Leadership Is an Art

Rating:
Summary: Not my cup of tea
Review: Max Depree basic theme is that although there are leadership principles to be learned, there is a certain mysticism about leadership that is more tribal than scientific and more a weaving of relationships than a amassing of leadership.

Depree talks about diversity, issues of the heart and spirit, integration, being vulnerable and empowerment, but he does so as a business man who realizes that the purpose of a business is to make a profit. Depree discovered that by taking care of his employees, and making them owners in the process he can achieve greater employee loyalty, more creativity, and hence, greater prophets. The danger is that non-businessman (i.e., politicians and pastors) will take these noble ideas and abdicate their leadership.

Rating:
Summary: Excellent Quick Read
Review: Max Depree does a great job of fulfilling the purpose for which he wrote "Leadership is an Art". His how-to, self help book is grounded on a solid foundation of leadership philosophy. Everyone should read this book, for there is not a person alive who will do anything other than benefit from it at work or in their everyday lives. I highly recommend it.

Also recommended: A book that is not at all one of the many books in competition with "Leadership is an Art" that you should go on to read is Norman Thomas Remick's "West Point: Thomas Jefferson: Character Leadership Education" for an education on the philosophical foundations of Max Depree's "Leadership is an Art" that everyone can understand.

Rating:
Summary: Art of Leadership, New lessons on each raeding of this book
Review: One of those books that needs to be read many times. For each time you read it you learn something new. Take the author's advice and keep a pencil next to you, and use the double spaced lines and extra margin room to take notes. Truly a joy to read. Takes leadership and to where it belongs an art form, for each one of us how we get to the end is a bit different. In his introduction DePree suggests that you not only read this book but that you finish it. By finishing it he means understand and apply what you have learned from this book, notice he wants you to learn, not necessarily to be taught.
I truly believe that is why DePree wrote this book. He wrote it so that others could learn about leadership. To him leadership is indeed an art because leadership centers on people and relationships therefore it is difficult to define. When people look at a piece of art (painting, sculpture, or what have you) we all see something a little bit different than the person standing next to us. True we may all see the same piece of art but to each one of us it means something a little different, the colors, structure, the symbolism they all speak to us in different ways. Leadership is indeed that, there are a few cornerstones of leadership but the application of those cornerstones is the art of leadership.