Rating: 
Summary: Great leadership stories!
Review: As part of an assignment for a Leadership/Small Group Communication course, I was directed to select the book of my choice from an Amazon book search under the topic of leadership. After poring through the descriptions of just a few of the 116,000 books in this category, I quickly identified the type of book I was looking for. I wanted something less academic/theoretical and more real life. I figured any lessons on leadership would be easier to grasp if they accompanied the stories of real people. Michael Useem's The Leadership Moment: Nine True Stories of Triumph and Disaster and Their Lessons for Us All fit the bill.
The Leadership Moment is a book of nine stories of real individuals who were faced with leadership challenges or put into positions where their decisions as leaders would greatly affect the outcome or survival of companies, countries and often, many other lives. The stories cover attempts to cure disease, retreating from a fire, returning a malfunctioning spacecraft to earth, ascending a mountain, leading men to battle, restructuring large corporations, the downfall and rise of a large company, working towards development of women in the third world and ending a civil war. Each story identifies a leader put into a critical do or die situation where their decisions and leadership qualities either led to success and meeting objectives, or led to failure and the demise of the company or death of those they were leading.
What I really liked about the book was the real life examples and the vast range of examples that Useem used. While many of us in the corporate world identify leadership as the ability to bring in financial returns or climb the corporate ladder, this book shows how leadership comes up in vastly different situations.
Useem's writing style flows well and is easy to follow. The stories are interesting and descriptive. For each story, he points out several leadership objectives that are implicated in the story. I enjoyed the book, and was able to identify how some of his leadership objectives could apply to my own career. I recommend this book to anyone looking for an interesting read on leadership.
Rating:
Summary: Teaches by Example
Review: Enjoyed the stories and the discussions that followed. I'm sick of books that just tell you what to do (Seven Habits) - this book I really got into. Great practical examples. Liked seven of the nine chapters.
Rating: 
Summary: Nine accounts of people whose leadership was on the line.
Review: For historian James MacGregor Burns, leadership is a calling. For Peter Drucker, leaders are those whose followers "do the right thing." For Abraham Lincoln, leadership appealed to the "better angels of our nature." For me, leadership is all of these and more. It's most evident when our actions make a real difference. Perhaps only a few people will be affected by the decisions we make at such critical moments; perhaps many will. But either way, we need to be prepared to seize the opportunity. The crux is knowing what to do before we have to do it, and the accounts in this book are intended to help us prepare for such events. Leadership requires us to make an active choice among plausible alternatives, and it depends on bringing others along, on mobilizing them to get the job done. Leadership is at its best when the vision is strategic, the voice persuasive, the results tangible. At the end of the day, leadership is what we've left behind that has made a real difference for the people and visions we value. One of the most effective ways for developing your own leadership potential is by watching what others have done when their own leadership was on the line. The Leadership Moment offers nine accounts of leaders at such moments. Each chapter is shaped around the actions of one person facing circumstances that tested leadership to its utmost. Individually, each account offers a distinct set of lessons that can be remembered and used in everyday management, whether in a company or community. Collectively, the nine accounts are intended to map a broad leadership terrain, from strategic vision and persuasive communication to team building and fact action The nine accounts are: · Merck's Roy Vagelos committing hundreds of millions of dollars to develop and distribute a drug needed only by people who can't afford it. · Eugene Kranz making split second decisions as he struggles to bring the Apollo 13 astronauts home after an explosion rips through their spacecraft. · Arlene Blum organizing the first women's ascent of the Himalayan peak of Annapurna, one of the world's most dangerous mountains. · Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain leading his tattered troops into a pivotal battle at Little Round Top, on the killing fields of Gettysburg. · John Gutfreund losing Salomon Brothers when his inattention to a trading scandal almost topples the Wall Street giant. · Clifton Wharton restructuring a $50 billion pension system direly out of touch with its competition and its customers. · Nancy Barry leaving a powerful position at the World Bank so that she can lead Women's World Banking in its fight against Third World poverty. · Wagner Dodge facing the decisions of a lifetime as a fast-moving forest fire is about to overtake him and his crew of fifteen smokejumpers. · Alfredo Cristiani transforming El Salvador's decade-long civil war into a negotiated settlement. The book originated in courses that I have been offering on leadership and change in the Wharton School's MBA program and its mid-career programs for managers in the U.S. and abroad. I had concluded that learning about leadership is often best achieved when we examine what other people have done when they confronted critical challenges. To the same end, for several years I have been taking graduates of Wharton's Executive MBA program for a one-day visit to the Gettysburg Battlefield, where we examine leadership and strategy during the July, 1863 turning-point in the American Civil War. I am also now organizing an annual two-week Leadership Trek to Mount Everest for our graduates to reflect on leadership and teamwork among the peaks of the Himalayas.
Rating: 
Summary: VERY ENTERTAINING READ, OKAY ANALYSIS
Review: In this book, Mike Useem describes nine situations in which leadership emerges. The situations outlined are very diverse, including a mountainclimbing expedition, a pharmaceutical company's decision, a firefighter's dillemma, and a Central American emerging democracy's negotiation with terrorism, to name a few. Roughly half of the stories are cases of success, half are failures, which makes it interesting exploration of both sides of the coin. Overall, the stories are very interesting per se, and worth the read. Some of these are classics of management and ethics, such as the Merck Riverblindness case. At the end of each story, Useem tries to do an analysis of what the leader did right or wrong. In this section, I did in fact disagree with some of Useem's conclusions, and what bothered me was the fact that I felt like the author did not leave enough space for alternative views. For example, he argues that Roy Vagelos of Merck was a great leader because he guided his company to do the right thing and spend all the money on the disease though it would not recoup costs. I would argue that he did recoup, by the free publicity, which Useem helps extend, but Useem never mentions the possibility of it being worth it. I did like the book and would recommend it, especially the stories, which are told in a very fast paced and easy to read manner. However, not so sure about the analysis.
Rating:
Summary: VERY ENTERTAINING READ, OKAY ANALYSIS
Review: In this book, Mike Useem describes nine situations in which leadership emerges. The situations outlined are very diverse, including a mountainclimbing expedition, a pharmaceutical company's decision, a firefighter's dillemma, and a Central American emerging democracy's negotiation with terrorism, to name a few. Roughly half of the stories are cases of success, half are failures, which makes it interesting exploration of both sides of the coin. Overall, the stories are very interesting per se, and worth the read. Some of these are classics of management and ethics, such as the Merck Riverblindness case. At the end of each story, Useem tries to do an analysis of what the leader did right or wrong. In this section, I did in fact disagree with some of Useem's conclusions, and what bothered me was the fact that I felt like the author did not leave enough space for alternative views. For example, he argues that Roy Vagelos of Merck was a great leader because he guided his company to do the right thing and spend all the money on the disease though it would not recoup costs. I would argue that he did recoup, by the free publicity, which Useem helps extend, but Useem never mentions the possibility of it being worth it. I did like the book and would recommend it, especially the stories, which are told in a very fast paced and easy to read manner. However, not so sure about the analysis.
Rating:
Summary: Excellent
Review: One of the best books on Leadership. Useem is destined to become another Howard Gardiner. Not only are the accounts inspiring, but the range of the stories and lessons learned demonstrate how "leadership" is manifested in a variety of situations and methods.
Rating:
Summary: I highly recommend this book.
Review: Searching for a book on leadership for a graduate level management class, I came across this title and was fascinated. If you are going to read one book on leadership, it should be this book. Michael Useem has written an amazing book in which he shares the stories of nine leaders and the decisions they made in leadership moments. Within each chapter the true story is explained, followed by implications noting the leadership skills applied to make the decision that was made in each case.
Rating:
Summary: Impactful and Useful
Review: Surprisingly good book with careful thinking about some real leadership challenges from history. The author does a great job of turning these stories into practical advice that can be used in business management.
Rating:
Summary: great service
Review: The book arrived on time, and in great condition. And they also included another book for free with the order!
Rating:
Summary: great service
Review: The book arrived on time, and in great condition. And they also included another book for free with the order!
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