The Leader in You

I am a big fan of dale Carnegie's books, but its disappointing that the publishers would like to cream the public their money by re-printing mostly the same stuff with different titles.

"How to win friends and influence people" and "how to stop worrying and start living" covers most of the content described in this book. i felt cheated when i bought and read this book. Looks like the publishers haven't read any of these 2 great books and gained some wisdom from them.

Stuart Levine and Michael Crom of Dale Carnegie & Associates, Inc. discuss their perspectives on the principles that Dale outlined earlier.

1. Be yourself, identify your strengths.

2. Be open, create an environment conducive to trust, see things from other person's point of view, listen well, and communicate tirelessly

3. Express genuine interest in others, recognize a job well done.

4. Teams: create a shared purpose, invite participation, share the glory and accept the blame, build team's confidence, be and stay involved.

5. Be quick to admit mistakes, slow to criticize. Be constructive.

6. Set goals that are clear, challeging and obtainable.

7. Focus, discipline, tenacity.

8. Balance work and leisure.

9. Positive mental attitude.

10. Reduce worry - focus on present, work out the odds of the event happening, accept the inevitable, keep problems in perspective, action.

11. Develop enthusiasm.

Reading the book will help you identify and act on several improvements.

I found this book (I listened to the audio version) to be a major disappointment. The tips offered by Carnegie may have appeared insightful and provocative to assembly line supervisors back in the 1930s, but in the more enlightened 21st century a lot of his "good advice" comes across as irritatingly simplistic and sometimes even downright condescending and offensive. It's so easy and straightforward: Be nice to people, remember their first names, always be positive and you will instantly be liked by everyone. Overly obvious and trite - hardly the kind of stuff that would find its way into today's Harvard Business Review. Adding to the sense of irritation is the voice of the reader who tries to sound upbeat and optimistic, giving the whole performance the hollow feel of amateurish propaganda better suited to "Pleasantville" than to "Wall Street".

For more insightful, relevant and up-to-date advice, I recommend "How to become CEO" by Jeffrey J. Fox.

This little book is recommended reading in the company I currently work for and unlike some of the other recommendations, Fish and Moving My Cheese for instance, this has some value.

It is, in essence, an updated version of How to Win Friends and Influence People, adapted for the present day and readers who have read the former work will gain little from this except some familiarity with more contemporary case studies.

What struck me as I was going over it was how central the basic messages are to most of the useful management books on the market today. Certainly among the more academic books you will findmore material which is inherently useful to higher level managers and professionals but in the context of middle and line management, the central tenents hold true. To name just two, good listening skills, and trying to see things from the perspectives of others are golden rules from which none of use should deviate.

Indeed, one is almost tempted to say that these are the sort of things that should be taught in schools as components of civics classes except that I am sure many others would agree, schools should concentrate on getting basic skills right before they release students into the world of work.

The leader in you is a useful book to read. It is an easy read and one that shoul not take too long to work through and the simple down to earth homily approach works well with most people.

While not the be all and end all of all management books, this slim little volume contains some simple lessons that all managers would do well to digest and apply in all their dealings with other people and I can think of a few who need to rediscover this book right now.

As a 20 year veteran business consultant I strongly recommend this one because it presents the "meat and potatoes" of leadership. I personally am tired of all the "fad" books out there trying to put a spin on leadership when what is important are the essential skills of leadership. This book captures those skills and is great for a new leader.

Mick Hager

Author of MONKEY BUSINESS, 7 Laws of the Jungle for Becoming the Best of the Bunch! A Short Tale of a Company That Gets It!
Gibbs Smith Publisher, March 2007