Reinventing Leadership: Strategies to Empower the Organization

Rating:
Summary: Practical advice from Townsend
Review: Several insightful and practically applicable info, almost all from Townsend. Theoretical info provided by Bennis is of little use. Some useful advice includes: (1) how to select leaders and (2) protecting your group from unnecessary busy work from the top (3) delegate when someone can do the job 50-70% well and (4) promote from within

Rating:
Summary: Informative and worthy of your time.
Review: The authors of this interesting work explore a new leadership style suited to the new characteristics of organization and the direction leadership is taking today. The ideas are presented as a lively dialogue between Bennis and Townsend; this format may appeal to some and turn-off others. While we found it added some pizzazz, at times it gets in the way of the content. The book covers such topics as: developing leadership traits, the personal side of leadership, empowerment, and choosing a leader. Also included is a self-development plan. The number of books on leader seems to be infinite but this is one that is informative and worthy of your time. Reviewed by Gerry Stern, founder, HR consultant.com InfoCenter and Stern & Associates.

Rating:
Summary: You might rate either 10 or 1, so I gave the average of 5
Review: This book is for someone who had tried but failed to lead his people to excel. It could be very inspiring to those people if they have the wisdom to pick the good points from the book and create their own style, they would rate it 10(best). But if you had read the earlier (80's) books of Townsend "Further Up/Up the Organisation" (which I rated 10+), you would rate this one 1(worst).