Title: Leadership

Reach your full potential now!

Author: Paul Birch

Place of publication: New Delhi
Publisher: Kogan page India private Limited, 4737/23 Ansari road, Daryaganj, New Delhi 110 002
Publication edition: 2009
Number of page: 105
ISBN-10: 81-7554-434-1
ISBN-13: 978-81-7554-434-5
Price: Rs. 175.00
 Table of Contents

1 Introduction 1
1.1 My impression of the book 1
1.2 About Author 1
1.3 The purpose of the book 1
1.4 Significance of the book 1

2 Thesis and summary 1

3 Strength of the book 2
4 Weakness of the book 3
5 Basis of criticism 3
6 Conclusion 3
7 References 3
Introduction:
 My impression of the book: After reading this book thoroughly, it seems to me that this
book is really a master key to become a leader instantly. Undoubtedly it is a heart stricken
book. The title and it’s writings are also fully correlated.

 About Author: The renowned writer Paul Birch was a British author who was born in 25
May 1956. He was also an engineer, scientist, creative consultant and trainer. He took his
education from Merchant Taylors School and Trinity College. He worked at British
Airways as corporate Jester and a visiting lecturer at Oxford University. His some famous
books are, Instant coaching, Instant creativity, Instant teamwork etc.

The purposes of book:

 To obtain various quality of leadership that helps becoming a leader.
 To understand the basic difference between leadership and management.
 To know the necessity of leadership.
 To explore the hidden talent of a person.

Significance of the book:

In this book the writer discussed the importance of leadership. The significance of leadership
remains in leading the people to give their best rendition for obtaining the vision through dedicated
hard works with full vigorousness. Leadership helps to go ahead. Sometimes leadership brings
liberty, happiness and prosperity of a nation or country. Without leader the world cannot go
forward. All qualities that build up a leader are discussed here prudently.

Thesis and summary:

‘Leadership is the ability of an individual or a group of individuals to influence and guide followers
or other members of an organizations.’ ( http://searchcio.techtarget.com). Leadership refers to set
and achieve some goals and take part in competition boldly.
The author has explained the basic differences of leader and manager. He described as follows:
Managers are related with tasks and leader are related with people. Managers are always try to
generate profit but the leaders see profit as by product. Leaders think out of the box and managers
think within the box. Managers have routine works, on the other hand leaders have transformative
works. Managers have short range of view but leaders have wide range of view. Leaders create
vision and managers create goals.

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The writer incorporated two words with leadership. The two words are Love and trust. Leader have
to think of love as passion because passion is an exigent element of successful leadership. In order
to lead successfully leader must have the capability of love. Trusting ourselves is a heart of
leadership. They must have to trust those he leads because if leader fails to trust them he can only
manage them not lead.

Leadership is type of skill that can be improved but not completely attained by taking a lot of
exercises. The author discussed some exercises that are helpful to develop oneself. Charisma is the
quality of fascinating, attracting and influencing to others. It is vital characteristics of a leader.
When the charismatic people talk with others, they always maintain eye contact. They not only
remember others by names but also facts. If you want to be a leader you must follow the
charismatic person.
The author further advices to become inspirational, getting inspiration, and try to learn to love our
business, customers, staff, suppliers, and finally myself. Another fundamental roles of leadership
is giving direction through a clear strategy. The leader must have the vision, mission, and capable
of setting goals. Delegation is the fruitful tools of leadership. It frees up time and help to trust
others. It is also an instrument of creating time. In meeting: how to chair, how to develop, how to
kill meeting, time management etc. are main factor of a leader. Taking responsibility, giving
responsibility, knowing customers, knowing competitor, knowing myself, taking challenge are the
important quality of a leader that have to learn or practice.

The quality of celebrating birthday of all staff and give a birthday card before their birthday is very
important of a leader and also listening and talking with people and ask them how well the family
members are. Sometimes arrange a get together party with a tea or coffee session and give t-shirts,
pens, pads etc. the leader should have the capability of saying ‘no’. Though it is very tough to say
‘no’ of a leader but in order to establish the justice he must have to say ‘no’. Getting fit for leader
is very important. Fit is an attitude of mind that can be achieved by taking physical exercise and
playing sports such as football, hockey, cricket, badminton, volleyball etc. to become fit regular
stretching or walking should maintain. Finding and identifying the personal strength and weakness
is also inevitable because it will helps to overcome the weak points and increase the range of
strength. Being unreasonable, being a hero, being obsessive, and being ubiquitous are also the
fundamental element of being a leader.

Strength of the book:

The Author Paul Birch described about the quality of leadership clearly. He explained why the
leadership is needed in our life. Leadership and managership are different from each other that he
mentioned with explanation. He has written the book with numerous quotations that attract us as
well as related with leadership, ’To lead successfully you must be able to love’ (Birch, 2009).

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There are some other quotations that enrich the strength of this book such as, ‘To be a leader you
must act like a leader, think like a leader, and be seen by others as being a leader’ (Birch, 2009).
He not only mentioned sixty six number of exercises but also discussed broadly that helps to
improve oneself to become a leader. I think these all things are the strength.

Weakness of this book:

After thoroughly reading this book I have known that, the writer did not give any example of some
famous leader of the world. He has written only the theoretical knowledge of leadership without
giving any practical example. Are leaders born nor made? In this issue he did not give any
statistical report. Here is also missing the types of leader and sources of power of the leader. He
discussed only how to develop leadership.

The basis of criticism:

Gaining knowledge from the book, ‘act like a leader, think like a leader’ by Herminia Ibarra and
the book, ‘on becoming a leader’ by Warren G. Bennis are the basis of basis of criticism. Besides
these books I have attained some knowledge from Wikipedia about leadership and analysis of the
great leader such as Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, Rajib Gandhi, Mahathir Mohammad,
Nelson Mandela, and Mahatma Gandhi etc. that helps me to criticize this book.

Conclusion:
After reviewing this book finally I want to say that it’s a great book of leadership that inspires the
readers to read and they can learn how to improve leadership quality. Really this book has
fascinated me because I have learnt many important things about qualities of leadership,
management etc. I recommend everybody should read this book thoroughly and try to understand
what the author has said about improving leadership. I also want to add that, those who will write
a book about leadership, he will must add qualities of former or contemporary great leader.

References:
https://searchcio.techtarget.com/definition/leadership
Leadership, reach your full potential now!, Paul Birch, 2009