Cultivating Inspired Leaders PB

It seems to me that there are two broad categories of leader - those seeking earthly rewards and those seeking heavenly rewards. There is a wealth of material on those in the first category and by going to university or wading through a multitude of books you can acquire the leadership skills required. There are not so many books available regarding the leadership skills of the second category. How did Mother Teresa develop such phenomenal leadership skills that she gathered around her a dedicated group of followers prepared to live at the same level as the poorest of the poor in the slums of Calcutta and who would risk their lives in working side by side with lepers? And all this for zero salary, zero perks and no golden handshake at the end. Most of us would have taken one look at the job description and not even bothered to apply, even though there are plenty of job openings.Bruce Lansdale holds the middle ground between the Mother Teresas of this world and charismatic CEOs of big corporations. For thirty-five years he was Director of the American Farm School, a nonprofit established in 1904 in northern Greece to improve the quality of life in rural areas by teaching farming, village crafts and industrial skills such as electricity, plumbing, sanitation to youth. For older people there was a community development program. Serving through the really tough years following the German occupation and the civil war when Greece was in a similar condition to many developing countries today, Lansdale's final years saw Greece join the EU and graduate to relative prosperity. These years gave Lansdale a wealth of experience recorded in his first book "Master farmer: Teaching Small farmers Management" which teaches the management skills required to POLKA - plan, organize, lead, k(c)ontrol and adjust. In later years he identified leadership as one of the most important skills to acquire, resulting in "Cultivating Inspired Leaders: Making Participatory Management Work". We will have no difficulty in doing everything he tells us but he brings it all together in a way that is particularly appropriate for nonprofits. Ambassador Niles, President, US Council for International Business and US Ambassador to Greece from 1993 to 1997 knew Lansdale and the American Farm School very well and wrote "Bruce Lansdale is the most inspiring person I have ever met, and one of the wisest. His work as Director of the American Farm School did more for Greece and Greek-American relations, than all the American ambassadors combined, myself included. His book, "Cultivating Inspired Leaders" presents the practical lessons in management and leadership learned over more than half a century. I heartily recommend it."Cultivating Inspired Leaders has been written for leader-managers at all levels and in all work, particularly for those in nonprofits. The book is based on the philosophy that management is doing what you want with what you've got and that workers of every type and in ever