Good Book Review On Book Analysis

Jeff Foley and Perry Smith’s Rules and Tools for Leaders 2013 offers best practical and well-thought leadership guides when quenching for effective leadership. The book chronicles around a transformational journey that commences with first comprehending oneself to get equipped with the best perspective on an ultimate leadership and trust development. With a clear and focused perspective, an individual is guaranteed a fruitful team leadership coupled with a solid building community. The final aspect they highlight in the book is the essence of organizational leadership, with a clear vision of designing a performance culture. Rules and Tools for Leaders, offers a practical journey for an effective leadership. The text herein examines the golden nuggets, contributions, strength, weaknesses and the relevance of this book to individuals with a leadership oriented ambitions.
After reading this book, we find smart leaders like Foley and Smith learning from their own mistakes. However, for exceptional leaders, they should learn from other people’s mistakes and success; in this case, the success and mistakes of Foley and Smith. These two authors are on a mission to assist young entrepreneurs with leadership qualities to achieve their utmost potentials, by transforming them into effective and practical leaders through their wisdom nuggets endowed in Rules and Tools for Leaders. The two authors have mined the gold for us, so we do not have to. Each gold nugget chronicles in each chapter for an intense mentorship from global leadership experts. Consequently, each chapter contains an explicit application of relevant practices for the modern organizations. It is often believed that listening is an essential ingredient for success. However, an individual might respect the importance of listening but fail to know exactly what to do. The book offers insights into a step by step guidance on when, where and what to do. Jeff and Smith are highly respected as global experts in the fine field of leadership skills, denoting that they are well-qualified to have written this book. Their credentials are also impeccable.
The book comprises of several golden nuggets of leadership skills, all evolving around the practices, principles, and meaningful actions. The authors perfectly combine good leadership skills, actions, as well as, effective leadership, illustrating how each skill implements the other. Good character, strategic planning, mentoring, visions, self-management and leading models encompasses good leadership. All these subjects are critically analyzed in the book. Chapter after chapter is enriched with solid teaching, examples and practical exercises of how leaders implement their managerial skills to enhance their work. I was remarkably struck by the numerous variety of leaders cited and their wise interactions with the two authors. The individuals used in the book as a point of reference reinforces the universality of the implied principles. The instruction of exemplary leaders are perfectly intertwined stabilizes the book, to enrich the readability of the text. The cited leaders add value to the book, offering each reader with the organizational chapter where the experiences of leaders are either shared or advice. The summaries offered at the end of each chapter makes it much easier to garner the vast wisdom tackled in the chapters. Therefore, obtaining insights to effective leadership is more like mining gold. In this mine, however, an individual does not necessarily need to get dirt to access the nuggets since the dirty work has already been done and they need to do is to read the book.
Jeff and Smith’s book has significant contributions to its audience. Some of the strongest contributions that can be attributed to this book is listening, communication, self-management and team building. A good listening skill is the foundation of any relationship. Great leaders pay keen attention to the needs of their clients and prospects, as well as listen to some of the challenges encountered by these clients for an effective remedy. As the audience of the book, we should read word after word to keenly grasp the concept being sent across. Great and effective leaders listen to shareholders, colleagues, investors and even competitors to acquire new ideas. After listening, effective leaders must communicate to sell their products, but essentially to sell their ideas. Communication captivates people and drives them to take effective an action. The two authors communicate to aspiring leaders through their book.
One way of managing oneself is by having unshakable integrity. Leaders should have integrity beyond comparison. Humility and wisdom are the leading hallmarks of an authentic leader. The two hallmarks create a positive and attractive energy filled with enthusiasm. An authentic person is likely to obtain help from employees, customers or even the media. After all, one must first understand themselves before dealing with other people and consequently becoming a team leader to lead teams, and expanding to lead large organizations. Last but not least, it is paramount for leaders to practice team building. Regardless of the size of the business, leaders interact on a daily basis to carry out business errands. Leaders should respect the opinions brought about by team members, encourage innovative ideas and offer room for other colleagues to shine.
This book is relevant and very applicable in various ways in the modern corporations. This book always has the big picture of how most organizations should operate. By defining the qualities of outstanding leaders, to practically implementing leadership skills from managing oneself to others to tackling complex tasks, this book has a valuable checklist. Therefore, the book is relevant in several ways such as a great source of for management and leadership skills. In the modern environment, demand for leaders is constantly changes to a more challenging and complex ways. Management skills and quality leadership can only be advanced and enhanced through progressive learning and experience. The two authors provide a varied wealth experiences from their personal careers in management and leadership. Through their writing in the book, readers succinctly and clearly navigate through complex issues through understanding and implementation. The checklists offered are extremely useful for periodic reviews and is very relevant to any type of business.
Secondly, the book is a crucial guide for both leaders and managers. The latest edition of Rules and Tools is a helpful source in daily issues that challenge the leaders and managers. Some of the chapters like the motivational problems posed by profit organizations and how to best incorporate electronics in management are a plus for leaders. The references and checklists provided in the book give this guide an added utility.
Consequently, Perry Smith is a renowned expert on leadership, military and civilian. Recently retired Army, Jeff Foley adds the perspective of yet another successful ranks of leadership. Embodied with solid experience, Foley has examined what works and what does not work. The text is valuable for gathering the wisdom of offered by the two authors, coupled with the many sources offered, for a compelling and clear pros rules and tools with several applications. Be it a professional enterprise or a senior business member sets forth a clear and concise guidelines on how to conduct themselves and impact others for a common goal. Last but not least, rules and tools offers the best practical guide to taking charge. The book covers several ideas tackling various phases and chronological events in leadership continuum. The book is not loaded with theories, but a well-organized practical chapters, offering several things for instant implementation.
Unfortunately, anything that has merits must as well have a share of its criticisms. However, being written by qualified leaders and considering the clarity and the engaging nature of this book, it is rather challenging to pinpoint its weakness. The most likely weakness that is likely to be brought about by some of the individuals used in the book as a point of reference. The skills of these two authors do not raise any alarm. However, the clarity of these individuals may not be clear to the audience. As a reader of this book, am not sure if the individuals are fictional or not. At this point, it gets a little challenging to truly believe that the practically-based book is indeed practical or fictional.
In conclusion, this paper has examined Jeff and Smith’s Rules and Tools for Leaders 2013, a book written by duo-authors. The book is well-organized and rich in several leadership concepts. The two authors have paved the path for aspiring leaders, by offering insights on how they can apply the practical concepts highlighted in the book. By reading the book, leaders in high-rank managerial positions to lower level leaders can equally withdraw from the success of this book to their daily business errands. I would recommend this book to any person in search of practical business-oriented practices.

Reference

Smith, P., & Foley, J. (2013). Rules and Tools for Leaders. In Rules & tools for leaders: From developing your own skills to running organizations of any size, practical advice for leaders at all levels 4th ed., Vol. 2, pp. 105-126. New York: Perigee.