5 stars (Packed with Knowledge!) - Leadership isn't easy. The best leaders force their followers to face unpleasant realities and then figure out the solutions for themselves. That's why leadership is so risky, argue Ronald A. Heifetz and Marty Linsky in this engaging tome. The authors analyze the successes and failures of leaders ranging from Yitzhak Rabin to Bill Clinton, with stops along the way to examine the leadership styles of former Coca-Cola CEO M. Douglas Ivester and NBA coach Phil Jackson. At times, the authors' rules of thumb seem too general. Yet, their real-world examples blend well with their leadership theory to present a useful guide to leadership. We recommend this excellent book to anyone facing a difficult leadership situation. 5 stars (Why is Leadership so hard) - For me the measure of a book is whether it breaks through and reaches me in some way. This often occurs when the writing pushes me to think about my experiences in new ways. This book has done that many times over. It goes beyond mechanistic models to help me consider and reconsider my role as leader and as follower. 4 stars (Exercise your leadership!) - This book you may change your definition of "leadership" slightly. In this book we can see not only how Presidents exercised their leadership but also that middle management class people are on the line as well to achieve their goals and they definitely used their leadership. Those people are analyzed in the same manner regardless of their social status. Same people, both famous and anonymous, appear in the book again and again in different occasions as different examples. The authors weaved them into the narrative story. Sometime they failed, the other time they succeeded. You would feel them closely, even Presidents. Further more, we need to be our own master and for that sake we need to be able to manage ourselves. It means you must exercise leadership for yourself! Since same people and story appeared several times,... Harvard Business School Press :: Leadership :: Entrepreneurship :: Business&Economics :: Business & Economics & Finance :: Business & Economics :: Ronald A Heifetz :: Martin Linsky :: :: Leadership on the Line- Staying Alive Through the Dangers of Leading