Leader

I have been working with state agencies to upgrade strategic plans and develop measurable performance goals, and this book has been an excellent resource. I loaned my personal copy of Stewart's book to the manager in charge of one department's effort. The next week I saw my copy was marked up and well used. The following week he gave me a brand new copy as he had purchased new books for his entire management team. The strength of the book is it gives you a common sense approach for getting started and following through with a plan for improving performance excellence. If your organization is even considering making an application for a Baldrige-based award, this is a great tool!

In A Portable Mentor For Organizational Leaders, hospital medical director Kendall L. Stewart combines his professional experience and observational skills with the wisdom of the frontline managers and supervisors of Southern Ohio Medical Center, to offer the reader a solid primer to achieving excellence in structured leadership. A Portable Mentor For Organizational Leaders is a practical, straightforward, "reader friendly" management guide and covers how to most efficiently direct others ranging from such considerations as the proper tone to take and the priorities of a leader, to the rules of engagement in dealing with others, handling criticism, choosing one's battles wisely, and much more. A Portable Mentor For Organizational Leaders is thoughtful and thought provoking, highly recommended reading for any manager having to deal with employee absenteeism, staff infighting, low productivity, customer dissatisfaction, vendor incompetence, and more.

Dr. Stewart and the team at SOMC have composed a must-read for every team leader and those aspiring to organizational leadership. Dr. Stewart takes concepts and principals of which we are all aware and makes them real. He allows us to see ourselves and the others with whom we interact at work in "3-D", offering insights for dealing with every different kind of leadership style. He even reminds us that we don't have to act on every situation. He actually gives permission to ignore certain behaviors and instructs how to deal with negativity and naysayers in the workplace. The book is most helpful in validating what I feel I'm doing right while setting me straight in areas I'm needing to improve in my quest to maintain my effectiveness in my leadership role in my company.
Reading is a luxury for busy people or at least it is for me, but if you only have time for one great book to put you to the top, this is definitely the one!

More than what his preachings attracted me, his biography did! I really would follow His way of striving to achieve the desired goals. This book was much more than a mere biography. I have been to many iskcon temples, but now after reading this biography, I understand much more about the processes going on, in these temples....

this is the best book i have ever gone through and thoroughly enjoyed. this book can bring tears to a pure devotee. hari bol ! sirila prabhupada ki jai

Very Scholarly done after considerable research into the life of a great devotee of the Lord. Extremely readable, entertaining, enlightening, knowledgeable book, opens a window to the spitirual world and the pure devotees who live there.

This book presents a wondeful overview of the topics affecting HR. I admit I was a little wary, because this is supposed to be about "tomorrow's" HR trends, and I bought it four years after publication. Despite that, it seems fresh, some of the forecasted trends have already come to pass, and this book is as impressive and essential as when it was first published. Maybe more so. Kudos all the way 'round.

Cualquiera que trabaje en Recursos Humanos DEBE de leer este libro. This books is about what HR should be in any organization where HR has any kind of value added. No se lo pierdan esta realmente "abre ojos", despierta al mas dormido de la funcion de Recursos Humanos. Even better than HR Champions.

"This book offers one approach to thinking about the future of HR. A number of other approaches can and have been used. Futurist methodologies have been applied to study the 'state of the art' and the future and have through surveys of thought leaders identified likely priorities for the future. Our approach", D.Ulrich, M.R.Losey, and G.Lake write, "to thinking about the future of HR parallels closely and draws heavily on a methodology used by F.Hesselbein, M.Goldsmith, and R.Beckhard (Leader of the Future, Organization of the Future)...We have tried to select thought leaders in three groups : academics who study and write HR issues, consultants who offer advice and councel on an array of HR issues, and HR professionals who practice the craft of HR in leading companies...Each of the contributors to this book was asked to write an original ten-page essay on 'the future of HR' as he or she chose to define it...Our hope in this book was for a unique variety of opinion : positive, negative; broad, narrow; optimistic, pessimistic; provocative, discreet; calls for change, calls for status quo (from the Introduction pp.2-3)."

In this context, Ulrich, Losey, and Lake organize the 37 essays into six general sections.Each of these sections deals with a series of questions such as :

Section I :

* What is the strategy of HR?

* What are the products and services of HR?

* How should HR be organized to ensure that the strategy is executed?

Section II :

* What are the future deliverables from HR work?

* What are the metaphors of the HR professional of the future?

* What are the actions for future HR professionals?

Section III :

* What is the history of HR?

* What of the past should be left in the past, and what should be adapted for the future?

* What set of conditions will create a new future?

Section IV :

* Where should HR work be done?

* How do we measure HR work?

* How do HR executives align HR work both inside and outside?

Section V :

* How is intellectual capital operationalized?

* How can HR practices be created that motivate and commit employees?

* What is the impact of humane treatment of employees?

Section VI :

* What are the HR implications of a more global business?

* How can HR practices help a business develop a more global outlook?

* What are the competencies of global leaders?

"If our purpose is to propose a debate about the future", D.Ulrich writes, "it is better to end with questions than with answers. Questions elicit new frameworks, approaches, and alternatives, so, the final two questions we would ask (with our answer) are :

* Do you want to play in this always changing and at times unclear future?

* Are you having fun?

Without a doubt, all the authors in this volume and many others of the best HR professionals we know answer with a resounding 'yes' (p.360)."

I highly recommend.

The thing that intrigued me most in reading this book was the mindset of these brave men. From their days as cadets till their discharge, the pilots who succeeded had a lust for victory. The matter of fact style of writing conveys this mindset, this "failure is not an option" mentality that made pilots pray nothing would keep them from participating in the next mission. It would be incorrect to say that fear is not addressed here, but it would be totally accurate to say that, in their pursuit of victory, these men were fearless. I could not help thinking, while reading the day-to-day story of becoming a pilot, that I would have wanted to be a cadet too. Mr. Loving doesn't make it sound easy, but he does show that it was an age of heroes, where the workingman could have the chance of becoming a fighter ace. In the end though, it is evident that, just like today, it takes a special breed of men to rise to this level, and many, then as now, washed out. On the lighter side, it was also very refreshing to hear tales of quick pleasure trips to exotic cities and nights out on the town to take the edge off the pressures of combat. All in all, the book gave me a much more realistic impression of what America's fighter pilots went through, alone but together, one plane, but a member of an indomitable force. The drive and adherence to honor and truth are values that stick with you long after the book has been read. A patriotic Thumbs Up!

December 7, 1941, Pearl Harbor Day, occurred as George Loving,Jr. and I were hitch-hiking to see our lady friends at Farmville State Teacher's College. We were students at E.C.Glass High School in Lynchburg. That was the first day of the war for us.

As I read his book of experiences in the air over Italy, I felt as though I was right at his side reliving the events and feeling the goose bumps as things became sticky from time to time. I cleaned my plate by reading this saga from cover to cover in a short time, wanting it to go on and on.

WOODBINE RED LEADER
- AN EXCITING AND WELL TOLD STORY, BY GEORGE LOVING,
OF HIS COMBAT TOUR AS A FIGHTER PILOT DURING WORLD WAR II< IN THE MEDITERRANEAN THEATRE.
HIS WRITING ENABLES HIS READERS TO FEEL WE ARE IN THE COCKPIT
OF THAT FIGHTER AND TO EXPERIENCE LIFE IN A FIGHTER SQUADROM
THAT IS FLYING DAILY COMBAT MISSIONS.
I KNOW GEORGE LOVING WELL. HE IS ABSOLUTELY BRILLIANT< AND THE FINEST AIR FORCE OFFICER AND PILOT, WITH WHOM IT WAS MY PRIVILEGE TO SERVE DURING MY SIX YEARS AS AN AIR FORCE FIGHTER PILOT.
THIS BOOK PROVES THAT HE IS ALSO A GREAT STORY TELLER, AND A SUPERB WRITER. I COULD NOT PUT THIS BOOK DOWN! WOODBINE RED LEADER IS A GREAT READ!!

----MAURICE M. BENITEZ

Finally, here is an author who not only understands what matters most in leadership (and in developing new leaders) but also provides true, practical value for the reader. There are so many books on leadership out there, I sometimes fear for the fate of Canadian forests. Being an avid reader of business books and having myself led organizations from $1 million to $3 billion, I have rarely found an author who can effectively address leadership issues.

In "Be the Leader: Make the Difference," Paul B. Thornton, an accomplished expert and author, truly gets it. He provides a clear and compelling read with a useful, distilled roadmap on how to make a genuine difference in your organization.

His book is equally useful for public, for-profit, and non-profit leaders - regardless the size of the organization. However, given the power of Thornton's model and his persuasive, real-world guidance on building and refining leadership skills, this book would be particularly helpful for new or aspiring leaders.

There are several excellent books about leadership which have been written primarily for the relatively inexperienced executive and this is one of the best, as is Thornton's subsequently published The Triangles of Management and Leadership. I do not damn with faint praise when sharing that observation. Over the years, working with young executives to accelerate the development of their leadership and management skills, I soon became convinced that they lacked sufficient real-world business experience and a consequent frame-of-reference. Thornton provides the latter in this book and in The Triangles of Management and Leadership.

He carefully organizes his material within six Parts: a brief Introduction which literally introduces his "3-C Leadership Model," Challenging the Status Quo, Building Confidence, Coaching to Achieve Top Performance, Setting the Example, and finally, Leadership Development. It is important for relatively inexperienced executives (leadership wannabes) to keep in mind that, throughout his narrative, Thornton is building a model of superior leadership so that those who read his book can gain an awareness of areas in which to improve, and, to learn specifically how to achieve such improvement. This same model will enable supervisors to clarify (perhaps even reconsider) their own criteria when measuring the performance of those for whom they are responsible, then address more effectively those areas in which there is greatest need for improved performance. So, what I am now suggesting is that this book can be of substantial value to anyone who has not as yet become a superior leader.

A few brief comments on the "Be the Leader Survey" which Thornton includes after the final chapter. Respondents are asked to evaluate themselves within seven categories which correlate with the information Thornton has previously provided. I wish more authors of business books would include such a self-audit. The results are never wholly definitive, of course. (How could they be?) Nonetheless, several of Thornton's key points will be re-emphasized as respondents measure themselves in relation to them.

Those who share my high regard for this book are urged to check out Joan Magretta's What Management Is as well as just about anything written by Warren Bennis, David Maister's Practice What You Preach, Jeffrey J. Fox's How to Become a Great Boss, Rex P. Gatto's The Smart Manager's F.A.Q. Guide, Steven Silbiger's The Ten Day M.B.A, Milo Sobel's. The 12-Hour MBA, Robert F. Bruner et al's, The Portable MBA, and Nitin Nohria's The Portable MBA Desk Reference.

This book is full of great examples that are easy to follow. I read it all the way through once, and then went back and picked sections to concentrate on. It is easy to read and has practical tips and ideas instead of some other business/leadership books that are more fluff than anything else. I highly recommend this book to anyone in a leadership role.

Cheng Li does an outstanding job of uncovering the relationships that propel many of China's leaders. Excellent piece of scholarship and the best book I have run across dealing with elite Chinese politics. This is a must read for any person interested in China.

Taking the old "kremlinology" approach to figuring out Chinese politics, this book organizes each leader's factional affiliation by education, geographic location (the "Shanghai clique", etc.) and others. This approach has always been usable only as a general guide to leadership behavior, but it's all we've got. This book does it as well as any other, but a reader should know that it's not written in a narrative style, but rather in a reference format. Highly useful.

I just finished reading this book, and it is truly a first rate piece of China scholarship. It is a must read book for anyone trying to understand the leadership transition currently underway in Beijing. The book is very well written, and very readable. It also is clearly based upon first rate research and analysis. The entire new generation of leadership is discussed, plus more in depth discussions of Hu Jintao, Zeng Qinghong, and Wen Jiabao. Any journalist wanting to understand Chinese politics needs to read this book.

I've been teaching thru this book, and the video series. My class has responded to this series better than any other. I've read most of Dr. Bright's books and materials. Other than Witnessing Without Fear, I think this may be his most important work ever. Definately worth the time.

This story is about a girl called Anna who has a disabled brother named Benedict. The book is about people's attitudes towards disability, friendship, love and romance and the difficulies people face in life when growing up.
This is a very good and interesting book and I recomend this book to everybody.

Red Sky in The Morning is a very sad, but well writen, very smooth book. It is for those of us who sit down in a corner and treat every word in a book like our child, because that is how this book must be written. Very good, and deeply recomended.

Many older people suffer from depression or despair and often the reason is that no one takes time to hear their life stories. We used Morgan's book in our Nursing Home (especially the 100 questions at back of book) with powerful results. Many older people's lives were changed

We have tried to connect generations in our church and had service projects and programs but Morgan's book helped connect all five generations through stories. Older people and youth listened to each other as they shared their life stories

We used REMEMBERING YOUR STORY during a 10 week class in Midlife Transitions. Some of the group were experiencing changes in marriage, others in job, and still others with illness issues. Morgan's book helped us all to find the golden thread, the "story" in our lives which not only helped discern our pattern, but also gave directions for the changes which we face, Excellent book for group process.

Ken Blanchard is famous for making leadership easy to understand and he once again delivers in "Servant Leader." The anecdotes weren't as wonderful as in Shar McBee's book "To Lead is to Empower" but he is clear and understandable. Definitely worth reading.

Dr. Blanchard not only tells us how to become more effective leaders, but how to put our professional life in harmony with the most sacred part of our personal life. This is an inspirational interpretation of the 2000 year old best seller on which it is based.

This book is awesome. I bought several books for our church staff. We all LOVED IT and will continue to use it in the future. Initially I thought it was nice because of the colors and designs. Though this is not a "thick" book, the content is so rich that you will have to read it over and over again. This book is a must!!!!!!!!!!!!

The Big Picture is a story that all managers/leaders can easily related to on a day-to-day basis. In today's workplace change is a constant, yet the dilemma we face is that we rarely are able to implement change as we would like. Rarely do we get the buy-in from our employees needed to bring about change. Not only does The Big Picture help us to understand "why" we don't get buy-in, it also, provides us with clear steps to see the big picture and get all our employees involved. This book is a must for all managers who want to become transformational leaders. I can't wait to read the sequel.

Buy several copies, because you will want to pass this real life story around. The essence of the story will stay with those who read it because of the way it probes our natural behaviors and then invites us to consider other possibilities. Readers who are familiar with systems thinking will appreciate the application of ideas in the workplace. Those who have not been introduced to systems thinking will benefit from this very practical exploration of some of the discipline's most important concepts.

This book is ideal for not only managers - but anyone who is having difficulty with change in their lives. It brings the reader a realistic and wholistic frame of reference for human interaction. For those of you who are not familiar with the field of systems thinking that was founded by such leading thinkers as Jay Forester and Peter Senge, this is the ideal book for you to get started and bring these concepts into modern day reality.