Leadership Styles
Alan Murray, Deputy Managing Editor of The Wall Street Journal has written a management book titled the WSJ’s Essential Guide to Management full of sage advice from the best leadership minds of our time. Excerpts from the book have appeared in the Journal. I particularly liked the piece on What Makes a Great Leader in which he discusses the various leadership styles from the bombastic Patton to the soft-spoken Lincoln.
Murray refers to Jim Collins’ book Good to Great to do an analysis of styles. Here’s an excerpt
In the early stages of the project, Collins, who was inclined to believe that the importance of leadership was overstated, urged his team to "ignore the executives." But he says the team kept pushing back, saying there was something consistently unusual about the leaders of the good-to-great companies.
Compared to high-profile leaders with big personalities who make headlines and become celebrities, the good-to-great leaders seem to have come from Mars," Collins writes. "Self-effacing, quiet, reserved, even shy – these leaders are a paradoxical blend of personal humility and professional will. They are more like Lincoln and Socrates than Patton or Caesar.
Keep your eyes out for its release this August. From what I've read so far it has all the makings of an engaging and compelling management book for anyone interested in leadership.
