Customer Reviews

Be the Leader; Make the Difference: The 3C Leadership Model (Challenge, Confidence, Coaching)

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Business consultant Paul B. Thornton has written an informative and practical book that guides and directs those of us who accept the opportunity to lead. Be the Leader, Make the Difference answers the question, "What does a leaders do?"

Be the Leader, Make the Difference is an excellent overview of both what successful leaders do and how you can develop and implement these practices into your own leadership.

Author Paul B. Thornton identifies three key responsibilities that every leader must master: challenge, confidence, and coaching. According to Thornton, "...leaders do three things: they challenge the status quo; build the confidence in others; and coach associates on what to do and how to do it."

Using these three leadership responsibilities, Thornton has developed the 3-C Leadership model which is basis for Be the Leader, Make the Difference. The 3-C Leadership model is easy to understand and even easier to implement. In addition to the excellent 3-C Leadership model, it is filled with the experience and ideas of many successful leaders. I found this book to be very practical. There are many ideas included in this book that you can immediately put into your own leadership practice. One criticism that I would raise is that some sections of the book can, at times, lose focus in the midst of the content.

Overall, Be the Leader, Make the Difference is an excellent book for those who are looking to either improve their leadership skills or better understand what a leader does. Be the Leader, Make the Difference reads quickly and includes many real life examples of the 3-C Leadership model in practice along with case studies to assist in applying these principles in a business setting. I would recommend this book to anyone who is looking to improve his or her leadership skills or who wants a better understanding of the key responsibilities of a leader.

William van Beek, Webmaster/Editor <LEADERSandLeadership.com>

I found the book to be an easy read which is great for someone like myself who does not have a lot of time to filter through extraneous information. The book is full of thought provoking ideas and questions. Most useful to me are the case studies at the end of the chapters. They provide concrete examples of how the 3C Leadership Model works. The book offers plenty of ideas for improving performance. I found that the chapters are specific making it easy to find information quickly. Hearing about struggles and successes of top managers helped to put things in perspective.

Leadership by Paul Thornton is a book full of triangles. The author describes just about every topic he covers in terms of three key components, which he then presents as sides of a triangle.

One key topic in the book involves possibilities. The three sides of that triangle are seeing, describing and pursuing.

There is a chapter called The Three C's of Leadership. That triangle has sides named challenge, confidence, and coaching.

After a while you go a little triangle crazy. But that's not the only problem with this book. Consider the chapter about self-fulfilling prophecy. The triangle for that chapter is assumptions, expectations, and reactions.

The triangle here is less than helpful. The muddled writing makes things even worse. Thornton is talking about what everyone else calls the Pygmalion Effect but he uses very different language so you have to work harder than you might otherwise.

There are similar problems throughout the book. The organization is not tight. The metaphors are not consistent. The writing is not clear, and some things seem like they are thrown in just to fill up enough pages to get above a hundred.

"But, is it worth reading?" I hear you cry. The answer to that one is an emphatic "it depends."

This book is a collection of thoughts about leadership by an experienced manager. Many of those thoughts are insightful and they can be helpful. How much value you get from this book will depend a lot on your own experience level.

If you are a relatively experienced manager yourself, you will probably find a thing or two in here that you can carry away. What you get will be worth the price of the book.

If you have access to the author, in one of his classes, on a tele-seminar or at a speech where you can ask questions, this book will probably be helpful. In those situations you can ask questions to clarify things or hear the nuance of oral presentation.

But if you are a new manager, out there by yourself, beware of this book. There are good things here, but the organization and the writing style can make them very hard to tease out. It's very easy to see only part and not the whole of what Thornton is trying to convey.

This is also one of those "leader as hero" books. You are treated to statements like this. "Leaders help individuals, teams, and organizations become more and achieve more than they ever thought possible. Why do they do it? They have a burning desire to make a difference."

Or this. "Leaders have desire, passion, and energy for their vision. They are excited about the possibilities they see for people, teams, and organizations they are leading. Leaders know their actions will make a difference."

Evidently lust for power and position and naked ambition don't show up among the leaders in Mr. Thornton's world. That makes his world different from the one that I inhabit, where those things are a regular part of the landscape and altruistic motives often remain well hidden.

There's one more problem area if you're a new manager. There is lots of advice about what to do, but not much guidance about how to do it. If you want to learn the basics, go to other books like Kouzes and Posner's The Leadership Challenge.

If you have been around the leadership game for a while, this book will give you the insights and opinions of another experienced manager. You'll see things differently; understand the way another manager understands them. That may be worth the price of the book. But if you're new to the management/leadership game, pass this one up.

Paul B. Thornton takes real-life examples and "answers off the office walls" (i.e., business and inspirational sayings found on many of characters walls, used in his book to highlight "how to be a leader") to tell us how we can all become better leaders. Although I have not had the experience of having Mr. Thornton give a seminar or training on leadership, I can gather that many of the book's chapters and examples would indeed fit well into that forum.

When viewed in those terms, to perhaps compare Thornton's "Be the Leader: Make the Difference" to Tom Peters' "Seminar" may not be too much of a stretch. To explain, both authors use example and analogy to highlight and emphasize their core principles and do so in a manner that gives one the "feel" of an actual training (or seminar, respectively). In the case of Thornton, he focuses on three things that Leaders do:
* Challenge the Status Quo
* Build Confidence in Others
* Coach People on What to Do and How to Do It

One interesting aspect of the 3 C's is that in Mr.Thornton's words, "Everyone has untapped leadership abilities that can be developed and utilized" and the catalyst to develop this leadership is the desire to "make a difference". Thus, by using the 3 C's we all can become better leaders, managers, supervisors, coaches and people.

Overall, Paul Thornton really has great experience to share and ideas to express and in his book he undoubtedly combines the best aspects of his previous two books - Lessons from the Best Managers and The Answers are on the Office Wall into a portable and pertinent book on the topic of leadership. Paul Thornton draws on his 25 years of experience training supervisors and managers at United Technologies Corporation, as well as his consulting and training experience at "Be the Leader Associates" a firm he founded to support companies in selecting and developing leaders whom <b> they need to compete with the best....

As a new entrepreneur I found this book invaluable. Just understanding my own Leadership style has been an immense asset to my company. A definite 'must read' for all the managers in your company.. They also have an extremely helpful website, www.betheleader.com , with many of the articles written by Mr. Thornton that helps to bring the subject matter into perspective.. a wonderful book.. Laura Merwin

This book provides a simple and easy-to-follow guide to leadership. Thornton postulates that the three basic elements of leadership are to challenge the status quo, build confidence in others, and coach poeple. This 3-C's framework is fleshed-out in a very easy to follow book. I used some of the concepts from the book even before I finished it. As an organizational development professional, I am going to recommend this book to people who want quick but impactful advice. Bravo.

"Be the Leader,Make the Difference" is an interesting and easy read. It helped me see the interrelationships among various leadership behaviors. This book helps the reader connect the dots and see the important leadership principles.