True North

One of the things I did accomplish last week was to finish reading the book True North by Bill George (Jossey-Bass, 2007, ISBN 978-0-7879-8751-0). He was one of the speakers at the Global Leadership Summit in August this year, and is on the teaching staff at the Harvard Business School, after several decades of leadership, most notably as the head of Medtronic, one of the world's leading companies in the area of medical technology (such as pace-makers).

In the book, he expands on the idea of "authentic leadership", which he introduced in his previous book (called Authentic Leadership, strangely enough!). Essentially, this means that one needs to be true to one's own unique combination of personality, gifts, passions, etc. as a leader (rather than trying to emulate someone else's style or methods of leadership). I really enjoyed the book, as it developed a number of themes around finding your own integrated leadership path. One of the strengths of the book is its heavy use of anecdotes by a large number of leaders from all kinds of backgrounds to illustrate the principles of authentic leadership.

It's well-worth reading if you're interested in some of the recent trends in leadership development (or staying tuned for a possible StaffDev series!).

Link to the book on kalahari.net.