A well-organized and clearly envisioned primer on successful leadership.
A family man and U.S. Marine Corps officer discusses his personal philosophy for successful leadership.
Using examples as diverse as Microsoft CEOs, Shaquille O’Neal, and SpongeBob SquarePants, Ogunyemi offers a set of “counterintuitive” principles for leaders. The central idea is that successful leadership demands “learning, observing, and prioritizing others’ needs over your own” rather than conventional, ego-driven, top-down exercises of power. The author begins by emphasizing the importance of emotional intelligence, noting that the conventional corporate leadership model is essentially based on assuaging the boss’s insecurity. Ogunyemi uses the metaphor of the “emotional bank account” when describing relationships between leaders and their teams: It’s important to make deposits, not just withdrawals, and maintain a healthy balance over the long term. This idea comes through in more complex facets of leadership, like a model of “encouragement” drawn from the journalist Susan Page that counsels leaders to actually identify key skills, create plans to nourish and deploy those skills, and then provide feedback and praise on measurable progress in lieu of merely offering a few perfunctory words after a task is complete. Ogunyemi also advocates principles like a “closed-door policy,” which holds that communication should not be unplanned and haphazard, but a structured and intentional part of managing emotional bank accounts. Ultimately, the author asserts that a leader’s job is to build a positive company culture, which requires reflection, self-criticism, and leading by example. All the guidance the author offers is both useful and reflective of the book’s principles. At times, the advice can veer into the obvious (use a calendar; maintain a tidy workspace) or overly fundamental (“don’t micromanage” is leadership 101), but that might reflect the appalling state of contemporary corporate leadership more than it does any weakness in the text or the author’s argument. Ogunyemi’s Everyman persona, evident and diverse life experience, and focus on leadership built on emotional intelligence and personal responsibility make for a valuable addition to any leader’s library.
A well-organized and clearly envisioned primer on successful leadership.Pub Date: June 2, 2026
ISBN: 9798891389717
Page Count: 200
Publisher: Amplify Publishing
Review Posted Online: April 24, 2026
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
Striking research showing the immense complexity of ordinary thought and revealing the identities of the gatekeepers in our...
A psychologist and Nobel Prize winner summarizes and synthesizes the recent decades of research on intuition and systematic thinking.
The author of several scholarly texts, Kahneman (Emeritus Psychology and Public Affairs/Princeton Univ.) now offers general readers not just the findings of psychological research but also a better understanding of how research questions arise and how scholars systematically frame and answer them. He begins with the distinction between System 1 and System 2 mental operations, the former referring to quick, automatic thought, the latter to more effortful, overt thinking. We rely heavily, writes, on System 1, resorting to the higher-energy System 2 only when we need or want to. Kahneman continually refers to System 2 as “lazy”: We don’t want to think rigorously about something. The author then explores the nuances of our two-system minds, showing how they perform in various situations. Psychological experiments have repeatedly revealed that our intuitions are generally wrong, that our assessments are based on biases and that our System 1 hates doubt and despises ambiguity. Kahneman largely avoids jargon; when he does use some (“heuristics,” for example), he argues that such terms really ought to join our everyday vocabulary. He reviews many fundamental concepts in psychology and statistics (regression to the mean, the narrative fallacy, the optimistic bias), showing how they relate to his overall concerns about how we think and why we make the decisions that we do. Some of the later chapters (dealing with risk-taking and statistics and probabilities) are denser than others (some readers may resent such demands on System 2!), but the passages that deal with the economic and political implications of the research are gripping.
Striking research showing the immense complexity of ordinary thought and revealing the identities of the gatekeepers in our minds.Pub Date: Nov. 1, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-374-27563-1
Page Count: 512
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: Sept. 3, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2011
BOOK REVIEW
IN THE NEWS
IN THE NEWS
Perhaps not magic but appealing nonetheless.
Want to get ahead in business? Consult a dictionary.
By Wharton School professor Berger’s account, much of the art of persuasion lies in the art of choosing the right word. Want to jump ahead of others waiting in line to use a photocopy machine, even if they’re grizzled New Yorkers? Throw a because into the equation (“Excuse me, I have five pages. May I use the Xerox machine, because I’m in a rush?”), and you’re likely to get your way. Want someone to do your copying for you? Then change your verbs to nouns: not “Can you help me?” but “Can you be a helper?” As Berger notes, there’s a subtle psychological shift at play when a person becomes not a mere instrument in helping but instead acquires an identity as a helper. It’s the little things, one supposes, and the author offers some interesting strategies that eager readers will want to try out. Instead of alienating a listener with the omniscient should, as in “You should do this,” try could instead: “Well, you could…” induces all concerned “to recognize that there might be other possibilities.” Berger’s counsel that one should use abstractions contradicts his admonition to use concrete language, and it doesn’t help matters to say that each is appropriate to a particular situation, while grammarians will wince at his suggestion that a nerve-calming exercise to “try talking to yourself in the third person (‘You can do it!’)” in fact invokes the second person. Still, there are plenty of useful insights, particularly for students of advertising and public speaking. It’s intriguing to note that appeals to God are less effective in securing a loan than a simple affirmative such as “I pay all bills…on time”), and it’s helpful to keep in mind that “the right words used at the right time can have immense power.”
Perhaps not magic but appealing nonetheless.Pub Date: March 7, 2023
ISBN: 9780063204935
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Harper Business
Review Posted Online: March 23, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2023
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