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Master Leaders: Revealing Conversations with 30 Leadership Greats

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While fictitious, Barna actually did interview all 30 leaders. He described the list of participants as a "leadership fantasy camp". There is a lot of wisdom to be taken from this insightful book. With so many perspective voices, spanning several topics there is little room for depth. However, Barna is able to provide a thorough glimpse into all of these different Leaders styles.

"The best leaders see themselves as servants and truly respect other people," commented Barna, who conducted all the interviews. "These leaders did not perceive a division between `us' and `them,' the indispensable ones and the worker bees...they acknowledged that a leader without a great team gets little, if anything, accomplished."

"Effective leadership requires the ability to ask the right questions, listen to a range of people and opinions, and then convert what they have heard into strategic action,"

Master Leaders is well written, and flows easily with it's wealth of information. You will not feel overwhelmed, contrary to what I thought initially. This is one to keep for future reference on how to lead in a moral and responsible way.

[...].

A couple months ago, I received Master Leaders by George Barna with Bill Dallas for my part in the Tyndale Blog Network. (Tyndale provides me a copy of the book and I get to review it.) The review has taken longer than usual, because I took longer than usual to read the book. Sounds like a "duh" moment, but trust me, it is not. Mr. Barna takes the reader on a journey through a "shop talk on leadership" by getting his readers to imagine sitting down in room with many of the best leaders on the earth today. You could call is a Leadership Extravaganza.

The book is not a regular "how-to" on leadership, instead it contains information written as a conversation. The material in the book is solid, practical leadership material written from a different perspective. Once I began reading this book I was intrigued with the style and format of the conversation style of writing Mr. Barna undertakes. His style brings the reader in the same room and hearing the same questions and topics as Mr. Barna has written. With a style as Mr. Barna uses, the reader is able to picture himself in the same setting hearing the same conversation.

As the conversations happen, leadership truths are mentioned at every turn, so get your highlighter ready. The leadership truths found in this book provide thoughts for further reflection and study. All 16 chapters are filled with leadership truth that could provide a foundation for further study. Every chapter of my book contains highlights. Statements I gave more reflection are:

*"Leadership is not about what you do as a leader, but about what you can inspire or encourage or empower others to accomplish." (Page 14)
*"Culture is a socially transmitted way of practices...Leaders have to model the culture on a day-to-day basis or it will never take root." (page 51)
*"It helps to be wise more than smart, smart more than dumb and persistent more than anything else." (page 54)
There are hundreds of other leadership truths I reflected on and still reflect on, but those are a small sample of what the book holds.

The leaders "conversing" in the book range from military leaders, religious leaders and CEOs. The blend of the business world, with the spiritual and military styles also provide for an excellent look at how every leadership style blends and mixes together to form a great leader. Having the time to listen to many great leaders from various areas of life will only help the reader to balance the different areas of life into on quest for success.

The book is a good read if you have time to drink a cup of coffee and indulge yourself in a little leadership shop-talk. Mr Barna, will Mr. Dallas, will provide you with information to improve your leadership walk, but you must be willing to read it and apply it.

Just my thoughts on Master Leaders. If you would like to purchase Master Leaders, you may do so below using the Preacher's Pen Amazon Store link. (Every purchase goes to support our efforts at the Preacher's Pen.)

Thanks,

Chris

George Barna masterfully takes dozens of in-depth interviews and arranges them in a way that makes them interesting and fun to digest: as though it is a round-table discussion of all the Master Leaders in the book. It makes the wisdom very easily accessible.

I truly enjoyed this book, I have a hard time stepping back and see the other side. This book helps with many of the hard subjects like earning and maintaining trust along with criticism and pressure. A book you should have open on your night stand for that boost to put your leader hat on! Looking for a good book that shares good morals and faith you found it!

I'm calling this book review, "Barna's Brilliant Brainstorm: The Big Name Speaker's Backroom Buzz." Every leader will wish he or she had thought of writing this book. It's brilliant--on so many levels. George Barna's goal: "Create the ultimate leadership event and report what happened behind the scenes where the leaders mixed it up a bit."

The robust gathering included: Warren Bennis, Ken Blanchard, Colleen Barrett, Henry Cloud, Newt Gingrich, Laurie Beth Jones, Mike Huckabee, Rich Stearns, Patrick Lencioni, Seth Godin, John Townsend. Oh...and Tony Dungy and Lou Holtz. And 18 more, including a former Mafia boss.

The unique setting: the "green room" where speakers hang out in between speaking assignments. The conference: a fictitious "Master Leaders" two-day leadership event attended by thousands. (While fictitious, Barna actually did interview all 30 leaders and, obviously, got their sign-offs on their "quoted" conversations.)

It's the perfect leadership book if you've got attention deficit disorder or you don't or won't take the time to read the thousands of pages written by these 30 leadership doers and thinkers. Hang onto your Kindle, the book moves fast. Dialogue is spirited. Insights are short and snappy--without any of the patronizing dribble so common in "I'm the guru" books.

Barna, who plays himself in this leadership axioms marathon, is hilarious at appropriate times. Laugh-out-loud funny. His segues between conversations are masterful. George is no leadership novice himself, but his self-effacing tone models a savvy humility. (Can you put those two words together?)

So...if you pay attention, you'll enjoy 200 pages crammed with executive level street smarts and about a thousand years of leadership experience. It's a leadership and management feast. So taste these morsels (or as Barna labels the book, "an educational blitzkrieg):

RICH STEARNS: "The most effective leaders are good at constantly pushing away the things that consume them but that are not adding value at the end of the day, and they try to spend more and more time on those things that do add value."

DON SODERQUIST: "I discovered you can't change everybody."

GEORGE BARNA: "Note to self: leaders teach through stories, even if the tale is told at their expense."

JOHN ASHCROFT: "First leadership is the identification of noble goals and objectives, and second, it is the pursuit of those noble goals and objectives with such intensity that others are drawn into the process."

NEWT GINGRICH: "You get what you measure."

JON GORDON (on vision and values): "Repetition is the number one thing. I have one story that I love to tell and I have probably told it over four thousand times."

PATRICK LENCIONI (on vision and values): "We talk about being humble, hungry, smart."

SODERQUIST: "Egos get bigger and people become more arrogant, the higher their position."

BARNA: "Ken [Blanchard] was doing something that great leaders do: take the complex and make it simple."

GORDON: "Culture drives behavior, and behavior drives habits in an organization."

MILES McPHERSON: "One way to get a healthy culture is to hire healthy people."

GINGRICH: "Wisdom beats being the smartest. That's the great problem Bill Clinton had. Clinton is tremendously smart; he just has the least wisdom of a senior leader I've ever seen."

BOB DEES: "I was in Germany in a training environment and we didn't have any training aids, like PowerPoint or projectors. But I always thought it was a sin to bore the troops when you were training them, so I asked my platoon sergeant for some chalk and an armored personnel carrier. He got them, and we used the side of the carrier as a blackboard."

SAM CHAND: "Is this person a can't or won't? Can't is about abilities...but won't is about attitude."

BARNA: "Vision is the air that leaders breathe."

HENRY CLOUD: "Leadership development, in some form or fashion, is always about leaders being coaches."

JIMMY BLANCHARD: "One thing we learned is that developing leaders is probably the most appreciated benefit in the company."

CLOUD: "When trust is high, speed is high, so we can get things done faster and the costs are lower."

GINGRICH: "You have to surround yourself with people who can fire you."

KEN BLANCHARD (on listening): "I love the whole concept of leading with your ears."

DEES: "There is an expression in the military: threat clears a man's head--when that happens, you're very teachable."

CLOUD: "The good [leaders] don't see a problem as a problem. They see it as part of leading."

LOU HOLTZ: "We don't like where we are, but the only thing that's going to change it from where we are today, to where we'll be five years from now is the books we read, the people we meet, and the dreams we dream."

J. BLANCHARD: "Everybody who works for us has a right to work for a good boss."

STEARNS: "Leaders have to be very aware of the power they wield. When you're at the bottom of the hierarchical ladder, sometimes you have to shout to be heard, because you don't have any title or you don't have authority. But when you are the CEO or a top leader, you can speak softly and it sounds like a shout to someone. So when you criticize someone, you have to be very careful abut being too blunt or cutting, because whatever you say will be amplified ten times just because you're the president. You have to adapt your style to realize that it's not just you, the person, speaking; it's the position that you hold that's speaking."

There are a zillion more insights like these. The chapter on hiring and firing is brilliant, as is the rarely addressed topic (an entire chapter) on confrontation and conflict. Like I said, this book is a feast. Kudos to George Barna and Bill Dallas!

Everyone's dream is to find a MENTOR. Someone who is better/ smarter than they in their chosen field or profession and to learn from them.

So now imagine with me an opportunity to sit and listen to 30 of the best business professionals share their tips and dig into the nit and gritty of what each of them are saying.

Master Leaders is one such book. It is written as if it is a conversation of round tables with 30 different leaders getting together and talking about their areas of expertise and sharing how they all agree on the keys.

This book speaks to the following topics:
Unexpected Discoveries
Defining and Evaluating Real Leadership
Vision and Values
Creating Culture
Developing Leaders
Hiring the Right People
Leading Well
Earning and Maintaining Trust
Confrontation and Conflict
Character
Following
Team Building
Faith and Morals
Power
Criticism and Pressure
Skills and Discipline

This is a book that I truly enjoyed reading and will be something that I will go back to often to reference while in business.

Thanks to Tyndale Publishing for giving me the opportunity to check this book out!
I recommend that if you are in a position of Leadership;

George Barna has written so many books on topics like leadership, the Christian faith, and church ministry that I am surprised that it has taken me so long to read one of them. That changed when I received a copy of Barna's most recent book Master Leaders: Revealing Conversations with 30 Leadership Greats.

Barna's imagination takes the reader along with 30 contemporary leaders to attend the Master Leader Conference. The account of this fictional conference allows the reader to eavesdrop in on many behind the scenes conversations that take place between the conference speakers pertaining to a number of leadership principles.

Although the setting of the conversations is fictional, Barna's research is not. Barna has creatively woven together many quotes from his interviews with leaders in business, sports, government, education, and Christian ministry in a way that keeps the reader engaged.

I found that this book was very well organized with respect to the various principles of leadership Barna wished to demonstrate. Although I read the book cover to cover, one might find that particular chapters would be more relevant to their present situation.

As a pastor I found it very helpful to read a book on leadership that wasn't written entirely from a Christian ministry perspective. The variety of leadership backgrounds presented gave a more complete picture about what leadership is in way that could be translated into almost any area.

Master Leaders will stay on my self, and I would recommend it to anyone currently serving in a position of leadership, or for anyone wanting to encourage the leaders that they serve under.

You can read the first chapter of Master Leaders in PDF format.

Note: A copy of Master Leaders was provided to me free from Tyndale House Publishers as a part of the Tyndale Blog Network. The opinions I have expressed are my own.

Master Leaders by George Barna is the best book on leadership I have ever read. I have many books on the topic of leadership. It is not that there is a lot of "new" thoughts here, but that it's not another 55 steps to be a better leader. It is honest and real and written from a perspective of a learner. Barna, himself, admits that he was like a kid in a candy store. I am recommending this book to other leaders that I know and will also be taking members of my own staff through it. I am greatly appreciative for an honest book about honest leadership.

I thoroughly enjoyed the way this book was put together. I believe the author had fantastic nuggets of wisdom to share with the readers, however the way his research was conducted it would not have been easy to convey them. My hat is off to Barna for an enjoyable read, cleverly put together, with nice information. I enjoyed it.

If you are interested in what popular names within the leadership section have to say, but lack the time for all of their books, this could be the book for you. With so many voices, spanning several topics there is little room for depth. But Barna does provide a snapshot of the leadership stylings of the many names that grace the cover of this book.

I've been appreciative of several of Barna's books over the years. But this is not a bright moment for Barna. He begins the book by telling you that these conversations didn't really happen-he just compiled separate interviews. The result is that it is neither a conversation nor revealing. And it certainly isn't masterly done. He spends a significant amount of time attempting to paint a convincing picture of the scenario within which these conversations happened. Maybe more time should have been spent attempting to connect the sloganizing of these leadership names into something informative and helpful. Alas, Barna was not able to do so.


For the most part, the ideas shared here are simply echoes of other books already written. The one often dissenting voice on many topics within the "conversation," Seth Godin, is given token space. As if only to allow his name to help sell copies. There are several statements made by conservative politicians that made it into the book that only make them seem unthoughtful at best. Only a handful of helpful personal stories make it into the book, but they are rarely connected into any cohesive idea on leadership with the other personalities

My fear is that this strikes only another wounding blow to the many people that look to authors such as Barna for help and guidance. The author continually asks, "Why aren't there more good leaders?" Maybe it's just that Barna's metrics are off. Maybe he's looking in all the wrong places. Not all great leaders lead large companies, publish best selling books or lead large churches. Many of the people that make the greatest impact on ordinary people's lives never do any of those things. That doesn't make them bad leaders. Maybe they're just uninterested in acclaim. Hopefully, they're uninterested in bad leadership books as well.