3 out of 4 stars
Share This Review
Have you ever dreamt about becoming a better leader, creating your own business and successfully interacting with those working beneath you? If your answer was yes, the short educational book The Leading Man written by Stephen J. Blakesley might catch your eye. And by the way, even though it is called The Leading Man, it will also work for women as well.
The book could be easily described in one single sentence: leading for everybody no matter their age or gender. However, as usual, the truth is a bit more complicated. Blakesley aims to introduce the reader to the world of leadership and explain how you can become a better leader and which characteristics a successful leader must have. After all, leading other people is not an easy job and certainly not meant for everyone.
Considering the limited range of the book, Blakesley does not waste his or our time with a long introduction. He quickly explains what his book will be about and then immediately starts explaining the how, when and why, so to speak. The twenty seven pages fly by fast and you can have the book finished in just a knick of time… depending on, of course, how many notes you’ll be taking while you read it.
Another advantage, besides the possibility to finish the book quickly, is its clear structure. Blakesley divides his book into multiple short chapters. Each of them deals with a previously mentioned required trait of leadership. To provide an example, we get chapters on communication, motivation, emotional intelligence and other traits one should have in order to be the leading man.
Unfortunately, if you are truly interested in becoming a better leader, this book will only serve as a starting point and you will be forced to find another which will provide more information (luckily, Blakesley gives us a list of appropriate literature in the end of his book). No matter whether you are only starting your company now or already have one and want to become a better leader, The Leading Man teases but in the end doesn’t provide much. To properly explain all of the key traits one should have and describe how to strengthen them or even build them in the first place, this book would need a few hundred pages, not twenty seven. Therefore I rate this book 3 out of 4 stars and recommend it as a starter, not as a main course, to anybody who wants to build his own business or improve the one already existing.
******
The Leading Man
View: on Bookshelves
Like kleroy2018's review? Post a comment saying so!
