Hesselbein on Leadership
Frances Hesselbein's views on leadership have attracted fans since the one-time Johnstown, Pennsylvania, troop leader became CEO of Girl Scouts of the USA in 1976 and turned that venerable but struggling organization around. Now inHesselbein on Leadershipthe current chairman and founding president of the Drucker Foundation has compiled 19 essays that lay out the philosophy she honed during those experiences and in years since--a philosophy that today draws more admirers than ever, such as Jim Collins, who wrote the book's foreword. In a disarmingly simple manner, Hesselbein offers her underlying definition of the topic at hand ("leadership is a matter of how to be, not how to do it") and spells out nuances and specifics that those atop any private, public or nonprofit organization would do well to absorb. Throughout the book she shows how character determines performance, how a willingness to innovate and a desire to make a difference regularly bring results, and how the best leaders actually turn a vision into the spark needed to ignite their enterprise. There is plenty of pragmatic advice here amidst the theoretical, and in light of Hesselbein's wealth of provocative yet practical insights, the only complaint may be that this collection is a little on the slim side.--Howard Rothman