The Leadership Challenge, Third Edition

I've just re-read this brilliant book and decided keep it close and periodically review it. It is a collection of ready recipes that you might have known about, but not always apply to practice. Each recipe usually contains one or two small case vignettes.I can call this book "the encyclopedia of leadership" - the items cover almost the entire area leadership, and the items are small enough to review them quickly.The drawback of this title is that it doesn't seem to cover problems and tough issues of leadership that always arise. To fill this gap, I can recommend the unique framework by Ronald Heifetz described in the books "Leadership Without Easy Answers" and "Leadership on the Line: Staying Alive Through the Dangers of Leading".When the authors look to the leader in context of the organization, the view is a little bit mechanistic: "focus on clear standards, set the goals to keep on track, etc". I do not complete share this mechanistic view. Of course, leaders are important, but I agree with Margaret J. Wheatley who says that organizations are living systems. They are like people, intelligent, creative, adaptive, self-organizing and meaning-seeking. The simpler way to organize human endeavor requires a belief that the world is inherently orderly. The world seeks organization. It doesn't need humans to organize it, it doesn't seem to share our desires for efficiency or neatness, it uses redundancy, fuzziness, dense webs of relationships, and unending trails and errors to find what works; life is intent on finding what works, not what's "right"; life creates more possibilities as it engages with opportunities; life is attracted to order. I can recommend the book "Leadership and the New Science" by Margaret J. Wheatley.There are the other aspects of leadership that should be scrutinized in much greater detail, but they definitely exceed the size of the single book. "The Leadership Challenge" is an excellent work, but don't stop on it, keep reading the other leadership and self-development books.

Excellent book

Good read if the reader is interested in knowing about the true meaning and value of leadership. By focusing on the human aspect required of leaders, Mr. Kouzes develops a plan for leaders to take ownership over the direction of their teams by focusing on the human needs and not procedural aspects of leadership.

Inspiring, encouraging, compelling. This book is a must have for those who know they possess leadership traits. I had to read this book for a class and was truly impressed. In addition, I was able to implement the certain aspects of the book while holding an office of VP in a student orgainzation. Wow! it really works and is not over abrasive like JW book. Get it, Read it, Use it, Repeat it.

I bought this book for a management class and must admit it reads a lot like a textbook. I read 300 out of 400 pages and skimmed the rest. The authors appeared to want to write 400 pages of text. Some of the concepts are a little abstract. The book has some good points but stretches in some areas.

This book is filled with real-life stories of leaders who met the challenge to lead. It gives practical steps to improving leadership and is actually an interesting read because of the stories that illustrate the points. It's well worth the read and can definitely help you become a better leader.

A great book for any aspiring leader!

This book has been very helpful in my studies of Leadership in organizations. It gives very helpful exercises to guide those who are in leadership positions as well as those who would like to move into leadership positions.

Still one of my favourite books on leadership.

Leadership and mentoring book