Authentic Leadership, Discover Your True North

by Bill George

Bill George does a great job in this book, of explaining why it is important to link your own personal experiences to your leadership style. The book focuses on rationalising and examining what sets aside outstanding leaders from any other kind of leader. The author ,through interviews with a variety of leaders from the CEO of The Gap to Oprah Winfrey manages to draw a common thread that makes these leaders exceptional. My favourite thing about this book is that it does not just talk about how effective leaders are self-aware but goes on to explain how to become more self-aware. The book also focuses on the importance of a team oriented approach to goal setting amongst leaders. It became evident to me just how important skills such as empathy and approachability can go a long way to driving performance both for yourself but for a team as well. Despite its brilliant writing, I believe that Bill could have used a more diverse range of leaders to better tackle various kinds of experiences faced by a more varied group of people. I would have loved to hear about experiences from a CEO in China or South Africa for instance. Still a great book nevertheless.

 

Wise Musinguzi

Rating: 5 Recommend