Business Books - Page 2

Lead Like Jesus: Lessons from the Greatest Leadership Role Model of All Time

Ken Blanchard, Phil Hodges

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 16 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

"The more I read the Bible, the more evident it becomes that everything I have ever taught or written about effective leadership over the past 25 years, Jesus did to perfection. He is simply the greatest leadership role model of all time." Ken Blanchard

Effective leadership-whether on the job, in the community, at church or in the home-starts on the inside. Before you can hope to lead anyone else, you have to know who you are. Every leader must answer two critical questions: Whose are you going to be? Who are you going to be? One deals with your relationship to Christ. The other with your life purpose.

With simple yet profound principles from the life of Jesus, and dozens of stories and leadership examples from his life experiences, veteran author, speaker and leadership expert Ken Blanchard, guides readers through the process of discovering how to lead like Jesus. It really could be described as the process of aligning two internal domains-the heart and the head-and two external domains, the hands and the habits. These four dimensions of leadership form the outline for this very practical and transformational book.

Servant Leadership : A Journey into the Nature of Legitimate Power and Greatness

Robert K. Greenleaf

List Price: $14.95 By: Paulist Press Amazon Marketplace: 38 new & used starting at $2.52

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 9 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

It's only communication if the message is received 3 out of 5 stars.
7 of 9 people found this review helpful.

I found the ideas in this book rather interesting. However, it's a tough book to get through. Greenleaf's writing style is difficult to follow, this is not an easy read. I would not recommend Servant Leadership to someone who is looking for quick practical advise on honing their leadership skills. In my opinion, this book is better suited to those who have an academic interest in the subject. Additionally, it's been ~30 years since this book was published, many of Greenleaf's ideas have filtered into more contemporary texts. I compare it to the music of Jimi Hendrix. While he is the brilliant innovator of a genre of music, 30 years later today's broad audience doesn't understand the context of his work, but can find and enjoy his influence in the music they relate to today.

Editorial Review:

Twenty-five years ago Robert Greenleaf published these prophetic essays on what he coined servant leadership, a practical philosophy that replaces traditional autocratic leadership with a holistic, ethical approach. This highly influential book has been embraced by cutting edge management everywhere. Yet in these days of Enron and what VISA CEO Dee Hock calls our "era of massive institutional failure," Greenleaf's seminal work must reach the mainstream now more than ever. Servant Leadership helps leaders find their true power and moral authority to lead. It helps those served become healthier, wiser, freer, and more autonomous. This book encourages collaboration, trust, listening, and empowerment. It offers long-lasting change, not a temporary fix and extends beyond business for leaders of all types of groups.

Failing Forward: Turning Mistakes Into Stepping-Stones for Success

John C. Maxwell

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 57 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Good premise, strong beginning and ending, but weak in the middle 3 out of 5 stars.
1 of 1 people found this review helpful.

The idea behind this book is very original and relevant. We all make mistakes and the exploration of how to learn from those and improve ourselves is a noble task. Maxwell begins well with insightful thoughts on what failure is and is not, how success is born out of failure and how to reframe our perception of our failures. Then the book quickly turns to largely extraneous stories and weak supporting points. The book drags on in this vein for some time. It is not until near the end that things pick back up again. The book ends on a strong note, with practical suggestions of how to "fail forward." This book is worth reading, though be prepared to do some skimming in the middle sections.

Editorial Review:

The major difference between achieving people and average people is their perception of and response to failure. John C. Maxwell takes a closer look at failure-and reveals that the secret of moving beyond failure is to use it as a lesson and a stepping stone. He covers the top reasons people fail and shows how to master fear instead of being mastered by it. Listeners will discover that positive benefits can accompany negative experiences-if you have the right attitude.

Chock full of action suggestions and real-life stories, Failing Forward will help men and women move beyond mistakes to fulfill their potential and achieve success.

Money, Possessions, and Eternity

Randy Alcorn

List Price: $10.99 By: Tyndale House Publishers Amazon Marketplace: 34 new & used starting at $2.00

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 37 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Excellent book 5 out of 5 stars.
1 of 1 people found this review helpful.

This is an excellent book on Biblical stewardship. It's a must read for anyone wanting to see what the Bible has to say about your possessions and how to view as well as handle them. Highly, highly recommended!

Other than the Bible, the best book I've ever read! 5 out of 5 stars.
0 of 0 people found this review helpful.

This is the best solidly Biblical treatment about money and possessions, that I've ever read, and I've read a lot!

Good book, kind of repetitive 4 out of 5 stars.
0 of 0 people found this review helpful.

I am glad I have had an opportunity to read most of this book. I have to admit, though, that I did not read all of it. It is just too repetitive. Randy has good points, but like many preachers, he tends to say them over and over and over again.

I read the first section of the book and then skipped to some interesting appendixes he has in the back. Maybe someday I will read the middle of the book.

Still, it is a book worth reading, and I learned much from what I did read.

Recommended.

Money, Possessions and Eternity 5 out of 5 stars.
0 of 0 people found this review helpful.

Randy Alcorn has hit the nail on the head for Biblical giving. His main premise is that all money and possessions belong to God, so we ought to be willing to give what is His anyway back to Him or to whomever He chooses. Our money and possessions are not for our selfish pleasure but for the promotion of spiritual and eternal things. Quite a convicting read.

Editorial Review:

A practical and comprehensive biblical study about money and possessions from a pastor's painstaking study and broad experience.

The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership

John C. Maxwell

List Price: $189.95 By: Thomas Nelson Amazon Marketplace: 6 new & used starting at $44.94

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 195 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Encouraging, Inspirational, and a great read to!!!!! 5 out of 5 stars.
2 of 2 people found this review helpful.

Let me say that I am a chick from the hood and we do not come across books like this on the regular, but I got my hands on it and it really grabbed and kept me attention. This book made me think and realize that if you use the leadership abilities that God has given us all, anything is possible!!! I recommend that everyone read this book!!! This book was awesome!!!

Powerful 5 out of 5 stars.
1 of 1 people found this review helpful.

This is a powerful book. I cannot say enough about John Maxwell's ability to put things into perspective. This has helped me to understand why some of my managers are struggling and what to look for in hiring new ones.

Editorial Review:

Session 1: The Law of the Lid, The Law of Influence, The Law of Process, The Law of Navigation

Session 2: The Law of E. F. Hutton, The Law of Solid Ground, The Law of Respect, The Law of Intuition

Session 3: The Law of Magnetism, The Law of Connection, The Law of the Inner Circle, The Law of Empowerment

Session 4: The Law of Reproduction, The Law of Buy-In, The Law of the Victory, The Law of the Big Mo

Session 5: The Law of Priorities, The Law of Sacrifice, The Law of Timing, The Law of Explosive Growth, The Law of Legacy

Leadership is an Art

Max Depree

List Price: $15.95 By: Dell Amazon Marketplace: 518 new & used starting at $0.01

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 36 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

The Tendency to Deteriorate 5 out of 5 stars.
2 of 2 people found this review helpful.

Not everything that is old is wise. But this book, written 20 years ago, is jam-packed with wisdom. Max DePree wrote in 1987 that the management team's job "is to provide an environment that allows momentum to gather."

DePree's simple, but profound leadership primer has never been equaled. Read it and you'll marvel at the insights--like in his five-page chapter, "Pink Ice in the Urinal." Few CEOs before him and hardly anyone after him have so eloquently discussed the tendency of organizations to deteriorate like in the pink ice chapter. Even DePree's chapter titles are memorable: Theory Fastball, Tribal Storytelling, Some Thoughts for CEOs Who Build Buildings, and Why Should I Weep?

DePree wrote that a financial analyst once asked him, "What is one of the most difficult things that you personally need to work on?" DePree's answer: "The interception of entropy."

"One of the important things leaders need to learn is to recognize the signals of impending deterioration." He kept a list and observed that leaders, especially in large organizations, fail to see the signs of entropy, including: 1) a tendency toward superficiality; 2) no longer having time for celebration and ritual; 3) a growing feeling that rewards and goals are the same thing; 4) when people stop telling tribal stories or cannot understand them; and 5) when problem-makers outnumber problem-solvers. His list was longer--but you get the idea.

The pink ice in the urinal? It was a team member's odd suggestion for dressing up the men's room for their VIP visitors. "Despite the good intentions behind this idea," DePree commented that the team member was signaling a clear deterioration in thinking and strategizing. The pink ice in the urinal would have little effect on the VIPs--so why bother? Focus on the strategic, not the cosmetic.

Editorial Review:

In what has become a bible for the business world, the successful CEO of Herman Miller, Inc., explores how executives and managers can learn the leadership skills that build a better, more profitable organization.

Business By The Book Complete Guide Of Biblical Principles For The Workplace

Larry Burkett

List Price: $14.99 By: Thomas Nelson Amazon Marketplace: 32 new & used starting at $2.25

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 15 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

Business By THE Book 5 out of 5 stars.
4 of 4 people found this review helpful.

This book is not for someone wanting to get rich quick! If you are a Christian business owner wanting to run your business according to God's word, this book explains God's word and gives helpful tips to follow through with His word.

A MUST READ BEFORE YOU START A BUSINESS 5 out of 5 stars.
3 of 3 people found this review helpful.

THE AUTHOR COVERS BUSINESS PRINCIPLES IN A MANNER THAT YOU DONT COVER IN ANY BA OR MBA PROGRAM THAT I EVER HEARD. DEFINETELY WORTH THE READ!

Changed my company 5 out of 5 stars.
0 of 0 people found this review helpful.

I handed this book to my project managers and am already experiencing a ground swell of blessing. The late great Larry Burkett lays the prinicles out in an easy to understand and thoughtful way. I would highly, highly recommend this book if you are interested in doing Business the way God intended.

Must read for Christian Business owners! 5 out of 5 stars.
0 of 0 people found this review helpful.

We liked this book so much, we bought it for my father-in-law who just started his business. If you have a burden to approach your business with Christ at the center, read this book!

Editorial Review:

Now readers can approach the new millennium by incorporating Burkett's tried and true advice into their business world with this updated edition of the best-selling classic containing some of the actual study material used in Burkett's worldwide seminars.

Next Generation Leader: 5 Essentials for Those Who Will Shape the Future

Andy Stanley

Amazon Price: $11.55 List Price: $16.99 Usually ships in 24 hours By: Multnomah Books Amazon Marketplace: 45 new & used starting at $8.25

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Total reviews: 35 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

Follow Your Own Lead!

The Next Generation Leader has been challenging young Christians eager to learn, grow, and lead in ministry or in the marketplace since its original release in 2003. Now with an all-new look, this repackaged version continues to advance the mission of the first release. Mentoring young leaders as they face the unique issues of a changing world has been pastor and bestselling author Andy Stanley’s passion for more than a decade. Here he shares material from his leadership training sessions, developed to address essential leadership qualities such as character, clarity, courage, and competency. This is the perfect guide for any new leader—or for the mentor of a future leader!

Straight Talk

to Tomorrow’s Leaders

Five characteristics mark the man or woman who will shape the future.

Courage

Clarity

Competence

Coachability

Character

Drawing on two decades of experience mentoring a rising generation, seasoned visionary Andy Stanley shows how to:

Discover and play to your strengths

Harness your fears

Leverage uncertainty

Enlist a leadership coach

Maintain moral authority

“Capable men and women will eventually catch, pass, and replace the current generation of leaders,” says Stanley . “Embracing these essentials, you will not only excel in your personal leadership, but also ensure a no-regrets experience for those who choose to follow you.”

“ Andy Stanley ’s The Next Generation Leader will equip the messengers to stand a little taller with a vision of hope and promise as they engraft these timeless principles into their daily lives.”

—Dan T. Cathy, president and CEO, Chick-Fil-A Corporation

“It’s obvious that what Andy Stanley has to say in The Next Generation Leader comes straight from the gut of someone who is in the leadership game and is winning at it.”

—Bill Hybels, senior pastor, Willow Creek Community Church

“ Andy Stanley offers a fresh perspective on ageless truths that will be of enormous benefit to today’s leaders and to future generations.”

—Patrick S. Flood, chairman and CEO, HomeBanc Mortgage Corporation



INSIDE LEFT FLAP

Ready or not,

you’re NEXT!

It’s time to shape the future,

and those who will do so are in training

today. Learn what it takes to lead with courage,

then follow with character.

Embrace the basics, and you’ll master the

challenges of generations to come.

“My passion is to equip you to take your place among the ranks of those who are positioned to shape the future.”

— Andy Stanley



Story Behind the Book

Andy Stanley, the senior pastor of the North Point Ministries campuses with a cumulative congregation of more than twenty thousand, admits he has one single, core passion. He lives to train and mentor young leaders to be the best they can be! He sees the “next gen” need for quality Christian resources on leadership and wrote this book entrenched in leadership himself, desiring to guide the up-and-coming young men and women who will shape our future.

The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism

Max Weber

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 34 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

The definitive introductory text in Modernization theory 5 out of 5 stars.
0 of 0 people found this review helpful.

Weber is the definitive introductory text in Modernization theory. Although somewhat western-centric, this book is essential reading for any college student, as it gave rise to many theories in every branch of social science, and still has more influence on theoretical thought than most social scientists would like to admit.

What Made Capitalism Tick? 5 out of 5 stars.
0 of 0 people found this review helpful.

In my youth I used to believe that Max Weber's The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism was the very last word in understanding, sociologically, the driving force behind capitalism in its prime. His premise, at least his expressed narrowly- defined one, that out of the mishmash of feudalism a `new' man and a `new' woman were being created who could subordinate their temporal desires enough to begin the tedious process of primitive capitalist accumulation that got the whole mode started, hit home hard to my young mind. Of course, that was not my conscious take on it at the time, although parts of it certainly were. What interested me the most wa that Weber was using some examples that were close to home, the Massachusetts Bay Colony experiment, and, being from Boston and steeped in Purtian history, that is why I was glad to get a copy of the work.

Strangely, in recently re-reading the work I found that I was drawn by those same examples. Additionally, I was drawn by the huge set of footnotes at the end that I did not remember going through in my youth but offer some very interesting insights into how Weber put his argument together and the sources that he had available at the time and that he used. The re-reading poses this question, though. How does the work itself hold up?

Of course today my class struggle perspective derived from a Marxist world view notes that Weber is clearly a political opponent. Not so much for his argument, which actually has a certain merit, but for his tenacious desire to use a quasi-Marxism materialist approach to sociology without drawing those requisite class struggle conclusions. I might add that the class struggle was fully raging in Germany at the time of the publication of this work as the Social Democratic Party was becoming the voice of the German working class. Weber, thus, really needed to keep his blinders on. Moreover, as a work of scholarship, which I will grant it certainly is, it is an early effort in the very long struggle to divorce sociological observations from any practical use. A militant today in order to benefit from reading this work has to do the equivalent of suspending disbelieve in the plot of a novel to realize that it is important to know what made capitalism tick in the old days and why we have to move on. Here, nevertheless is my very condensed take on the work today.

In some place in 16th and 17th century Europe, the scope of Weber's study, individuals and small communities were breaking from the established churches, Roman Catholic and mainstream Protestant and creating, in some cases 'hit or miss', a culture that we today describe as secular but in the nature of those times had a religious connotation. That breakout, not without opposition and oppression by the constituted authorities, formed the nucleus of an ethic that made accumulation of wealth through hard work and thrift the norm-in short that private accumulation mentioned above. This, dear reader, was a historically progressive series of actions. In the year 2007 those traits have long since failed to be progressive. What is necessary, as Marx, Lenin, Trotsky and even someone like Che Guevara recognized is in the interest of social solidarity we need to create `the new socialist man and woman' out of the muck and mire of capitalism. Hell, we need our own version of the Protestant ethic-and if current worldwide economic conditions are any judge- we need it pronto. Read this one at your leisure.

Editorial Review:

First published in 1905 The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism is one of the most renowned and controversial works of modern social science. It is a brilliant book which studies the psychological conditions which made possible the development of capitalist civilization.

Heroic Leadership: Best Practices from a 450-Year-Old Company That Changed the World

Chris Lowney

Amazon Price: $16.47 List Price: $24.95 Usually ships in 24 hours By: Loyola Press Amazon Marketplace: 61 new & used starting at $1.39

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 22 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

Much we can learn, but... 3 out of 5 stars.
1 of 9 people found this review helpful.

The subtitle of this book is "Best Practices from a 450-Year-Old Company that Changed the World." Indeed, we can learn a lot from the practices of the Jesuits. Even though they were and continue to be theological competitors with those of an evangelical faith, the Jesuits provide a leadership model that is in contrast to many Protestant organizations.

The Jesuits rose to worldwide influence within a generation from their "no great leader" organizational practice. Whereas evangelicalism is often built around singular personalities and monolithic structures formed to achieve one man's vision, the Jesuits attempted to build all of their recruits into great leaders who, in turn, swarmed the world. That is the singular refreshing lesson that evangelicals can gain from the study of this book.

However, what is disturbing about the book is the inability of its author, or the Jesuits whom he cites, to grasp the biblical message of salvation by faith alone in Christ alone. With a works-based salvation the Jesuits were - and still are - about moralizing the world with biblical principles rather than affording individuals the New Testament teaching of the free gift of new life in Christ - and the power to live the Christian life - by receiving Christ as Lord and Savior through faith alone.

Editorial Review:

Effective leadership is crucial to building organizations with staying power. In Heroic Leadership, author Chris Lowney examines organizational principles derived from the history and teachings of the Jesuits and applies them to modern corporate culture. Based on the four core values of self-awareness, ingenuity, love, and heroism, this book identifies practices that sixteenth century priests developed to foster strong leaders and achieve longevity.

A Jesuit seminarian turned investment banker, Lowney recognized a tremendous lack of able leaders throughout his seventeen years of multinational management experience. By modeling the Jesuits' success, Lowney shares methods for molding innovative, ambitious leaders in the modern corporate environment.