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The Leadership Moment

The Leadership Moment by Michael Useem views leadership through the lens of 9 stories - most of which I was not familiar with - because the stories are not the typical cliched leadership stories one mostly hears about.

Except for the story of the Apollo 13, all the other 8 stories were new to me. And unlike many other books, it does not make the leader seem bad when things go awry - and that is an interesting lesson - because most leaders, like most human beings, do try their best given a particular circumstances.

The way the book looks at the leaders and draws lessons from each story into different actions and ties it all together is unique.

And it also takes a non-conventional approach to leadership - Mountaineering, Forest Fires, Non-profit and so on and with varying scales of problems and with human life costs involved - which are vastly different from corporate leadership - where the scale and costs are vastly different.

This is a book that makes you pause and think.

I especially enjoyed reading the mountaineering and the fire story - these are the kind of things that are never replicated in our genteel corporate surroundings. And I definitely recommend this book for someone who wants to really reflect on leadership!
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