 10 commitments are useful and pertinent to leadership but I finished this book feeling like I was missing something. The concepts are very common sense and I felt they were presented at too high of a level. Ideas were repeated over and over again using different words and it became repetitive. The personal examples were helpful but I wanted to know HOW! Although each chapter ended with a couple of suggestions on how to implement the practices/commitments I felt it wasn't enough. The book was conceptual and not particularly practical.

NOTE: I read the 7th edition.

A cliched and trite trudge. It is somewhat shocking that this book is in its 4th edition, and is mostly composed of common sense platitudes; being required to read this for grad school is some sort of punishment, surely. To be fair, some of the author's points about the dangers of micromanagement and engaging employees on a personal level are well-founded, but perhaps not a lesson that required 350 pages to convey.