Book
Reviews
|
|||
|
Go to Executive Times
Archives |
|||
|
Leadership
by Rudolph W. Giuliani Rating: ••• (Recommended) |
|
||
|
Click on title or picture to buy from amazon.com |
|
||
|
|
|||
|
Like a Rock Every reader of Rudy Giuliani’s book, Leadership,
will come away with the feeling, “man, that guy works hard.” Whether you’re a
fan or foe of the man and his opinions, you’re likely to enjoy reading his
take on leadership. It’s thoughtful and practical. Here are Rudy’s 14 points
for leading: First Things First Prepare Relentlessly Everyone's Accountable, All of the Time Surround Yourself with Great People Reflect, Then Decide Underpromise and Overdeliver Develop and Communicate Strong Beliefs Be Your Own Man Loyalty: The Vital Virtue Weddings Discretionary, Funerals Mandatory Stand Up to Bullies Study. Read. Learn Independently Organize Around a Purpose Bribe Only Those Who Will Stay Bribed Those are also the
headings of each chapter in Leadership.
In each chapter, Giuliani explains how he came to understand this key to
successful management and how he tried to carry it out in his role as leader.
Here’s an excerpt from Chapter 8, Develop and Communicate Strong Beliefs (pp.
171-73): Develop
and Communicate Strong Beliefs Great leaders lead by ideas. Ideology is
enormously important when running any large organization. The people who work for you,
those who look to you for answers, the media, even your rivals have a right
to know how you see the world. Strong beliefs are sometimes risky in modern
American politics. That's because a politician who explains his beliefs to
people takes two major risks—that the goals stemming from the belief cannot
be achieved (in which case he'll be called a failure) and that too many
voters will disagree. But leadership isn't about succeeding on every single
initiative, nor about building consensus behind every action. The importance of developing strong beliefs is one
of the reasons I favor politicians who have accomplished something
substantial outside the political realm. Those who have spent their entire
life in politics often become spin artists rather than thinkers. They lose
attention span. Young people who go directly into elective politics often
lose the ability to think critically. For
any issue, you must first figure out the substance, considering it from every
angle, getting it into your bloodstream, before deciding the position you
want to take. Once you know where you stand, it's perfectly appropriate to
present your view in the most favorable light you can. But don't first work
out how to make a favorable case, then select your position. There are three critical stages here. First, you
must develop beliefs. Next, you have to communicate them. Finally, you must
take action, a theme I develop in the next chapter, "Be Your Own Man.'
In this chapter I concentrate on the first two. DEVELOP STRONG BELIEFS The
ideas that form the basis of your leadership can develop in a number of ways.
Some come from your parents, as many of mine did. Others derive from friends,
teachers, clergy, even rivals. For the first eighteen years of my life, I had two
main vocations in mind—medicine or the priesthood. Both satisfied a feeling
that had been growing in me my whole life: that to be happy and fulfilled, l
had to serve a greater cause—helping others. My father was always helping
people, trying to find a job for a neighbor or taking a relative to the
hospital. Although neither of my parents was particularly devout, they both
felt deeply the Church's message of experiencing grace by giving to others.
That commitment filtered down to me. All
through high school (at Bishop Loughlin in Brooklyn), I would discuss
religion and notions of service with one of my teachers,
Brother Kevin, and with my friend Alan Placa. At the end of my time there, I
signed up to enter the Montfort Fathers (in Bay Shore, Long Island), a
religious order devoted to serving in the poorest countries. Alan was going
to join the Christian Brothers. I wasn't going to do anything halfway: if I
was going to become a priest, I was going to help out the most
underprivileged I could find. I remember thinking I would probably end up in
Haiti or Africa. But then, as June turned to July, I realized I had a
problem: my budding interest in the opposite sex was something that wouldn't
be suppressed. I thought, maybe 1m just not ready. I enrolled in Manhattan
College hoping that perhaps I'd be better prepared for celibacy after a
couple of years. In college, I entered the pre-med program. But as
much as I loved learning biology, I liked ideas better than science. Alan and
I even joked about putting out a shingle, "Philosophers at Large,”
renting ourselves out as rhetorical opponents by the hour. At the time, the
only kind of doctor I thought of becoming was a surgeon, but however skillful
and knowledgeable that calling was, it also seemed to me somewhat mechanical.
My ideas were narrow, I suppose: I didn't realize how creative medicine could
be. But I turned away from medicine; and as by this time I was already
dating, I knew that a religious vocation was not for me. In its place, I
began to view my love of debate as pointing toward a new calling—-to the law,
where I could indulge that enthusiasm to the full. When I first started thinking about becoming a
lawyer, I feared I might be swamped with rote memorization and obscure
statutes. Nonetheless, I took some college courses in American history and in
American Constitutional history, and realized that I had underestimated the
subject. It still wasn't until law school that I saw how richly philosophical
the legal profession could be. Both in college and law school, my fascination with
Western civilization blossomed. I came to believe that the great
contributions of Western thinking—political and religious freedom, elected
leaders, the importance of private property, a free economic system—shared a
common root, all evolving from the idea of the dignity of the human being. It
makes sense that a society that believes in the rights and value of the
individual human being allows citizens to elect their leaders, to decide what
to believe, to stake claims to better lives. What fascinated me about
democracy was that it did not come ready-formed: it had to be invented. Even
during his illness, readers can feel the stamina he brought to his work,
because he was doing work that he loves. Leadership
tells the story about how one leader did what he did, but offers a lot of
insight to all leaders about how to do what it takes to lead people. Steve Hopkins, February 28, 2003 |
|||
|
|
|||
|
ã 2003 Hopkins and Company, LLC The
recommendation rating for this book appeared in the March 2003
issue of Executive
Times URL
for this review: http://www.hopkinsandcompany.com/Books/Leadership.htm For
Reprint Permission, Contact: Hopkins
& Company, LLC • 723 North Kenilworth Avenue • Oak Park, IL 60302 E-mail: books@hopkinsandcompany.com |
|||
