Author: John Baldoni

Title: How Great Leaders Get Great Results

Place of Publication: New York, USA
Publisher: McGraw-Hill; (December 5, 2005)
ISBN-10: 0071464875
ISBN-13: 978-0071464871

In order to create a strong, results-driven organization with increased sales, and improved

customer service, quality, and productivity, great leaders must be attentive to seven specific

management principles: vision, alignment, execution, discipline, risk, courage, and results. They

must communicate to make things happen, instill accountability, and encourage innovation to

achieve inspired results. Author John Baldoni helps managers to connect with their employees

in ways that move their organizations forward in positive ways. In How Great Leaders Get

Great Results, Baldoni presents detailed stories about leaders such as Anne Mulcahy, John

McCain, Steve Jobs, Meg Whitman, and Steven Spielberg.

Leaders help people aspire to doing better through clear communication. In the process of

communicating, leaders: 1) aspire 2) perspire 3) require 4) transpire. These factors help

managers drive vision, alignment, execution and discipline, in addition to encouraging risk and

trust for best results. How leaders point the organization in the right direction is the difference

between success and failure. When leaders communicate a specific vision, others will aspire to

meet the goals of the cause. Lasting alignment comes from a participatory organization as

people support a shared vision and are aimed in the same direction.

The book identifies few key business benefits of using the leaders-as-communicators approach,

which include Helps drive business results, stimulates the learning and development of leaders

and associates, improves the leadership skills of those who teach, strengthens the organizational

culture and communications, promotes positive business and organizational change, reduces

costs by leveraging top talent.

Page 1 of 8
 Author: John Baldoni
Title: How Great Leaders Get Great Results
Place of Publication: New York, USA
Publisher: McGraw-Hill; (December 5, 2005)
ISBN-10: 0071464875
ISBN-13: 978-0071464871

In order to understand a true leader, we first need to define a true leader. A true leader is one who

makes his or her vision a reality, achieving great results that bring the highest levels of success.

The author’s main aim is to manufacture a strong, results-driven organization. He blends key

management principles with leadership stories to demonstrate how an individual can bring

people together, gain their trust, increase their enthusiasm, and motivate them to adopt the

company's goals as their own.

The author draws on principles and concepts of the leadership, career, and organizational

experts. The book presents an integrated motivational model that reveals how to tap the energy,

talent, and deeply embedded life interests that can be found in all organizations to drive your

efforts to introduce a leadership communication approach.

Execution and discipline comprise the concept of perspiring, one of the communication action

steps to successful leadership. Execution and discipline can be a balancing act between

aspiration and perspiration. Execution is what separates vision from reality. It is worth the hard

work involved in execution because it delivers the goods. It requires time, concentration, and

effort.

Every successful organization needs a solid administrative and operational framework and the

infrastructure mechanisms and processes to efficiently support quality. The author helps create a

hassle-free administrative environment by exploring topics such as How does governance affect

leadership and its results? What role do learning professionals play in the success of it? How are

Page 2 of 8
 Author: John Baldoni
Title: How Great Leaders Get Great Results
Place of Publication: New York, USA
Publisher: McGraw-Hill; (December 5, 2005)
ISBN-10: 0071464875
ISBN-13: 978-0071464871

the logistics of programs best handled? What are the factors to consider when incorporating

affective leadership?

Pairing the profiles of practical leaders such as Anne Mulcahy, Steve Jobs, Carlos Ghosn, and

John McCain with concrete steps to get employees to perform at their best, the book is a useful

tool in helping managers and organizational heads. Great leaders get great results by creating a

vision, establishing alignment, guiding execution, and instilling discipline as they move their

enterprise in the right direction. They aspire by generating excitement, perspire through a focus

on what needs to be done, they require by reminding people to do what they need to do and they

transpire by continuous communication. Ultimately, the way to achieve success is together with

others.

A leader’s goal is either to increase sales, improve customer service, enhance quality, fasten

productivity, or any other criteria for people, products, or services. The author attempts to give

the reader tools to become a visionary, create more heroes in workplace, and drive business to

the top.

Learning content, structure, and approach are essential to helping leaders spark an active and

meaningful learning experience. The author describes active teaching and active learning

methodologies and provides practical answers to common questions about this approach to

getting results. These multipurpose communication and facilitation methods can be adapted and

used for many content areas and programs and are applicable for many cultural settings around

the world.

Page 3 of 8
 Author: John Baldoni
Title: How Great Leaders Get Great Results
Place of Publication: New York, USA
Publisher: McGraw-Hill; (December 5, 2005)
ISBN-10: 0071464875
ISBN-13: 978-0071464871

The sweeping study of the political, social, and psychological dimensions of leadership is

already a classic, by most accounts. While traditional conceptions of leadership tend to be

dominated by images of presidents and prime ministers speaking to the masses from on high,

genuine leadership actually has very little to do with power and domination. True leaders, in

John Baldoni's definition, induce followers to act in accord with the values and the motivations

of both leaders and followers. It is a dynamic relationship that, at its best, finds leaders engaged

in a process of raising the consciousness of followers, or, at a minimum, engages both leaders

and followers in a common enterprise. Leadership is meaningless, the author says, without its

connection to common purposes and collective needs.

Finally, the book offers implementation techniques through help from various know examples of

great leaders. Questions such as what are the reasons for a company to implement a leader’s

communication approach? What are the different ways in which leaders can contribute to

individual and organizational learning? How does an organization get its senior leaders and other

leaders on board? What is the best way to prepare leaders to lead? How shall an organization get

started, and what should be its first steps? How does a leader build momentum once the

organization gets started? And finally, how can an organization’s administrative and operating

processes as well as infrastructure best support the leaders under process?

I personally feel that there are basically two different types of leaderships. One is transactional

and the other is transforming leadership. Transactional leadership takes place when one person

takes the initiative in making contact with others for the purpose of an exchange of valued

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 Author: John Baldoni
Title: How Great Leaders Get Great Results
Place of Publication: New York, USA
Publisher: McGraw-Hill; (December 5, 2005)
ISBN-10: 0071464875
ISBN-13: 978-0071464871

things. This type of leadership is best described as the politics of exchange, in which, for

example, a public official bargains jobs for votes. Transforming leadership, in contrast, has a

moral dimension. It may be said to occur when one or more persons engage with each other in

such a way that leaders and followers raise one another to higher levels of motivation and

morality. The transforming leader is one who, though initially impelled by the quest for

individual recognition, ultimately advances collective purpose by being attuned to the aspirations

of his or her followers. Mao and Gandhi are quintessential transformational leaders, for they met

their people's initial needs but instead of riding them to power remained sensitive to their higher

purposes and aspirations.

Baldoni profiles several renowned, results-oriented business leaders, revealing the proven

execution strategies they use to consistently get their people to perform to their fullest. Practical

stories are paired with a concrete plan of action that helps a reader cultivate a results-driven

culture. Baldoni attempts to show the reader how to communicate with people in ways that make

things happen, enlist support for ideas and overcome resistance, instill a sense of accountability

in all teams and departments, encourage risk-taking and push innovation, achieve desirable,

sustainable results and deal with unintended, unwelcome results.

As can be inferred from the book, the author leverages heavily on the biographies of selected

leaders to preach his ideas. With his good story telling skill and bright analysis, he definitely

helps his readers to communicate better as a good leader on different levels and disciplines. The

book is well worth the price and time.

Page 5 of 8
 Author: John Baldoni
Title: How Great Leaders Get Great Results
Place of Publication: New York, USA
Publisher: McGraw-Hill; (December 5, 2005)
ISBN-10: 0071464875
ISBN-13: 978-0071464871

John Baldoni offers insights into how leaders can use their communications to build support for

their ideas and carry them to fruition. With a deft touch and highly readable stories, Baldoni has

captured the essence of post-modern leadership skills that all leaders must demonstrate in order

to succeed."

John Baldoni specializes in leadership and performance consulting. The book could best be

described as a practical manual for today's business leaders. Baldoni analyzes and explains what

it means to be an effective leader, and then lays out a systematic plan to strengthen leadership

skills. These skills include the ability to build relationships, develop and influence others,

champion change, think innovatively, solve problems, and manage products.

The key to leadership is the discovery of shared purpose and the interplay between motives and

values. Power and leadership are not things, but rather relationships. Self-actualizers are true

leaders because they are sensitive to the needs of others and learn from others. Therefore, self-

actualization means the ability to lead by being led, and self-actualizing leaders can lead

followers toward their self-actualization by helping them to become aware of their true needs.

 Organizational Culture and Leadership by Edgr H. Schein

 Best Practices in Leadership Development Handbook by Marshall Goldsmith

 The 21 Indispensable Qualities of a Leader by John C. Maxwell

Page 6 of 8
 Author: John Baldoni
Title: How Great Leaders Get Great Results
Place of Publication: New York, USA
Publisher: McGraw-Hill; (December 5, 2005)
ISBN-10: 0071464875
ISBN-13: 978-0071464871

Baldoni clearly states in the Introduction that his book blends management principles and

leadership stories framed around the key concept that leaders much communicate with their

people in order to make good things happen. The focus of leadership must be to build trust and

drive results. Baldoni explores how managers can use stories to explicate their points related to

vision, alignment, execution, discipline, risk and courage. Baldoni assumes that the decision

making and communication processes hold the key to understanding successful leadership. This

declaration is the premise for the entire book. Baldoni makes no attempt to create a leadership

theory, only to provide examples and case studies from known practical leaders

On the other hand, Schein in Organizational Culture and Leadership states that the processes of

culture creation and management are the essence of leadership and make one realize that

leadership and culture are two sides of the same coin. Although culture has many definitions,

Schein uses an anthropological definition/model in defining culture and professes that culture is

the root of all organizational actions. Throughout his book, Schein explores both the positive

and negative effects of culture, the birth and death of culture, and although Schein is not a fan of

the ambiguity of this term, how to effect cultural change through leadership and how to train said

leaders to build and manage culture within the organization. There are numerous examples used

throughout the text, most of which are based on Schein’s tenure as a consultant and the

organizations in which he played a role. Schein explores the psychology of culture through

specific examples and how organizational leaders who overlook culture are doomed to struggle

and may ultimately fail. Throughout his book Schein reveals the process of cultural analysis

(artifacts, socialization, etc.) and at the conclusion of his book lends the cultural consultant

Page 7 of 8
 Author: John Baldoni
Title: How Great Leaders Get Great Results
Place of Publication: New York, USA
Publisher: McGraw-Hill; (December 5, 2005)
ISBN-10: 0071464875
ISBN-13: 978-0071464871

advice on how to conduct a complete cultural analysis. This theoretical turned practical approach

to culture is both informative and relevant and every point made within the context of culture is

thoroughly explained.

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