While skewed toward the military and business world, this work delivers solid leadership insights.
In this guide, a group of successful individuals offer perspectives on leadership.
As a former quarterback for the United States Naval Academy’s football team, a naval officer, and a thriving entrepreneur, Stuvek epitomizes success. In this work, he moves “beyond inspiration” and the fluff delivered by many books in the self-help genre and instead focuses on “the nitty-gritty details of how to obtain the experience and skills that great leaders display.” Each of the manual’s 15 core chapters presents a first-person narrative written by a man or woman who has excelled in a field and who uses personal anecdotes to illuminate particular leadership traits. Given the author’s background, it is not surprising that many of the chapters are written by veterans whose leadership skills stand out given the life-and-death nature of their decisions, the military’s emphasis on teamwork, and their “ability to adapt and change as circumstances change.” Albert M. Calland III, who spent three decades as a Navy SEAL prior to his appointment as deputy director of the CIA, writes a particularly illuminating chapter that provides behind-the-scenes stories and lessons learned from the “war on terror.” Business and education figures are also well represented, including entrepreneur Jackie Freedman and former Arizona State University engineering professor Jacob Kashiwagi, who reminds readers that there is no single model of leadership. The book concludes with a chapter by Stuvek that supplies useful tips on how would-be leaders can motivate young people, whose upbringings may not resonate with the management styles of previous generations. Replete with intriguing success stories, useful acronyms, and practical tips, this is an uplifting yet pragmatic book. Though the volume is written in an apolitical style, some readers may be put off by its disproportionate emphasis on military and business leaders and its inclusion of several of President George W. Bush’s appointees and members of right-wing organizations like the Rumsfeld Foundation. Still, the guide’s contributors are diverse regarding gender and race.
While skewed toward the military and business world, this work delivers solid leadership insights.Pub Date: Oct. 12, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-73230-607-3
Page Count: 252
Publisher: Triumvirate Press
Review Posted Online: Oct. 8, 2021
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Even if they're pie-in-the-sky exercises, Sanders’ pitched arguments bear consideration by nonbillionaires.
Everyone’s favorite avuncular socialist sends up a rousing call to remake the American way of doing business.
“In the twenty-first century we can end the vicious dog-eat-dog economy in which the vast majority struggle to survive,” writes Sanders, “while a handful of billionaires have more wealth than they could spend in a thousand lifetimes.” With that statement, the author updates an argument as old as Marx and Proudhon. In a nice play on words, he condemns “the uber-capitalist system under which we live,” showing how it benefits only the slimmest slice of the few while imposing undue burdens on everyone else. Along the way, Sanders notes that resentment over this inequality was powerful fuel for the disastrous Trump administration, since the Democratic Party thoughtlessly largely abandoned underprivileged voters in favor of “wealthy campaign contributors and the ‘beautiful people.’ ” The author looks squarely at Jeff Bezos, whose company “paid nothing in federal income taxes in 2017 and 2018.” Indeed, writes Sanders, “Bezos is the embodiment of the extreme corporate greed that shapes our times.” Aside from a few passages putting a face to avarice, Sanders lays forth a well-reasoned platform of programs to retool the American economy for greater equity, including investment in education and taking seriously a progressive (in all senses) corporate and personal taxation system to make the rich pay their fair share. In the end, he urges, “We must stop being afraid to call out capitalism and demand fundamental change to a corrupt and rigged system.” One wonders if this firebrand of a manifesto is the opening gambit in still another Sanders run for the presidency. If it is, well, the plutocrats might want to take cover for the duration.
Even if they're pie-in-the-sky exercises, Sanders’ pitched arguments bear consideration by nonbillionaires.Pub Date: Feb. 21, 2023
ISBN: 9780593238714
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: Feb. 21, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2023
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
The workplace (primarily the office) is the setting for this third volume of Tannen's Linguistics Lite trilogy. Tannen (Sociolinguistics/Georgetown) sticks close to the main idea she popularized almost a decade ago in That's Not What I Meant (1985): Men and women have different conversational styles that are equally valid (though unequally valued). Here, she describes women's disadvantages in the workplace: They are paid less than men for the same work and face ``sexism'' (a term Tannen keeps dubiously between quotation marks), a glass ceiling, and sexual harassment. Why do such problems persist? Tannen considers the difference in male and female conversational style as a primary cause. Women are likely to have an indirect manner, to apologize more, and to offer softer criticism; they're problem preventers instead of heroic crisis solvers; they generally strive for the appearance of equality with, not superiority to, their co-workers. Many (male) bosses overlook the value of this style. Tannen concludes that women should go with their own approach, but they should also try to be assertive and worry less about being liked than about being competent. Yet in the next breath, she acknowledges that women who act assertive may bring unpleasant consequences on themselves. In the end, she reaches for platitudes, blithely recommending that workers adopt a mix of styles and that managers learn to recognize and appreciate quality in diverse forms. She says ``on that happy day, the glass ceiling will become a looking glass through which a fair percentage of Alices will be able to step.'' Readers of her earlier books will find much that is familiar, from the research to the conclusions. Women facing a hostile work environment and seeking substantive improvements in their situation are likely to find that Tannen's recourse to ``stylistic differences'' ultimately offers little help. (First printing of 200,000; first serial to New York Times Magazine and Redbook; Book-of-the-Month Club alternate selection; Quality Paperback Book Club main selection; Fortune Book Club main selection; author tour)
Pub Date: Oct. 19, 1994
ISBN: 0-688-11243-9
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Morrow/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 1994
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