All sound principles here. I especially liked covenant management topic.

A concise and well-supported treatise of leading in ways that empower employees (broad profit sharing to encourage a sense of ownership) and leading with humility, as a first-servant in the corporation. Much may seem like adages here, but there is much wisdom distilled from years in leadership at Zeeland, Michigan's Herman Miller.

I often find that business and leadership books are about 50% too long. I start reading and really "get" what the author is teaching, but then find the second half of the book fades into repetitive expressions of the same idea over and over. That's refreshingly not the case with this book. It's relatively short compared to other similar books, but that is because the author has done a great job of distilling his message, without deteriorating into overly short and fluffy "motivational" quotes.

Fantastic book that truly shows the difference between 'theory x' and 'theory y' management styles. I love that this manager learned to see his workers as human beings and value them.

This was a worthwhile read.
But I recommend it cautiously. It is an old book written by a leader who wants to share his experience with others. Not all he has to say is that helpful. The writing style is not well formed, and basic. Much of his thought is unclear and the relevance of the book is based a lot on how great you think his company is (a company I have never heard of).
Having said that, there are gems in this book I really appreciated and valued having the time to discover. I don’t regret reading it - but wouldn’t place it high on my books to recommend to others. His idea on eliminating entropy was world class though - super helpful language and imaging.

I was about to pass this book along to a colleague after telling her that it was the best book on leadership I'd ever read, but I found I couldn't part with it before rereading it.

Turns out, while it is still the best book on leadership I've read, and I wish every leader ... .political, business, school ... would read it and apply the ethical and spiritual values it contains to their work ... it is more about business than I remembered and less about education applications ... which I must have made on my own.

This book is a classic, written by a very wise and kind leader who was CEO of Herman Miller for many years, and it contains ideas and ideals of leadership that anyone charged with leading others would do well to follow. I wish our current president would follow its precepts ... such as, treat others with respect, welcome opposing opinions, maintain as part of your value system a sense of caring and a sense of integrity.

I believe anyone assuming a position of leadership could insure her or his success by following the model DePree describes in this little gem.

147 pages

Great book, especially for the era in which it was written. What I found most useful are the reflection questions that I would like to use during periodic employee check-ins leading up to evaluations. I also think these could be useful in mentoring or succession planning.

Of the dozen or so leadership books I've read, the leadership that built the "the house of Hermann Miller" offers by far the most egalitarian approach to business leadership. A very easy read, it definitely challenged much of my initial skepticism with such a "soft" approach to business relationships. That said, it's certainly hard to argue with the success of the world preeminent commercial and residential furniture company. Where Frank Lloyd Wright, Saarinen, van der Rohe, and Johnson defined the mid-century buildings, Herman Miller defined the interiors.

Through the argument of the power of leadership's debt to its supporting partners, this book drive the final stake through the heart of the Marxist Labor Theory exploitation of workers' Labor while presciently points to the rise of the start-up human capital perspective.

“Leadership is much more an art, a belief, a condition of the heart, than a set of things to do. The visible signs of artful leadership are expressed, ultimately, in its practice.“

I am technically going to rate this a 4.75 but it’s only because I didn’t really feel as if some of the stuff about his company/corporate life was necessary as it doesn’t really allow for diverse usefulness. Nonetheless, I really enjoyed this book. There were so many insightful thoughts and I feel as if reading this made me think about leadership differently and has even given me the skills to become a better leader. I don’t think I have ever highlighted a book more than with this one! I recommend this to all leaders!

Basic yet incredible lesson on leadership. A must-read.

Depree gives ample evidence to support his title, presenting leadership as he does with intangibles like character, service, the valuation of the worker, and the need of the leader to trust his people. His dedication to the concepts of servant leadership and to the Scanlon Principles. After looking up the Scanlon Principles, I found that they predate some of the material circulating in Servant Leadership circles (coming out of the Depression) and yet articulating some of the same ideals. I found the concept of profit sharing during the depression especially interesting.

However, Depree holds especially strongly to the idea of leading out of an inegral character and participating with followers to establish ownership and strong company loyalty. This is especially evident when he refers to them as "employee owners". Such financial and emotional owership is at the heart of his idea of covenental relationships in the workplace, relationships that rests on shared goals and commitments.

Depree distances himself from the structured, formulaic leadership models by discussing the elegance, the civility, the spiritual qualities of leadership and the workplace. These he presents as unquantifiable, but explicitly applicable. One must assume that he sees these as highly personal qualities that can only be applied when a person has fully embraced their significance in their own lives. They cannot be described and packaged. This is the "art" of the title.

He is also a high proponent of creativity and the embracing of the creativity of others by leadership. Of course, in an industry like home furnishings that depend heavily on the various and changing tastes of the public, creativity and diversity ares not only good ideas, they are essential. However, the atmosphere that encourages creativity in leadership and management seems to be much more likely to embrace creativity in product development.

Read Depree because he is easy to digest and highly re-readable. He is a palatable business philospher, but don't expect frameworks and steps to follow. Instead, allow Depree to speak to your spirit and ask you whether or not your character is one of integrity and openness.