Product Description

Too many companies are managed not by leaders, but by mere role players and faceless bureaucrats. What does it take to be a real leader—one who is confident in who they are and what they stand for and who truly inspires people to achieve extraordinary results?

In this lively and practical book, Goffee and Jones draw from extensive research to reveal how to hone and deploy one’s unique leadership assets while managing the inherent tensions at the heart of successful leadership.

Why Should Anyone Be Led By You? will forever change how we view, develop and practice the art of leadership, wherever we live and work.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #11328 in Books
• Published on: 2006-03-01
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 244 pages

Total Business
"In showing that they really care about something, leaders will inevitably reveal something of their true selves."

Financial Times
"A rewarding read if you want to lead."

Accounting & Business
"But Goffee and Jones deserve credit for sticking to their guns and ignoring the sceptics."

Customer Reviews

A landmark book on the nature of leadership
This is a truly landmark book for anyone who aspires to lead, whether in business or any other walk of life.

Goes much deeper than the usual management tips and techniques books and forces you to consider what kind of person people naturally want to follow. Not instructional as such, but if you want to be a leader, and most importantly, if you aspire to be a "great leader that people will be inspired by and follow", then this book is going to be very important. It doesn't prescribe the specific traits you need, but focuses on the behaviours that cause people to willingly follow great leaders. How you use these insights and weave your own personal leadership style is up to you, and will require a deep appreciation and understanding of both yourself, and especially those that you aspire to lead.

Definitely not another management 'how to'
If you want to be told how to lead then this book is not for you, but if you want to read how the best do it then this book is for you. This book distils the key skills that it takes to be a greater leader and then using real leaders explains how those people demonstrated those skills. The leaders selected are multination and include a few British leaders thus allowing the UK reader to contrast the skills discussed with their perception of that person.

I was given this book as part of a leadership training program and to be honest flicking through it during a break thought that it looked dry and uninteresting. But once I started reading the book I found it very engaging and interesting. It has made me question my own leadership style and has highlighted areas that I need to work on. The main strength of the book is that it leaves the reader free to develop the ideas and create their own leadership style.

Philosophical take on authentic leadership
Authors Rob Goffee and Gareth Jones provide a welcome balance to the many books advising that leadership is a matter of adopting this or that characteristic or technique. They emphasize the situational nature of leadership, the extent to which it depends on followers in a particular organizational context. They infer some basic principles for authenticity and leadership from what seems to be a solid body of empirical observation and interviews, including generally pointed, well-chosen anecdotes showing good leaders in action. We recommend this thoughtful book, which offers an insight that few books on leadership dare to voice. The authors unabashedly assert that even great leadership may not lead to good business results. They further state that an excessive emphasis on results is one of the great obstacles standing in the way of authentic, moral leadership.