Be the Leader: Make the Difference [Paperback]

Paul Thornton (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: November 1, 2001

Can you lead? Can you make the difference? Winning leaders do three things: they challenge the status quo; they build confidence in others; and they coach people on what to do and how to do it. This book explains how the reader can perform each of the three leadership roles.

Editorial Reviews

Review

" I love Paul Thornton's book, Be the Leader, Make the Difference." -- -Stew Leonard, Jr. President and CEO Stew Leonard's, World's Largest Dairy Store

"I love the book. It is a book that I will keep returning to time and time again." -- -Joe Malone, Entrepreneur and Director, Business Development

About the Author

Paul B. Thornton is a consultant, trainer, and speaker specialising in the areas of management leadership, and team building. Throughout his career, he has been involved in the selection and development of leaders. Since 1980, he has trained over 7,000 supervisors and managers to be more effective leaders.

Product Details

• Paperback: 178 pages
• Publisher: Griffin Pub Group; 2nd edition (November 1, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1580000916
• ISBN-13: 978-1580000918
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6 x 0.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 9.8 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,239,660 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Very useful and practical!!, January 22, 2003

By A Customer

This review is from: Be the Leader: Make the Difference (Paperback)

This book is full of great examples that are easy to follow. I read it all the way through once, and then went back and picked sections to concentrate on. It is easy to read and has practical tips and ideas instead of some other business/leadership books that are more fluff than anything else. I highly recommend this book to anyone in a leadership role.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Highly Recommended - Especially for New or Aspiring Leaders, April 11, 2003

By 

Kip Piper "Medicare & Medicaid Consultant" (www.KipPiper.com) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Be the Leader: Make the Difference (Paperback)

Finally, here is an author who not only understands what matters most in leadership (and in developing new leaders) but also provides true, practical value for the reader. There are so many books on leadership out there, I sometimes fear for the fate of Canadian forests. Being an avid reader of business books and having myself led organizations from $1 million to $3 billion, I have rarely found an author who can effectively address leadership issues.

In "Be the Leader: Make the Difference," Paul B. Thornton, an accomplished expert and author, truly gets it. He provides a clear and compelling read with a useful, distilled roadmap on how to make a genuine difference in your organization.

His book is equally useful for public, for-profit, and non-profit leaders - regardless the size of the organization. However, given the power of Thornton's model and his persuasive, real-world guidance on building and refining leadership skills, this book would be particularly helpful for new or aspiring leaders.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Thoughtful, Sensible, and Eminently Practical, February 14, 2003

By 

Robert Morris (Dallas, Texas) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Be the Leader: Make the Difference (Paperback)

There are several excellent books about leadership which have been written primarily for the relatively inexperienced executive and this is one of the best, as is Thornton's subsequently published The Triangles of Management and Leadership. I do not damn with faint praise when sharing that observation. Over the years, working with young executives to accelerate the development of their leadership and management skills, I soon became convinced that they lacked sufficient real-world business experience and a consequent frame-of-reference. Thornton provides the latter in this book and in The Triangles of Management and Leadership.

He carefully organizes his material within six Parts: a brief Introduction which literally introduces his "3-C Leadership Model," Challenging the Status Quo, Building Confidence, Coaching to Achieve Top Performance, Setting the Example, and finally, Leadership Development. It is important for relatively inexperienced executives (leadership wannabes) to keep in mind that, throughout his narrative, Thornton is building a model of superior leadership so that those who read his book can gain an awareness of areas in which to improve, and, to learn specifically how to achieve such improvement. This same model will enable supervisors to clarify (perhaps even reconsider) their own criteria when measuring the performance of those for whom they are responsible, then address more effectively those areas in which there is greatest need for improved performance. So, what I am now suggesting is that this book can be of substantial value to anyone who has not as yet become a superior leader.

A few brief comments on the "Be the Leader Survey" which Thornton includes after the final chapter. Respondents are asked to evaluate themselves within seven categories which correlate with the information Thornton has previously provided. I wish more authors of business books would include such a self-audit. The results are never wholly definitive, of course. (How could they be?) Nonetheless, several of Thornton's key points will be re-emphasized as respondents measure themselves in relation to them.

Those who share my high regard for this book are urged to check out Joan Magretta's What Management Is as well as just about anything written by Warren Bennis, David Maister's Practice What You Preach, Jeffrey J. Fox's How to Become a Great Boss, Rex P. Gatto's The Smart Manager's F.A.Q. Guide, Steven Silbiger's The Ten Day M.B.A, Milo Sobel's. The 12-Hour MBA, Robert F. Bruner et al's, The Portable MBA, and Nitin Nohria's The Portable MBA Desk Reference.