Leadership

Rating:
Summary: Everyone can be a Leader, but there's only one Giuliani
Review: "Leadership" is an excellent resource for anyone who seeks
to manage, lead, or instill organization into their own lives.
Written in a style reflective of Giuliani's friendly yet steely
personality, it provides an excellent overview of his political
philosophy, decision making skills, and of course his historic
leadership following the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, 2001.
Until reading the book, I had forgotten how dire the conditions were in New York City prior to Rudy's election in 1993 - over 9,000 felonies per week! He details how he put plans into action
and demanded accountability from everyone in the system, which often required enormous political strength. Being a Republican mayor in a city that is nearly 80% Democrat is enormously difficult. But Rudy explains how he relied on his priciples, moral beliefs and formed relationships with political enemies by
trusting those who were trust worthy and always being open to discussion. These principles and beliefs were evident during the leadership exercised during 9-11.
I highly recommend this book to anyone with an interest in a political or management career, or anyone who wants to learn more about this great American.

Rating:
Summary: Leadership Insights, Self-Serving Story Line
Review: It seemed like the cheering had barely stopped at the change of regime in New York's Gracie Mansion when Rudy Giuliani came out with this book. The subject is leadership. It's not intended to be a biography or a review of the events of Giuliani's mayoral tenure or the events of September 11. The book, which was obviously started before Giuliani left office, is supposed to be about leadership, and it
is.

After a brief opening where Mr. Giuliani tells us why he's writing the book, we move to a discussion of the impact of September 11. No matter how the book was originally designed, this is an appropriate place to begin.

From there we go to the bulk of the book, which is composed of a series of fourteen chapters, each of which lays out a particular leadership point or belief. There's a lot here that's valuable and
worthwhile.

The book is exceptionally well written. Sections move easily from a discourse of principles to examples from Giuliani's life and career and back again.

If you come to this book looking for insights into leadership, you will definitely find them. They're scattered throughout the book and more a part of individual insights than they are of some kind of overall plan, pattern, or philosophy. That seems odd to me, because one of the things that Giuliani was best at as mayor and which he described superbly in this book, is the use of control systems and accountability to assure good performance.

And you will certainly hear about good performance. You will also get insight into the person. You will get excellent stories about his experience of September 11, of his youth, and of his success. You won't get much about anything that wasn't a success.

No one can have as long a career as Rudolph Giuliani or occupy as often-embattled a position as the Mayor of New York without making a few bad choices and having things come out wrong. Giuliani certainly did. They're not in this book, though.

For example, you'll hear a great deal about the woman he is now spending his life with. But there's very little about the kinds of decisions he made that led to an almost soap opera atmosphere surrounding his messy divorce.

You'll hear plenty about his success in reducing the crime statistics in New York. You won't hear about what went on - if anything - with education, even though that was supposed to be an area of concentration in his second term.

You'll be reminded several times that he and his administration thought about and researched and planned for disasters and were, therefore, better prepared to handle September 11 than they might have been otherwise. You won't hear how there were no joint city-wide operations to test many of these plans, nor will you hear some of the criticisms that have been voiced in other places about issues of coordination and technology.

What that means is that as good as the book is, after awhile you start to ask yourself a question. "What's the rest of this story? What's the other side?"

In the end, that's what left me vaguely dissatisfied with the book and unwilling to give it a complete, unqualified, strong buy recommendation. You'll get part of the story here, and what you'll get is good, valuable, and may be helpful. But you won't get the whole story.


Rating:
Summary: Rudy is the man!!!
Review: Rudt Giuliani is a great man and I learned a lot, a real lot about
Leadership from him and his great book.

Rating:
Summary: egotistical journy
Review: I did find New York mayor Giuliani's daily modus operandi interesting. However, it is a pity that one has to endure his burly egotism in the book. I got half way and called it a day.

Rating:
Summary: Excellent Lessons
Review: This book was very enjoyable and informative. It is basically a narrative arranged by topics or lessons that Mr. Guiliani poses as ways to lead or be a good leader. Each chapter flows very well and he shows examples of when his ideas and philosophy worked well and what made them successful.

The book begins with the 9/11 attack and how he and his staff reacted. From there the book moves from chapter to chapter where he presents the things he did as mayor and he cites statistics to show his success.

This is an excellent resource for anyone in a leadership position to see one very successful man's approach to leadership. I would not categorize this as a political book per se; indeed leaders of any political persuasion should read this because the lessons and philosphies deal with leading people. And at the end of the day, we're all just people regardless of our politics.

Rating:
Summary: weLEAD Book Review from the Editor of leadingtoday.org
Review: Rudolph Giuliani is the controversial former mayor of New York City. His image was transformed at the terrorist attack in New York on September 11, 2001. Much of this book was written before this historical event as he prepared to leave office as mayor. After the attack Giuliani added chapter one and the final chapter (sixteen) to discuss the events of 9/11 and how he directed the recovery during the final four months of his administration.



Leadership is primarily a biography about the life and various experiences of Giuliani and how they prepared him to lead. He draws on his experiences as a U.S attorney, corporate lawyer and mayor to discuss the values and leadership principles he espouses. For example, Giuliani vividly describes the aggressive management style he used to deal with many problems in New York City from petty crime to cleaning up 42nd street, a notorious smut boulevard. The mayor achieved this by insisting that city government be treated and organized like a business organization. Giuliani mentions how he used the six sigma approach used by GE's Jack Welch to improve city services.



This is not a book that simply lists one leadership trait after another; it is more of a biography with some notable gaps in the author's life. Though he does not discuss his personal life in great detail, this is a book that will give you a deep insight into Rudolph Giuliani as a manager. It is peppered with his real life examples to illustrate the values he believes in and lives by. He uses various examples to show how and where he learned these leadership principles, and how he has used them in different situations of his life. One of the more interesting parts of Leadership is Giuliani's recollection of the people he has met in public life from various Mafia Dons, to a confrontation with Yasser Arafat.



The heart of Leadership is part II, the section reputedly written before the 9/11 event. Each of its thirteen chapters highlights a principle and numerous examples to teach and discuss a leadership quality. Some of these are... prepare relentlessly, underpromise and overdeliver, stand up to bullies and organize around a purpose. If you have read other books on the subject of leadership, you will not find much that is new in this book. However, if you would like to read about how leadership is applied successfully in the real world to solve complex and difficult problems, there may not be a better book on the market!





Rating:
Summary: Interesting stories-not much new about leader
Review: This book provides an important window into the events of 9/11/2001, and it is interesting for that reason. Little new about leadership is offered, however. For Rudy, being Rudy is the definition of leadership. Undoubtedly, his take charge approach after the attack was just what America needed at the time. But I expected more nuance from the nation's mayor. I expected more that the high-school-coach leadership mantra: be certain, be clear and be involved. I expected to learn something.

Rating:
Summary: Excellent book
Review: I am 31 and a student of leadership and management. Reading the parts in this book about the events of 9/11 brought me back to the video clips of Rudy on that fateful morning stepping up and leading in an unbelievably calm manner with the building debree falling and utter chaos all around him. I get goose bumps thinking about that. On such a dark, tragic day in our history, Rudy was a beacon of light and the personification of leadership. I was very impressed with his stories and learned a tremendous amount from him. I highly recommend this book and wouldn't be surprised to see him back in government & politics in 2008.

Rating:
Summary: The best book of its kind - worth 10 stars!!!
Review: I'll admit up front how simply terrific I think Rudy Giuliani is. The other reviewers here who disdainfully refer to him as politically expedient and denounce the idea of his running for president bewilder me: What better man could we possibly have in the White House from 2008 on?

That said (and my prejudice clearly outlined), the book itself was one of the great reads I've ever had. I've always been interested in the topic of leadership, but few books of this kind move at such a clip or use such meticulous detail, and the chapters about September 11th are both inspiring and heartbreaking. While Giuliani makes it clear that he believes in taking personal responsibility, he makes little of an incident after 9/11 that I felt spoke volumes about him: His longtime personal assistant lost her firefighter husband in the Towers. Giuliani had not only introduced them but also married them on the steps of City Hall, not too long before. It was his decision that in the terrible days after 9/11, when he got word that they had found her husband's body, he would be the one to identify the man, sparing his widow the additional pain and grief. A small thing, yes. But in the midst of every spare ounce of his energy and intellect being absorbed by this penultimate tragedy, it made clear how very humane a man he is. (P.S. -- In one of the many little 9/11 miracles, his assistant found out a few weeks later that she was pregnant with her dead husband's baby.)

It is also indicative of Giuliani's continuing rage and grief over 9/11 that he actually was willing to publish a private conversation between himself and the president when Bush visited New York in the aftermath of 9/11. He and Governor Pataki met Bush at a New Jersey heliport, and Bush asked him, "What can I do for you?" Giuliani replied, "When you find the people who did this, I want to be the one to pull the switch."

Rock on, Rudy!

A remarkable book from a remarkable leader. New York could not have been luckier to have him as mayor during its most terrible trial.

Rating:
Summary: A man who made NY livable again
Review: While Giuliani does break this book up into chapters of what qualities are needed for a good leader, it really is more of an insight into what it took to make New York a city that people could live in again. It is easy to take for granted everything that Rudy did during his public career in taking on the Mafia dons, and the malaise and terror that gripped the streets when his predecessors took the safe way out and did what was politically expedient instead of what was good for society. Two thousand murders a year, 10,000 felonies per WEEK, a welfare society that was draining the city of its lifeblood and chasing business away. It was a city where graffiti and panhandlers became the symbols of liberal failure to understand the basics of what a society needs to succeed. Giuliani was abrasive because he always was able to point out the silliness of the "limousine liberals" who talked about the need for marginal elements of society to enjoy the freedom to do what they wished, but at the expense of the majority of society to live without fear from them. While the NY Times editorial board would rail against every campaign that Rudy understood to make the city livable again, they always jumped in their limos because they were too afraid to walk the streets that they ruined with their liberal clap trap.
This is a good book for anyone who is new to the New York City scene, or who needs some history on how the city could have become another decaying mass of inhumanity like so many other Democrat controlled major cities in the USA.