Leaders: Strategies for Taking Charge – Warren G. Bennis, Burt Nanus

Leaders Book Cover

World-renowned leadership guru Warren Bennis and his co-author Burt Nanus talk about four key principals every manager should know: Attention Through Vision, Meaning Through Communication, Trust Through Positioning and The Deployment of Self in the book  Leaders: Strategies for Taking Charge. In corporate America downsizing and restructuring is done in most organizations but lack of communication and distrust has hampered this process. This is where the right leadership comes. The book “Leaders” tackles the very issue. It helps the reader to take correct decisions in the process of transformation of an organization.

The book says that it is the individual, operating at the peak of his or her creative moral powers, who will revive organizations, by reinventing both self and them. Instinct too plays a part but it is dangerous to just let an organization be changed on merely instinct. Sound judgment comes mainly from guidance. One’s experience too is counted here.

Though the book is 25 years old its lessons are still valid. This is a timeless classic. The advice, lessons, guidance in the book will stay valid for decades to come. The book is being recommended to executives, management students even this day. The focus of the book is private sector though.

The authors take examples from big American companies like General Motors, Apple, Microsoft, AT & T, McDonalds, KFC, etc. Stories from such companies will definitely keep the reader interest in the book.

Warren G. Bennis is university professor and founding chairman of the Leadership Institute at the University of Southern California. He is also chairman of the Center for Public Leadership at Harvard’s Kennedy School and Distinguished Research Fellow at the Harvard Business School. He has written more than twenty-five books on leadership, change, and creative collaboration including Leaders, which was recently designated by the Financial Times as one of the top 50 business books of all time. His most recent book is Geeks & Geezers.

Burt Nanus is a well-known expert on leadership and the author of many books on the subject, including Visionary Leadership. Now professor emeritus of management at the University of Southern California, he was also research director of the Leadership Institute.