It Takes a Lot More Than Attitude... to Lead a Stellar Organization

by Stever Robbins

Book Overview

It Takes a Lot More than Attitude . . . To Lead a Stellar Organization is the ultimate road map to building, growing, and leading a successful company. Written with humor and attitude by one of the... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0975481002
• ISBN13: 9780975481004
• Release Date: July 2004
• Publisher: Acanthus Publishing
• Length: 163 Pages
• Weight: 0.70 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.5" x 6.9" x 9.0"

Customer Reviews

Nuggets of wisdom for leaders and their coaches

This approachable book by leadership consultant Stever Robbins is packed with real world examples and practical tips about the people side of leadership. Written in chatty sound bites, it's like having a conversation over coffee with Stever to tap into his insights about how CEO's can do a better job at leading. Each of Stever's stories illustrates an important lesson about how (and how not to) lead. He reveals how one CEO went on vacation while her staff was working overtime on a product launch, while another kept his staff on full pay after a fire leveled the business. His examples communicate essential leadership principles like accepting responsibility, sharing your vision, and creating a culture of mutual respect. As a business coach myself, I found this book filled with valuable material for working with my executive clients. I recognized many of their management faux pas in Stever's pithy stories, and have been able to pass along much of his sage advice to people who badly needed it.

Practical, Punchy and Plain Speaking

Written in a crisp, clear and straightforward style, this book pulls no punches when it comes to defining the moral and ethical responsibilities of leaders. Amongst other things, Stever is an executive coach, President of Leadership Decision Works Inc, entrepreneur and executive trainer at Harvard Business School. He's therefore well qualified to comment on what makes a good or not-so-good leader. He uses real life examples throughout to illustrate key points and to drive home the messages. While other leadership books often give only conceptual information about leadership, this book goes much further and deeper by identifying specific, practical steps you can take to become a better leader. In addition there are thought provoking questions to challenge your current paradigms and down-to-earth recommendations for improving how you lead so that you can get the best out of yourself and your team. I particularly enjoyed Stever's conversational and humourous style of writing. It flows well and his focus on total leadership responsibility means there's no place to hide if things go wrong. The buck stops firmly with you. Stever's holistic approach to both organisational and individual development and learning is like a breath of fresh air to those of us who believe that helping people to stay healthy is a key to organisational wellness. I believe the book will be equally useful to developing leaders as well as those in unofficial leadership roles. Applying the recommendations to how you might "lead" your life or any community or sporting body is also valid. With 3 parts, 30 short chapters and 163 pages, it's easy to find your way back to those things you've decided to work on first. And no doubt you'll dip into the book regularly to support your journey to leadership excellence.

leadership for the rest of us!

This book reads very much like an advice column, which is refreshing because the other leadership books I've bought read like science journals. What I liked most was that Stever left the boring case studies out and provided a lot of short but enlightening examples from his experiences as a start-up entrepreneur, technologist, and executive coach. You can pretty much skim this book and learn something about leading people you didn't know before. As someone who makes a living helping people stay organized and focused, I particularly liked the part of the book where Stever offered tips for keeping your head cool and clear when faced with a million deadlines (and Post-it notes). I recommend this book for anyone who runs a company, or plans on running a company in the near future.

Practical How-To Guide for Effective Company Leadership

I purchased this book after having read several of Stever Robbins' columns on leadership in a Harvard Business School newsletter. His approach had struck me as practical and on the mark for his audience of (aspiring) effective company leaders. The book is an extension of the newsletters, synthesizing Robbins' learnings from his years of executive counseling into a well-organized and comprehensive how-to approach. Robbins draws on his experiences in a variety of industries and contexts to illustrate his points with real life examples. The book is a good resource for either young managers who aspire to become leaders, newly promoted execs, or those who have been at the top for awhile but feel they could be doing a much better job at it. One caveat is that the book includes quite a lot of material. I think managers should focus on one chapter at a time, incorporating the recommended approaches into one's work week before taking on another chapter. For most readers, this means proceeding in a linear fashion starting with "The Rights and Responsibilities of Being at the Top," then tackling the action steps contained in "Leading with Vision - Getting Things Done through Other People," and in "Staying Organized, Focused and Sane."