A leadership manual that’s light on content but leaves a lasting impression.
This brief debut guide features 44 leadership axioms.
Newman’s basic premise is centered on the notion that “people often fear doing” but “doing begets leadership.” It’s a refreshing way of looking at leadership that differentiates the work from the countless books in this category. The author’s execution is also a bit unusual. This is a volume of vignettes—some as short as a few paragraphs—many of which are taken from Newman’s own relationships and experiences as a civilian aide to the secretary of the Army for the South Region of New York. Each vignette serves as an example of an axiom. For instance, a story about the author’s own mentor illustrates Axiom No. 7, “The Value of the Mentor/Protégé Relationship,” while Newman’s observations about the Army’s “communication standards” support Axiom No. 22, “Leaders Have Excellent Communication Skills.” In general, the concept works well. For the most part, the axioms are meaningful and the vignettes are appropriate. Still, the 44 axioms seem to be randomly organized; there are no categories or central themes to relate one to another. In addition, some of the axioms really aren’t axioms at all. For example, Axiom No. 26 (“Veterans Hospitals Strive To Heal People”) and Axiom No. 27 (“Veterans Moving Forward—A Wonderful Organization Committed to Creating Better Lives for Disabled Veterans”) seem out of place. They break from the parallel structure of the other axioms and are more about the actions, albeit noble ones, of organizations. Other axioms appear repetitive. There is little appreciable difference among Axiom No. 8 (“Leaders Inspire Others”), Axiom No. 10 (“Leaders Inspire”), and Axiom No. 14 (“Leaders Help Others Do Better”). That said, this slim volume does have merit: It aims to identify important leadership traits and lends a novel perspective, primarily because it is drawn from the military rather than the business world. Newman’s respect for honesty and integrity is apparent in her writing, and her observations are worthwhile. In one axiom, she notes: “Doing the correct thing takes courage, extra energy, perseverance, risk taking and a fundamental belief that ‘right is right.’ ”
A leadership manual that’s light on content but leaves a lasting impression.Pub Date: Nov. 13, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-977229-71-7
Page Count: 98
Publisher: Outskirts Press
Review Posted Online: March 3, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2021
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
PERSPECTIVES
It’s not Shakespeare, not by a long shot. But at least it’s not James Franco.
A noted actor turns to verse: “Poems are a Saturday in the middle of the week.”
McConaughey, author of the gracefully written memoir Greenlights, has been writing poems since his teens, closing with one “written in an Australian bathtub” that reads just as a poem by an 18-year-old (Rimbaud excepted) should read: “Ignorant minds of the fortunate man / Blind of the fate shaping every land.” McConaughey is fearless in his commitment to the rhyme, no matter how slight the result (“Oops, took a quick peek at the sky before I got my glasses, / now I can’t see shit, sure hope this passes”). And, sad to say, the slight is what is most on display throughout, punctuated by some odd koanlike aperçus: “Eating all we can / at the all-we-can-eat buffet, / gives us a 3.8 education / and a 4.2 GPA.” “Never give up your right to do the next right thing. This is how we find our way home.” “Memory never forgets. Even though we do.” The prayer portion of the program is deeply felt, but it’s just as sentimental; only when he writes of life-changing events—a court appearance to file a restraining order against a stalker, his decision to quit smoking weed—do we catch a glimpse of the effortlessly fluent, effortlessly charming McConaughey as exemplified by the David Wooderson (“alright, alright, alright”) of Dazed and Confused. The rest is mostly a soufflé in verse. McConaughey’s heart is very clearly in the right place, but on the whole the book suggests an old saw: Don’t give up your day job.
It’s not Shakespeare, not by a long shot. But at least it’s not James Franco.Pub Date: Sept. 16, 2025
ISBN: 9781984862105
Page Count: 208
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: Aug. 15, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2025
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
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
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