Leadership (Hardcover)

~ (Author), Ken Kurson (Collaborator) "It was an exceptionally clear summer morning..." (more)
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Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

This highly anticipated book from New York's once controversial, now beloved former mayor opens with a gripping account of Giuliani's immediate reaction to the September 11 attacks, including a narrow escape from the original crisis command headquarters, and closes with the efforts to address the aftermath during his remaining four months in office. But, he argues, he did not suddenly become a great leader on September 11, and "had been doing [my] best to take on challenges my whole career." The bulk of the book draws on his experiences as a corporate lawyer and U.S. attorney and then as mayor. The leadership principles he champions preparation, accountability and strong self-definition chief among them come as no surprise, but the stories he uses as examples are filled with vivid scenes and organized with a veteran trial lawyer's flair for maximum effect. Apart from a few childhood anecdotes, he shies away from his personal life and recalls his abandoned Senate campaign against Hillary Clinton only as one factor in his decisions about dealing with prostate cancer. Throughout, he displays the hands-on management that marked his administration, including his willingness to respond swiftly and in person to crises, to prove that he could be relied on when the city needed him most. While some critics found his style too aggressive, he has an effective counterargument: "Before September 11, there were those who said we were being overly concerned [about security]," he observes. "We didn't hear that afterwards..
-," he observes. "We didn't hear that afterwards."
Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Review

"An entertaining read...marked by an obvious passion for the city he led." -- Business Week

"Effective management advice from the master. Giuliani shows again why his admirers number in the millions." -- People

"Leadership shines...There is a useful lesson here." -- Financial Times (London)

"Lively yet practical...crisp and authoritative." -- Bookpage

"The level of devotion to his job comes through on every page." -- The Palm Beach Post

"Written with the bluntness and unsentimental bravado that people have come to expect from the former mayor of New York." -- Atlanta Journal-Constitution

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 407 pages
• Publisher: Hyperion; 1st edition (October 1, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0786868414
• ISBN-13: 978-0786868414
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.3 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (156 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #312,806 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

165 of 177 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Phenomenally useful and interesting, October 1, 2002

By A Customer

It seems everybody on Earth has either written a leadership book (e.g., Colin Powell, Donald Rumsfeld, Michael Dell, the Who-Moved-My-Cheese Guy) or had one written about them (e.g., Ghingis Khan, Jesus, Blue's Clues). So it's awfully presumptuous, our great admiration for his last months of leadership as NYC's mayor notwithstanding, for Rudy Giuliani to call his leadership book LEADERSHIP.

But what is Rudy Giuliani if not presumptuous, audacious, in-your-face? And, in the final analysis, the book delivers. Big time. There is great advice here, as there is in most books about leadership and management, but the richness of Giuliani's book is the texture, illustrating the points with fascinating "inside" stories from a career that merited giving this kind of advice even if he had not become "our Churchill" after September 11.

In fact, one of the great joys of this book, and a great piece of information to remember, is that Giuliani started writing this book well before the events of 9-11. Our lasting image of him is as a universally loved leader and stateman who transcended politics, but Rudy didn't GET to that position by accident. He knew when to fight, when to coddle, when to get tough, when to mend fences, when to take an unpopular position, when to take risks. He was an incredibly effective, though controversial, prosecutor, and an incredibly effective, though controversial, mayor. This book tells you all the stories, and shows you why he was so successful. Absolutely, the September 11 stuff is gripping, maybe the best material we can get our hands on about the event. But this was no quickie project designed to capitalize on the mayor's strength during that crisis.

This book was a long time coming, as was Giuliani's performance when the eyes of the world were on him. There is just so much great information, so many great stories, so much good advice, that you'll simultaneously find yourself rushing to take it in, and slowing down to make it last.
-Michael Craig

65 of 70 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Character Leadership Education, October 6, 2002

By	Davis James (Chicago) - See all my reviews

This is perhaps the most insightful book on leadership on the market today. Rudy Giuliani talks about rules, struggles, problems, choices, tragedy, strategies, decisions -- even baseball and business. He tells us how his life experiences helped him to grow as a leader. You learn math from a mathematician and physics from a physicist. So too do you learn leadership from a leader. As well as drawing on his personal leader-building experiences, Rudy Giulani cultivated his leadership skills through a lifetime of reading the kind of books, such as Norman Thomas Remick's "West Point: Character Leadership Education", that develop ones leadership philosophy through studying the greatest leaders of all time. "Leadership" by Rudolph Giuliani is a book that has something for everyone.

25 of 26 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Rudy the leader of NY during 911, January 22, 2008

By	Michael R. Chernick "statman31147" (Holland PA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Rudy Giuliani has always been a man I admired. When he stood up to the crime bosses I was impressed. As he was finishing off his second term as New York City Mayor he was already known for making incredible crime reductions and for cleaning up 42nd Street. Imagine ESPN Zone and the Disney Store where all the adult XXX stores use to be! Anyone who could accomplish this when everyone else was saying that it was impossible, is certainly worth listening to when he discusses leadership qualities. Rudy wrote what is basically part II of the book as he prepared to leave office.

Then came 9-11. He wisely chose to add chapter 1 on the events of 9-11 and the immediate aftermath. The final chapter describes how the recovery was achieved over the last days of his adminstration. Basically Giuliani was always interested in being a leader. He read a lot about and learned a lot from his mentors. Many of the ideas in this book I had already learned from reading and taking courses in leadership, e.g. empower and make everyone accountable, be open and honest and communicate clearly, let your positions be known but allow for open and honest debate, and consider all reasonable options but make a decision and stick with it.

What the book added for me was the details of Rudy's experience from his father and grandfather teaching him as a child how to stand up to bullies, to the synergism of Torre and Steinbrenner, to the teachings of Judge MacMahon and to the example of Ronald Reagan standing up to the air traffic controller. Not only does Rudy clearly relate these experiences but he also takes examples from his years in the district attorney's office and as Mayor of New York where he applied the lessons he learned. Standing up to Arafat when he crashed in on an engagement was an example of Rudy standing up to a bully when Clinton would not.

Still his achievements as Mayor and the leadership he showed during the 9-11 disaster were remarkable. What was so special about Giuliani compared to other Mayors? One thing was his unconventional way of treating the government of a city like the running of a corporation. He used the organizational and economic principles of business in running New York City. He followed what Jack Welch was doing with six sigma at GE and through his Compstat program successfully used statistical methods for improving police effectiveness. This is very similar to the success that is common in many six sigma projects. It was fascinating to hear the types of information they chose to collect and the dramatic results that occurred when the measures were reviewed in meetings.

I even found myself recognizing Reagan and other Republicans whose vision and leadership I generally discounted in the past. Rudy is not arrogant or a braggard. He is simply trying to describe the key ideas that led to his success. This is great food for thought for all of us.

I took my book to a signing at Barnes and Nobel in Princeton New Jersey and got him to sign my copy and we talked briefly. In 2008 as he runs for president in the republican primaries it may be worthwhile to look at this book again to see if he displays the leadship of a president. If he should get nominated it would take a strong campaign by the democratic candidate to get me to vote democratic and I have never voted for a republican for president before. But more than other candidates except for Clinton and McCain he exhibits the level of leadship that we expect but rarely get from our president.