The Complete Leader

While the subtitle of this book, Everything You Need to Become a High-Performing Leader, may over-promise, this remains one of the best and clearest books on business leadership that I have read. Futurist, John Naisbitt, has said “Leadership involves finding a parade and getting in front of it.” This very practical book lends credence to this bit of humor. The authors, Ron Price and Randy Lisk, are business advisors, speakers, and senior-level managers with considerable down-to-earth wisdom and experience.

While many other business books cite leadership examples, those examples tend to remain only as true as yesterday’s news. Leadership is situational, depending on many variables in complicated systems. The authors believe that a true leader must be authentic; therefore, models cannot replace self-awareness and continual learning. The Complete Leader attempts to help one gain understanding of system interactions. This system’s approach obviously came from one of the author’s years at IBM.

The authors make the case for twenty-five competencies for leadership. The appendix of the book contains a self-assessment questionnaire that defines your personal competencies so that further learning and training can be developed. For the authors, the critical questions of leadership are the “whys.” This curiosity is essential to uncover real problems, opportunities, and threats to the organization and greater self-awareness leading to greater effectiveness. The authors also emphasize people/relationship skills.

To be an effective leader also means the ability to self-manage and understand oneself. The authors prescribe lifelong learning as requisite for anyone aspiring to become a senior manager. They recommend online learning sites and continual reading. Unlike many popular business books, they counsel the hard work of self-improvement, rather than trendy slogans. The book features references for further reading and an index of subjects, which is most helpful. This reader is happy to endorse this book and the practical advice contained therein.