Product Description

This provocative yet practical book,  is the essential guide to the theory and practice of leadership - whatever your level in an organisation. It's both an indispensible yet entertaining guide to the core skills of leadership and a practical handbook for getting to the top and staying there - the single book guide to a successful career.

A unique and brilliant combination of authoritative guidance and stimulating and entertaining advice, it includes novel material on career limiting moves, advice on what to do when you look like you are about to become an involuntary member of the cock up club and how to lead by following.

This leadership handbook will help managers become leaders and help them rise to the top. It is the single book, whole career guide.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #131579 in Books
• Published on: 2005-03-03
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 240 pages

From the Back Cover

How to Lead

What you actually need to DO to manage, lead and succeed

There’s no doubt about it – leadership skills are a very powerful career advantage. Every organization is looking for emerging leaders, and for those who stand out, there’s a bright future ahead.

The good news is that everybody can develop and show leadership skills, wherever you are in your career. It’s never too early, or too late.

An awful lot of guff has been written about leadership – whatever others would have you believe, you can be an effective leader even if you aren’t a composite of Nelson Mandela, Ghandi and Shackleton.

How to Lead is the book to cut through the daunting hero talk, the nonsense and the fluff. Put simply, leadership is about what you do and how you behave, so that’s what this book is about.

Based on actual research, it sets out the practical skills and behaviours that distinguish effective from less effective leaders, and shows you how to develop and deliver these vital assets.

It doesn’t absolutely guarantee success, but it loads the dice in your favour.

About the Author
Jo Owen has an outstanding track record of leading and creating businesses in the UK and Japan. Most recently he is the founder and Director of Strategy for Teach First - a not for profit initiative that takes the top graduates from UK universities and places them in inner city primary schools for two years before going on to a corporate career. He writes the leadership column for the Institute of Directors and as Director of Strategy for Teach First is shaping their “Learning to Lead” programme for top UK graduates. Jo is the author of the bestselling Management Stripped Bare, which is now in print in several languages worldwide.

Customer Reviews

In My Top Three
I've read enough management books to fill an MBA course, but this is head and shoulders above most of them, and is easily one to the top three I've managed to finish. If you're wondering how to motivate a team, how to stay positive and how to inspire you'll find common sense answers here. It will give you the confidence and understanding that while we can't all be Winston Churchill, Alex Ferguson or Billy Graham, we can still lead effectively and powerfully in our own way.
There's not many books, never mind business books, that I finish and immeadiately want to start again, but this is one of them. It's easy to read, employs an enjoyable dry wit and knocks the galloping balderdash of so many American development gurus into a cocked hat. Read and enjoy.

Astonishing. Really.
I've read just about every business book there is. I love them. This book, however, stands out as one that I would totally recommend to anyone in a management postion - or anyone who wants to be there. Practical advice abounds, as does humour. It's very honest about the challenges of work, of leading a team and the snippets of wisdom are priceless. Put it like this - I've been buying stuff on amazon for years and this is the first review i think I've written! I've just started a job leading a small team and this book is helping me cope with all the new challenges it brings. Buy it.

The Book to end all Books on Leadership
I am tired of reading business books that do not lead to action, are full of cliches, and which are not related in any way to reality. How to Lead is a refreshing, humorous and highly practical guide (as the title suggests) to this topic earthed in real experience, full of insights into what works and what does not, without being patronising and without celebrating 'The [one and only] Way' to success - a trap which I find too many books in this genre fall into. The other great message of this book is that leadership can be learnt by almost everybody, and you don't have to be a CEO of a stocklisted company with an MBA and the right parents to be one, or be a charismatic visionary freedom fighter either.