The Heart of a Leader: Insights on the Art of Influence

Ken Blanchard surely knows what he's teaching. Some people can only take the words, but Ken Blanchard not only took the words, instead he elaborated them and re-defined them into greater values. If you want to learn practical values of leadership, this book is a must.

Excellent pocket book on small to medium-sized business leadership. The beauty of this book's format is that the reader need only read one page per day to get a great impact. The book is set up so that the reader can view an inspirational quote on the left page and a summary of one of Blanchard's many books on the right page. If desired, the reader can spend only a few minutes per day on one particular subject. In addition, the summary of the particular philosophy discussed includes the name of the book from which the summary came. This allows the reader, if interested, to refer to the book referenced in order to get a more in-depth view of what is being discussed. This is a great book to give as a gift to those business leaders who have not experienced all of Blanchard's philosophies.

This book is very good with clarity to the point. Short and simple pages to read right through to being a true leader in work, relationships, and working to be successsful in managing people. If a person is a manager already they can be a true leader by believing in their associates to support others to reach theirs goals too! Anytime an associate wants to grow and learn in the company they work for a manager must let them excel. This only benefits the person and the company as well. Work needs to have fun and humor bringing out the best in their people and customers. This book definately covers the heart of a leader with much integrity having genuine people skills.

,In the introduction, Ken Blanchard tells us that he always liked sayings when he was on football teams, such as When the Going Gets Tough, the Tough Get Going. With this book, he turned that love of sayings into a synopsis of his thinking about leadership.You might think that all of these sayings are authored or coauthored by Ken Blanchard. Not so. Although he is the author or coauthor of 36 of them, other notable figures including Churchill and Lincoln make the list.The book's format is to have the saying in large type on the left hand page, and a one page commentary on the right hand page. The commentaries are well done, and add a lot of insight into the saying. You should think about this book as a summary of Blanchard on leadership. To give you a sense of how this works, you may remember that the key first step in The One Minute Manager was To Catch Someone Doing Something Right and give them a One Minute Praising. The quote for this is the first one in the book and goes on to explain how to do this: promptly, specifically, and with enthusiasm. As you know, Ken Blanchard's books usually have fable or two in them. The book has no fable, so you just get the key principles. So if you prefer key ideas, this is the book for you. If you want to have a good reminder of everything Ken Blanchard has written, this book is for you. If you want to quickly focus on good ways to be a better leader, this is a good book for you. If you want to have a good gift to give to someone you care about to make them a better leader, this is an excellent book for that purpose. Enjoy!

I like the book very much. Ken shows his insight and wisdom on choosing values, aiming for excellence and how to help others to achieve their excellence. And the book is easy to read. Recommended.