The Nature of Leadership: Reptiles, Mammals, and the Challenge of Becoming a Great Leader

I just finish the book. In my professional career I've seen so many good leaders and I can relate each and every point mentioned in this book. It is really a great and innovative way to look at the leadership. Book is full of examples and very well structured. I recommend it to each and every aspired leader. Once again great leadership material.

Eleven months into this once new year, I have finally made sense of my last New Year's resolution, thanks to the thoughtful lessons and keen insights that abound within Joseph White and Yaron Prywes' wonderful new book, The Nature of Leadership. "This year," I recall telling my wife, "I resolve to be more...mean." To which she replied with a puzzled look on her face, "Did you say 'mean' - as in cruel, hard, cold-blooded kind of mean?" To which I replied forcefully, in my best approximation of the spirit, "Yes, that's exactly what I mean...mean!" To my own consternation and my wife's puzzlement at the time, I couldn't quite explain my seemingly strange resolution. Though I didn't realize it then, I lacked the conceptual framework for understanding the urge I felt to be more, so I thought, mean. That is, until I discovered White and Prywes' "reptilian-mammalian" model of human nature and that most elusive of concepts: leadership. White and Prywes posit that personal tendencies and behaviors may be classified as being either mammalian or reptilian. As the monikers suggest, people with mammalian traits are, on the whole, "warm-blooded": nurturing, engaged, emotional, cooperative, and independent. Reptiles, on the other hand, are those "cold-blooded" people among us: detached, analytical, adversarial, and independent. Each of us has a "natural bias" toward one or the other, and truly great leadership requires balance - mammalian qualities under some circumstances and reptilian at others. As a self-confessed mammal, I now see that what I was struggling to express in my odd New Year's resolution is the essential insight that superlative leadership demands both the heart and the mind, both emotional warmth and cool calculation. I used the word 'mean' to express my desire to become more reptilian and, in retrospect, having read the book I understand that in fact I was not striving to be cruel or hard but rather more analytical and independent, more detached from the distorting effects of excess passion. As a side note, it has been a relief to realize that my longing for a mean streak was not so aberrant after all! The book's organization and style are, as the authors' thesis calls for, well balanced. White and Prywes skillfully blend the practical and the inspirational, nimbly merging the nuts-and-bolts how-to of a user's manual with the inspiration and emotional quality of anecdotal case studies. Consequently, the experience of reading the book is rich with moments of both professional development enlightenment as well as deeper insights into one's own emotional composition. This is perhaps the book's most impressive accomplishment: that it practices what it preaches and strikes that difficult balance between hard-headed advice and soft-hearted wisdom. Indeed, it is exactly this balance - just the right proportions of rose-colored optimism and tell-it-like-it-is realism - that elevates The Nature of Leadership above the countle

The Nature of Leadership by B. Joseph White is a phenomenal book. Through his interesting take on leadership, vast experience in the public and private sector, and well-written delivery, White provides the best leadership advice I have ever received. As a undergraduate student only a month away graduation, I am currently in the tough position of considering different job opportunities, career paths, and altering my long-term goals. For years, I have known exactly what I want to do in life and have had a firm grasp on understanding what it will take to accomplish my dreams. Now, just before I end one chapter in my life and start another, I no longer have all the answers. I am sure that everyone has faced this often difficult, confusing, and immensely stressful time, in which you are excited to go on to the next phase of life but hesitant and a bit scared. I will be honest, I picked up this book because I know B. Joseph White and have found him to be a wonderful man and a great leader. I hesitated to post a review of the book - since I may be inherently biased through my knowing him - but eventually decided to write a note anyway because of the inspiration the book has provided me in my stressful time. I was amazed by the great advice and useful insight that White provides in this book. As a soon-to-be graduate who must make some tough career and life choices, I can testify that this would be a wonderful gift for anyone who is facing an important life decision. As a political science student who will be starting graduate school in the spring, I will testify that this is the best book on leadership that I have ever read. I have studied numerous works on the great political theorists and experts on leadership, especially political leadership, but have found none to be as useful as The Nature of Leadership. They are all useful in their own right, but this book provides something different. White gives useful, easy to understand advice from his research and experience. His down-to-earth nature comes across brilliantly in his writing style and really inspires readers to achieve their potential. In particular, the final chapter of the book that comments on disappointment is essential reading for all leaders. White emphasizes that leaders can make the best of all situations and have the power to shape their own lives. For any leader who will ever face a decision in which the best path is unclear, a failure of immense proportions that may seem too daunting to cope with, or a mere situation in which you are just down on your luck, The Nature of Leadership will give you the common sense advice and inspiration to shape your own future. The one downfall of leadership theory is that it is often very 'touchy-feely' and puts far too much emphasis on the humanistic theories of psychology that reptilian (scientific, critical, analytical, hard-nosed) leaders like me do not understand. Thankfully, this book is not one of the more typical leadership guides. It i

This book is a wonderfully creative spin on what it takes to be a leader in the workplace although the principles could be applied to any group, including a family. White boils successful leadership down into a three-tiered pyramid, the core of which is the requirement of having attributes of reptiles and mammals: you've got to be both tough and nurturing. White's down-to-earth and enthusiastic approach includes inspiring personal stories about both famous and little-known leaders who exemplify either strong reptilian, or mammalian characteristics, or both. And he certainly knows his subject, with a career spanning the highest-level positions in academia and the business world. The Nature of Leadership will help you become aware of your strengths as a leader, and your Achilles heel. It also provides a lens through which to view any that you are led by, be that your supervisor, or a world leader. *This book would be a great required or supplemental reading for college-level courses in sociology, human behavior or related subjects.

The Nature of Leadership is a book by a person who's been around the block. The author's rich background in both business and academics allows him to draw upon interesting, and, often poignant, vignettes to illustrate his belief that leaders should be able,strong,compassionate and trustworthy. The advice in the portion of the book dealing with disappointment and the resiliency necesary to move beyond that emotion, can be helpful to anyone who must work in an organization. Charts, graphs and a personal leadership survey, all add clarity and accessability to the ideas and values addressed in the book,allowing me to reccommend it to high school seniors investigating the concepts behind leadership as they move on to college and career choices.