This book gets good reviews, but I think it's mostly due to the fact that other business books are so BAD. Most are self-congratulatory and promote bad behavior -- you get the immediate impression that the sole purpose of the book is to establish the author's cult of personality.In case you're wondering, this is how you write a book on leadership:1. Compile a list of 5-10 "make-or-break" traits of a winning person or company2. Write a chapter for each trait, containing generic information everyo...

A must read for all leaders of people. The value of knowing your story, really knowing your story, and how you've developed into who you are today.. Your principles, values, and style... Are formed by your life story and your crucible. Highly recommend and will be using this as a tool in my career.

Yes, leaders need to be authentic. I love the true north compass, where we should put our self-awareness ahead before we define our values/principles, what motivate us, who are our support groups, and how to integrate our life. Served with exemplars and steps how to become authentic leader, this book is worth to read for everyone, i believe everyone is a leader!

Picked up the book because it's a requirement for HBS, but I could only get through half of it. The advice seems indistinguishable from bullshit. To summarize: be an "authentic" leader by re-interpreting your story so that you can derive purpose/meaning in your job. Would suggest skipping it.

I generally do not care for books like this one, BUT, this was not as bad a read as I thought it might be. I marked a few passages that struck a cord with me. It was certainly biased toward for-profit arenas and was difficult to liken some statements to the library world, but I did get some wisdom that transferred.<> "Courage is an especially important quality for leaders as they navigate through unpredictable terrain." p.xxxiii<> "People today demand personal relationships with their leaders be...

This was the question Bill George posed in his in-depth study of 125 leaders drawn from corporations to not-for-profits, to the arenas of politics and academia. George was CEO and then Chairman, from 1990 to 2002, of Medtronic, a world class medical technology company. In this review I want to shine a light on three elements from this book that constitute valuable perspectives for managers.The CrucibleHis research revealed an interesting common theme. Most of these successful leaders had been po...

Useful guide for staying true to ourselves, since not all leaders are authentic, so it is always better to follow our "True North". There is an example of a company in India who didn't have a phone line for a year, because they wanted to avoid brives, so their employees saw that as a model for being honest. If we as leaders know our motivations, we will develop a compass for the right path.

A valuable book on effective leadership traits. Depending upon your level, you may find it revealing many new concepts or simply providing a good refresher on many you felt you already knew. Regardless of whether it is revealing, reinforcing, or both, there are good lessons here for all.

Really nice read. I think, if you've never read a leadership book before, or if you've not taken any courses on self-awareness and reflection, this would be a very powerful book. I've studied this content in great detail over my life-time, so it wasn't incredibly earth shattering to me, but I recognize I'm a little abnormal in terms of my background in this stuff (my undergrad is in it. ;) ). Book rating criteria; to help objectify my ratings. 1. I would read again?No, but I’ll certainly skim my...

OK, my second of three self-help books for the months of October/November.I came to this book with the utmost level of skepticism and came away with slightly less skepticism. I've seen several cases of people taking "leadership courses" only to become distant and insecurely authoritarian with the team that they must manage. If I were to write a leadership book, it would take a sentence: Don't be an asshole, listen more than talk, admit to being wrong, and lead by example. Bill George has a sligh...

A great guide to self-discovery with self-assessing questions at the end of each chapter.

This book, of course, is another foray into leadership strategy. I have to admit that I went into the book with a bad attitude because I am not a huge fan of the professor who assigned it. That said, it actually was a pretty good book. The author's rhetoric is a bit cliche, but the book won me over with all the personal stories of ordinary men and women doing extraordinary things. My personal favorite was Andrea Jung, the first female CEO of Avon - her passion for empowering women from all walks...

I guess when I read a leadership book I want actionable stuff. This is more a self-help book. I went into it very positively and found myself skimming more and more of it until I realised there's not much in there for me or, I think, the people I want to develop.

Excellent continuation to "Authentic Leadership", "True North" show the importance of life experience on your leadership style. Bill George lists stories to numerous leaders in companies and NGOs and how their experience drove them to acquire authentic leadership.I was very fond of the questionnaires at the end of each chapter, pushing you to take a look into your inner self and your life experience.I recommend this book for the self discovery process it takes you through.

It's a good read to figure out your true self. Kinda helps you out in finding your way through the corporate world!

The concept is good and important. The book is more about the formation, the qualities and the expectations of a leader. It was my first time that I saw the difference between a leader of yesterday (+/-40 yrs ago) and a leader of today. Aspects like me vs we, regional vs global, IQ vs EQ are important in today's leaders and not yesterdays ones. I thought the stories to accommodate the narrative were long and forced. The summary of the book was enough. The other turn off was the world "crucible"....

Because of the number of books I have read on leadership, I expect that some of the content of almost every leadership book will be duplicative of some other book I have read. My standard is whether or not the book contains something new and valuable for me in my quest to be a better leader. This book has it. I was impressed with two areas of in depth material, that regarding the need for leaders to be in a give and take mentoring relationship, and the description of the types of leadership styl...

Read the Blinkist version. Solid stuff.

Lots of anecdotes about what it means to be an authentic leader that resonated with me. Reason for the 3 star was that I listened to the Audible version and the narrator did my head in, was like listening to a monotone computer voice for 7 hours!

While I like leadership books, this one was just okay. It had some good points in it about knowing yourself and your passions, being authentic, and the importance of feedback. In the leadership roles I take on, which don’t include aspiring to lead a corporation, I tend to be pretty quiet and reserved to begin with. I read this because I do lead in my church and will be a leader as a school librarian, but there was probably a better book out there for me and the leadership roles I tend to step in...