Good Reads on Great Leadership Print E-mail
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by Mike McCall

Of the many books out there on the subject of leadership, the ones I’ve found most interesting—and insightful—were not the prescriptive how-to books (though these, too, are useful), but the biographies of proven leaders. These books allow you to view effective leaders in action and discover, for yourself, precisely how and why they become influential.

One of my favorite books, Shackleton’s Way: Leadership Lessons From the Great Antarctic Explorer, offers the best of both worlds, combining the how-to approach with the biographical. Written by Margot Morrell and Stephanie Capparell, this book tells the tale of British explorer Ernest Shackleton and his attempt to reach the South Pole. During his voyage, his ship, the Endurance, was wrecked, and Shackleton and his men battled two years of arctic climate before they were able to return home to England. All 27 of the men on the ship survived the ordeal thanks to Shackleton’s great leadership and masterful crisis management.

Using the story as the centerpiece of their book, the authors have woven in their interpretation of Shackleton’s success using interviews with modern-day leaders, such as Apollo 13 Commander James Lovel and Jaguar’s former chief of North American operations Mike Dale, and by offering useful advice at the end of each chapter. This book holds lessons worth learning on how to lead with authority, integrity, humor, and compassion. In the following two excerpts from the book, you can see Shackleton’s leadership abilities at work.

Shackleton leads by example: “His unfailing cheeriness means a lot to a band of disappointed explorers like ourselves,” Orde- Lees wrote. “He is one of the greatest optimists I have ever known. He is not content with saying, ‘It will all come right in the end.’ It is always otherwise with him. He merely says that this is but a little setback not altogether unforeseen and he immediately commences to modify his program to accord with it, even working his future plans out to given dates and to meet various possible contingencies.”

Shackleton hires the right people: Shackleton raised some eyebrows when he hired fifty-year-old T.W. Edgeworth David, a geology professor at Sydney University, for the Nimrod. He was twice the age of many on the crew. The Boss correctly predicted that the scientist’s calm would be “a great influence for good amongst the younger men.” He also knew he needed someone with exceptional experience to coordinate the various scientific projects that were being done, which the professor did very well and Shackleton didn’t have the expertise to handle.

Other Worthy Reads...

It’s Your Ship: Management Techniques From the Best Damn Ship in the Navy by Captain D. Michael Abrashoff “The most important thing a captain can do is to see the ship from the eyes of the crew.” This belief has successfully guided D. Michael Abrashoff, the captain of one of the U.S. Navy’s most modern and lethal warships. Abrashoff has revolutionized how to handle such challenging problems as excessive costs, low morale, sexual harassment, and constant turnover. Business managers will benefit from Abrashoff ’s guiding belief that your focus should be on empowering your people rather than on the chain of command. By shifting organizing principles from obedience to performance, managers will be rewarded with remarkable productivity. As Abrashoff explains, the more people enjoy the process, the better the results. Good leaders listen to the people under their command—and use their ideas to improve operating procedures.

On Becoming a Leader: The Leadership Classic by Warren Bennis This book is a classic that has been updated to capture the challenges and opportunities facing leaders today. It delves into the qualities that define leadership, the people who exemplify it, and strategies anyone can apply to become an effective leader. The big payoff comes in the final chapter; this is where Bennis pulls everything together, offering a clear path forward to enhancing your leadership abilities.

The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership by John C. Maxwell Maxwell offers lively stories about the foibles and successes of Lee Iacocca, Abraham Lincoln, Princess Diana, and Elizabeth Dole in The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership. Drawing from his 30-plus years of leadership experience, he offers a wellcrafted discussion that emphasizes the core attitudes and visions of leadership. To Maxwell, job titles don’t have much value when it comes to leading. “True leadership cannot be awarded, appointed, or assigned,” he notes. “It comes only from influence, and that can’t be mandated.” Even after Princess Diana was stripped of her title, Maxwell says she was still able to lead a global effort toward banning land mines because of her sophisticated ability to influence others. There are no specific tips on what readers can do during the next workday to help them become stronger leaders. On the other hand,Maxwell’s background as a pastor gives him an inspirational voice and a spiritual context to leadership that many business leaders appreciate.

The 21 Indispensable Qualities of a Leader: Becoming the Person Others Will Want to Follow by John C. Maxwell Why do some people consistently inspire others to follow their lead? According to Maxwell, it’s the “character qualities” they possess. In The 21 Indispensable Qualities of a Leader, Maxwell identifies these quality traits. He devotes a separate chapter to each trait, offering interesting anecdotes and examples to demonstrate these leadership qualities at work. To be sure readers walk away with more than just a lot of theory, Maxwell even goes so far as to provide exercises for improvement to help readers actually integrate and apply the essential qualities of leadership in their day-to-day dealings with others.

Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap...and Others Don’t by Jim Collins This book is about more than transforming average companies into great ones; it is about the key role leadership plays in a company’s success. Good to Great is a wellresearched book that offers insight into what it takes to be a true corporate—or as Collins terms it, a Level 5—leader. Level 5 leaders, he notes, are humble, fanatically driven, capable of understanding the need to produce sustained results and of setting their successors for even greater success in the future. These leaders also understand the need to get the right people in their organization before figuring out where to drive it. As Collins puts it, “First who, then what.” Collins writes in an easy-to-read, conversational tone, offering, at the end of each chapter, “key points” and “unexpected findings” about the various companies’ transformations. This is a worthwhile read for anyone interested in not only building their leadership skills, but also in building a better operation.

Truman by David McCullough Cracker-barrel plain in speech and looks, this seemingly ordinary man turned out to be one of our most dynamic presidents. Harry S. Truman was a compromise candidate for vice president, almost an accidental president after Roosevelt’s death 12 weeks into his second term. Truman’s stunning come-frombehind victory in the 1948 election showed how his personal qualities of integrity and straightforwardness were appreciated by ordinary Americans. Truman was the epitome of a thoughtful and courageous leader as he maneuvered through enormously controversial issues: He dropped the atomic bomb on Japan, established anti-Communism as the bedrock of American foreign policy, and sent U.S. troops into the Korean War. This is, no surprise, a Pulitzer Prize-winning read.

Undaunted Courage: Meriwether Lewis, Thomas Jefferson, and the Opening of the American West by Stephen Ambrose Yet another tale of great leadership. Here, Stephen Ambrose takes on half of the twoheaded hero of American exploration: Meriwether Lewis. Though this book relies heavily on the journals of both Lewis and Clark, it is also backed up by the author’s personal travels along Lewis and Clark’s route to the Pacific. Ambrose is not content to simply chronicle the often heart-stopping events of the “Corps of Discovery,” as the explorers called their ventures. He often pauses to assess the military leadership of Lewis and Clark, how they negotiated with various native peoples, and what they reported to Thomas Jefferson, who spurred their search for a water route to the Pacific. Though the expedition failed to find the waterway, it fired interest among fur traders and other Americans, changing the face of the West forever.