The Leadership Crash Course: How to create personal leadership value
Author: Paul Taffinder
Price: £14.99
Publisher: Kogan Page
Pages: 176
ISBN: 07494-46382
I have a confession to make. I really didn’t feel I was going to like this book. The preconception I had formed was that it would be cliché-ridden and full of trite suggestions and simplistic recommendations.
I was, however, quickly won round to its approach. This is a useful, quick reference text with novel ideas built on experiential knowledge.
The book is structured around a model composed of five boxes laid out in the form of a cross, with one box at the centre. The boxes are labelled: impose context, conviction, challenge and change, make risks and take risks, and generate critical mass.
Topped and tailed by introductory and concluding chapters, these constitute the main sections of the book and, overall, this works well as a format.0
The book reads easily and has a layout that is set up to allow ready access to key concepts, ideas and illustrative cases. It offers an economic and engaging map onto which readers may wish to plot their own positions and styles.
The fact that this is the second edition of the text goes some way to demonstrating that Taffinder’s ideas have already had considerable appeal.
Useful? Five out of five stars
Well-written? Four out of five stars
Practical? Four out of five stars
Inspirational? Five out of five stars
Value for money? Four out of five stars
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Overall? Four out of five stars
Reviewed by Peter Stokes, principal lecturer/division leader, Lancashire Business School, University of Central Lancashire
