Product Description

Practical Lessons in Leadership offers career and start-up guidance for aspiring or new leaders, and pragmatic recommendations for leaders who want to develop strong teams and drive outstanding results.

Practical Lessons is geared for leaders at all stages of the leadership lifecycle (new, early career or experienced) struggling to cope with a hypercompetitive global environment and a rapidly changing, inexperienced and highly mobile workforce. These visible and predictable macro trends require that the need to identify and develop leadership talent is at the top of every organization's strategy plan. Tomorrow's knowledge worker will face pressure to lead teams, projects and companies, but will lack the experience and guidance for management that the boomers take with them into retirement.

Practical Lessons fills a critical gap in existing leadership content, by posing leadership as a conscious choice and then providing the tools and approaches necessary for professionals at all stages of the leadership lifecycle to understand their role, establish fundamental practices, integrate their actions with the organization's strategy, motivate and inspire their teams, and drive great results.

In the opening portion of Practical Lessons, the aspiring professional gains a clear vision of the role and responsibilities of a leader, as well as helpful tools to assess whether this difficult role fits with their interests and skills. The remainder and majority of the book arms the new or experienced leader with practical approaches for important topics, including building credibility, starting with a new team, integrating activities with organizational strategy, identifying and developing talent, and creating a culture of innovation and operational excellence.

For the early career professional, aspiring leader or experienced manager, Practical Lessons offers a wealth of insight and direction for succeeding in this most challenging of professions during a period in time when leadership talent is increasingly viewed as a strategic asset.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #86964 in Books
• Published on: 2007-06-27
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 236 pages

Customer Reviews

A valuable and enjoyable book for leaders in all stages of their career
I highly recommend this book because it improved the way I view organizational leadership and I believe the practical ideas presented can significantly strengthen new leaders or experienced leaders.

The conversational, easy-flowing writing style creates an enjoyable reading experience. The book repeated a well-paced pattern: leadership vignettes, leadership lessons, and then off to the Web site for the authors view on the vignettes. Each chapter begins with a preface consisting of a realistic leadership vignette - a challenging scenario that puts the reader in the shoes of a leadership dilemma. Then the chapter introduces the leadership concept being discussed, such as "To Lead or Not to Lead?". The chapters interweave leadership lesson and concepts, pragmatic philosophies, and the two author's personal experiences.

Then after reading the chapter, but before moving on to the next, I found myself visiting the Web site to read the authors perspective on the vignette in that chapter's preface. Readers don't have to use the Web site in conjunction with reading the book, but I found myself very curious to learn more about how the leadership concepts could be applied to the vignette.

The three chapters that I found particularly beneficial were on the topics of choosing to be a leader or a solo performer, credibility and providing meaningful feedback.
The authors challenge the reader to honestly assess if they've got the right motivation, values, and qualities to be a leader. They help the reader make this determination between choosing a solo career versus a leadership career without judging one choice as "better" than the other - just very different.

I was refreshed by the lack of theoretical prose that seems to be too prevalent in most management books. It's down-to-earth stuff, yet it had enough weight to leave me thinking about the ideas for days after I set the book down. The perspective on credibility was liberating from the perspective that they encourage leaders to "be themselves" but also to develop the leadership habits and traits that their followers really want from them (follow-through, sincerity, honesty, visible agendas, giving credit, going to bat for their team, getting to know team members, and being respectful).

In the end, this was one of those books that I wished I would have read at the beginning of my career instead of 20 years into it. But as the title mentions, it is also a guidebook for experienced leaders. I highly suggest it for all who are, or want to be, in leadership roles.

Very good read for both new and experienced leaders
I read a lot of books about leadership and this is one of the best I've seen in a long time. The "Preface" to each chapter puts the following pages into context. The ongoing business case of fictional company Apex Integrated Technologies takes an arguably dry subject (i.e., "leadership") and fleshes it out to be a very interesting topic.

The authors segment the challenges a manager/executive faces into logical chapters. Each is carefully analyzed and presented in a way that makes the reader *think*. Although Messrs. Petty and Petro provide good substance, this book is also interactive. There are plenty of lists and general observations (e.g., "The Top Ten Challenges of the New Leader" and "The Nine Credibility Builders Rules for Effective Leaders to Live By"), but equally important are the thought-provokers (e.g., "Career Planning Questions" and "Seven Questions for the Ambitious Aspiring Leader"). The chapters are chocked full of insight and advice, and each is nicely closed with an "Epilogue."

What makes this book unique are the Discussion Questions at the end of each chapter and the password-protected portions of the authors' web site that provide answers and additional content and perspectives.

This book was so "right on," that I ordered an additional 12 copies to share with close clients and business associates. It's a must read!

A great resource for putting action to leadership development.
Art and Rich have done a great job of getting to the meat of how to put action to the development of leaders and more importantly potential leaders. Too often we push people down the leadership path with no defined criteria as to who will make a great leader and how you guide people through that decision. Months later you deal with talented people being ineffective leaders, which leads to wasted time and (more painfully) difficult decisions as to what to do with a once effective person. This book will help you make the right choices with your valuable resources and then follow up on how to get the most out of those chosen leaders. You'll also end up with happier, more focused teams as a result of effective leadership.

The book does a nice job of balancing theory with action plans. The addition of their website provides a set of resources to use on an on-going basis. In my opinion the book is differentiated by the fact that it isn't a one-time read that ends up sitting on the shelf and adding little value a month after it is read. You will definitely want to keep this one on your desk. The book allows leaders at all levels to define action plans with their direct reports and put the critical follow up into place that holds all of us accountable to developing leaders rather than paying lip service to the importance of leadership. A highly recommended read for all levels of leadership.