On Becoming a Leader by Warren Bennis

I wrote this for a class in public administration back in 1997. You can tell it’s for a class because it’s longer than the reviews I’d normally write for this blog. I have the sense from reading it that the assignment must have involve answering particular questions about the book. I got an A-. The hyperlinks are added, but I haven’t changed it otherwise from what I wrote the first time.
Bennis, Warren. On Becoming a Leader. New York: Addison-Wesley, 1994.

Bennis’ premise is that leadership comes out of the state of being of the leader. Leadership starts with a leader’s capacity for self-invention, to shape himself with learning and reflection as opposed to being shaped by circumstances. In Bennis’ words, “No leader sets out to be a leader. People set out to live their lives, expressing themselves fully. When that expression is of value, they become leaders.”

Bennis’ process of self-invention begins with self-knowledge. He proposes four lessons to gaining self-knowledge. First, “you are your own best teacher”; learning is essential. Second is to accept responsibility for your own education. Third, “you can learn anything you want to learn.” Finally, reflection is necessary to develop understanding and a leader must question his experience to learn. Leaders innovate and learn from experience without fear of mistakes. According to Bennis’ definition, a leader is someone in the front, doing things others have not done.

A leader must add knowledge of the world to self-knowledge. Bennis says that a leader should learn about the world through participation rather than reaction. One learns by trying to change something as well as experiencing it as it is. The conscious learner seeks broad experience, learns from others and from mistakes.

A leader must trust his instincts. Bennis uses Emerson’s term “blessed impulse.” Blessed impulse is a tool for making decisions in a world to complex to be completely understood.

Leaders must deploy themselves. By this Bennis means a leader must practice self-expression. Deploying oneself is offset against being deployed by others or the voices of others on one’s head.

Leaders must “get people on their side.” Bennis prescribes constancy, congruity of words and action, reliability and integrity.

Bennis also speaks more generally about the characteristics and roles of leaders. These are similar to what might be found in other books on leadership.


Bennis calls the organization the primary form in American society. He challenges leaders to shape their organizations, and shape society, to make them work in a rapidly changing world. He encourages executives to empower junior leaders in their organizations to teach them leadership through experience.

Throughout, Bennis uses the experience of twelve leaders gleaned from interviews. Bennis includes a brief biography of each leader at the end.

At first, it seems that Bennis says that one becomes a leader by being a leader. This is what he says, but he does not leave the reader hanging. Bennis’ perspective is what is unique about the book. Leadership is the expression of the character, qualities, values and personality of a leader. His is not a direct call for us to become leaders, but for us to become ourselves. Leadership will follow.

This may be a difficult lesson. Buyers of books on leadership are probably more interested in learning the skills of leadership and management to help them in their current situations. Bennis says express yourself. If you are doing what you think you ought to do, if others deploy you, you will not be a leader. Self-expression may take you to something different.

The first step to leadership is self-knowledge. A useful tool is self-evaluation, what Bennis calls “tests and measures.” Bennis offers a set of four tests—really four statements. One could apply the tests with pencil and paper, making lists in response to each statement. Of all the tools and suggestions in the book, this set of tests is the most clear and immediately applicable. A reader wanting to apply Bennis’ lessons would do well to start here.

Little else can be used immediately. Changes in point of view and lifestyle take time. One might argue that only a few Bennis’ suggested activities are specific to developing leadership. To me, much of it sounds fun and interesting. That is the point Bennis is trying to make: leadership comes out of broad experience, education, perspective, desire, mastery of one’s discipline and synthesis of ideas.

My own experience validates this. I am as proud of my single published poem as I am of my accomplishments as an engineer or public servant. The skills and abilities exercised by writing are different from those exercised by engineering. I am persuaded that, though seemingly unrelated, one improves the other in me.

Bennis’ somewhat artificial distinction between managers and leaders is a shortcoming. He makes a manager sound like something one would not want to be. He list skills and characteristics developed from the “education” of a leader and the “training” of a manager. All seemingly undesirable things are on the manager side. On might argue tat several management skills, like deduction and common sense, would be useful to a leader.

Most of the interviews are businessmen, but some come from public service agencies and professions. In may seem that businessmen are more susceptible to “surrendering to the context”—the bottom line, the corporate culture, the style of a boss to be pleased—but public service leaders must face their own context. A public servant may readily accept his organization’s view of the way things should be or done, what is important and who to involve without ever considering his own vision, ability and desire.

It may be more important for public section leadership to use self-expression. While a business leader may have the satisfaction of bringing a product to market, making a profit, even gaining notoriety, a public leader may never see his vision achieved. A public leaders’ satisfaction may have to come from living the life he wants to live.

A particular item addressed by Bennis that may be of use to one in public service is getting people on your side. A public leader may have little to rely on besides his integrity and “voice”—an ability to change the climate of his organization and shape it to work more effectively. As important as it is, Bennis can offer little on the subject except constancy, congruity, reliability and integrity. He says to be someone others might follow. He offers no lessons on persuasion, though if persuasion can be taught, it may be of little benefit to those who lake those characteristics.

If you’re interested in this book, you may also be interested in
The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership Tested by Time by James L. Garlow
Blink by Malcolm Gladwell
Developing the Leader Within by John C. Maxwell
The Difference Maker by John C. Maxwell
Winning with People by John C. Maxwell

Hedy's Folly by Richard Rhodes

Hedwig Kiesler was a headstrong Austrian girl with visions of becoming a Hollywood star. She was so determined that she dropped out of school to star working at a Berlin film studio, and by 16 she was acting professionally. She eventually achieved Hollywood stardom as Hedy Lamarr.

Lamarr had another, lesser known life, as an inventor. She, along with avant-garde composer George Antheil, invented a technology that makes much of modern communication possible. Richard Rhodes focuses on this part of Lamarr’s life in Hedy’s Folly.

The woman known for her beauty was interested in technology from youth. She enjoyed walking with her father, a banker, who explained how things worked. Her first marriage was to munitions manufacturer Fritz Mandl. Though she was mostly a trophy to be shown off to his friends, she paid close attention as he and the people he entertained discussed weapons and other technology. When she moved to Hollywood, she sat up a little shop in her home and took up inventing as a hobby.

When Lamarr learned of the sinking by U-boats that were intended to carry children from Britain to safer locations in Canada, she put her head to the idea of improved torpedoes to combat the underwater threat. The torpedo would be remote controlled. To avoid attempts to jam the signal, the torpedo receiver and controller transmitter would can radio frequencies rapidly in a synchronized manner.  She enlisted the assistance of Antheil, who had experience trying to control and synchronize multiple player pianos, to work out a practical implementation of the concept.

The idea was received well by the National Inventors Council, apparently even receiving the endorsement of automotive engineer Charles Kettering. The Navy did not think the idea was practical, but it did by the patent that was awarded to the Hollywood pair in 1941. Eventually, the frequency-hopping technology invented by Lamarr was developed by the U.S. military for many communication applications.

Spread spectrum, a somewhat broader category of radio communication of which frequency-hopping was the original type, was unveiled from the military secrecy in 1976 with the publication of a textbook on the subject by Robert C. Dixon. The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) moved fairly quickly to make room in the radio spectrum for applications of spread spectrum. These were mostly junk frequencies that had been set aside for non-communication uses. Because it broadcast on multiple frequencies, spread spectrum is less likely to be disrupted by interference by other transmissions, like a microwave (Lamarr invented frequency hopping to avoid jamming). Another important aspect of the FCC rule was that these frequencies could be used without a license.

This technology is widely used today. Wi-fi, Bluetooth, GPS, and RFID all use spread spectrum communication. It is the basis of the wireless communication between computers that has shaped the way we live, work, and behave in coffeehouses.

Lamarr and Antheil didn’t receive much recognition for their groundbreaking invention until after it started making its way into American households and pockets. In 1997, Lamarr (and posthumously Antheil) received the Electronic Frontier Foundation’s Pioneer Award when she was 82 years old. By then she had retired to a very private life in Florida, where she live until January 2000.

If you’re interested in this book, you may also be interested in

The Age of Edison by Ernest Freeburg

IBM and the Holocaust by Edwin Black

Make a Joyful Sound by Helen Elmira Waite

Professional Amateur by T. A. Boyd

The Secret History of Wonder Woman by Jill Lepore

War Against the Weak by Edwin Black

Rhodes, Richard. Hedy’s Folly: The Life and Breakthrough Inventions of Hedy Lamarr, the Most Beautiful Woman in the World. New York: Doubleday, 2011.

The Way of the Superior Man by David Deida

I first glanced through David Deida’s The Way of the Superior Man several years ago. I seemed far out to me. When I saw it recommended in another book (You are a Badass by Jen Sincero), I decided to read it. It’s still far out there.

Deida’s premise is that sexual passion has its source in the attraction of opposite poles, masculine and feminine energies. The book is written as if to a men with strong masculine sexual energy who are attracted to women with strong feminine energy, but he believes that the underlying concept applies to any sex or sexual orientation. The essential polarity is masculine and feminine, not male and female.

Masculine energy is purposeful and giving. Men have gifts for the world and they are only fulfilled when they are giving their gifts wholeheartedly.

Problems arise when men shirk their purpose and put aside sacrifice for the sake of comfort and distraction. If a man allows himself to be diverted, he will have problems in sexual relationships as well as other aspects of life.

Women represent a paradox for men. Feminine energy is focused on relationship, no purpose. However, a woman with strong feminine energy is attracted to a man with strong masculine energy. She wants him to be committed to his purpose as his first priority, but she also wants his devotion and security in the relationship. She will test him in both areas and tempt him to see if he is weak in either.

This may make it seem like women have conflicting desires and spend their days dreaming up ways to drive men crazy. Deida disagrees. What women want is for their men to be all they can be, to be their best selves. A woman can relax with such a man, trust him and allow her own feminine energy to flow.

Deida puts the relationship for successful relationships and satisfying sex on the shoulders of men. If you want it, you have to step up and be the kind of man who can be true to his highest calling and best self even in the face of fear and pain.

Sex is more than an act we perform. It is bound up in who we are, our passion for life and our capacity for  intimacy.

If you’re interested in this book, you may also be interested in

No More Christian Nice Guy by Paul Coughlin

The Sacred Romance by John Eldridge with Brian Curtis

Deida, David. The Way of the Superior Man: A Spiritual Guide to Mastering Women, Work, and Sexual Desire. 1997. Boulder, CO: Sounds True, 2004.

Follow Your Heart by Andrew Matthews

Matthews, Andrew. Follow Your Heart. New York: Price Stern Sloan, 1997.
ISBN 0-8431-7491-9

Follow Your Heart is like a short course in the major concepts of happy living. That Andrew Matthews wrote it in a light, simple style gives it and advantage over many similar self-help books.

Matthews sees life as series of lessons. Our job is to learn, change and improve. Instead of fighting against and imperfect world, we learn to be better people and make the world a little better in the process. We’re not here to change the world, but to change ourselves.

In this light, success is more about being happy and having peace than about having money and the trappings of wealth. A person who does what he loves to do often finds he doesn’t need much. A person who develops his talents into excellent skills often finds himself equipped to make plenty of money.

This kind of success is available to everyone. Matthews says, “The universe has no favorites.” The universe is governed by natural laws and we can all understand and use them. Matthews discusses some of these laws. The laws aren't easy ways to get what you want. The laws require patience and effort. This relates to another of Matthews’ precepts, “When you fight life, life always wins.”

One of the ultimate things we can do to be better and help others be better is to love others. According to Matthews, the great expressions of love are forgiveness and acceptance. People aren’t going to be perfect and aren’t going to follow all the rules me make up for them. When we free others from our hurts and expectations, we free ourselves from self-imposed misery, too.

Follow Your Heart isn’t especially original in its message and methods, but neither are many other self-help books. Where it stands out is in a style that is straightforward, lighthearted, humorous and brief.



If you’re interested in this book, you may also be interested in
Attitude is Everything by Jeff Keller
Happier by Tal Ben-Shahar

Rising Tide by James M. Barry

The Mississippi River is powerful. I’ve seen it. I grew up in the northern tip of the river’s delta and now live near one of its major tributaries. John M. Barry’s history of the 1927 flood of the Mississippi, Rising Tide, is only partly about the power of the river. It is more about the power of men, particularly the political power of the men who have tried to exert control over the river.

The first political battle related to the river took place in the 19^th Century. It was a conflict between the nation’s military engineering establishment and their increasingly influential civilian counterparts over who would control Mississippi River policy. The principal actors and figureheads for the two sides were Andrew A. Humphreys, chief of the U.S. Army Corp of Engineers, and James B. Eads, St. Louis-based civil engineer. The Corp largely won this battle, maintaining a controlling voice in river policy, but the resulting agency, the Mississippi River Commission, adopted a theory of practice that neither Humphreys or Eads supported. It would lead to floods on the river becoming increasingly bad.

That conflict doesn’t completely disappear, but it is overtaken by the greater flow of money, politics, society, and race, mostly centered in New Orleans, Mississippi’s Yazoo Valley, and Washington, DC. It is hard to give each player his due in a brief review of Barry’s book. Barry focuses on Leroy Percy, who had great influence on river policy before, during and after the flood. He was a planter in the Mississippi-Yazoo Delta and, briefly, a U.S. Senator from Mississippi. He was also a relative of Walker Percy, one of my favorite authors.

The flood made political careers and had lasting effects. President Calvin Coolidge appointed his Secretary of Commerce, Herbert Hoover, to lead relief efforts after the flood. The publicity and public goodwill that accrued to Hoover during this period helped to usher him into the White House as Coolidge’s successor. Hoover’s lack of follow-through on promises to black leaders created a crack between in the relationship between African-American’s and the Republican Party that led to a serious split.

Huey P. Long also owed some of his success to the flood and its aftermath. New Orleans business leaders promised to provide relief to neighbors who would be flooded by the dynamiting of levees to protect the city. Afterward, these men did everything they could to minimize their liability and did not even pay one-tenth of the cost of damages caused by the flooding. Long rode a wave of resentment against New Orleans aristocrats into the Louisiana governor’s office. Once there, he used his position to strip the New Orleans elite of as much power as he could. As the city elites became more insular and focused on protecting what they had, rather than growing their businesses and community, New Orleans lost its position as the leading city of the South as other more welcoming cities grew.

If you’re interested in this book, you may also be interested in

The Big Thirst by Charles Fishman

Blue Revolution by Cynthia Barnett

Canals and Their Architecture by Robert Harris

Elixir by Brian Fagan

Life's Matrix by Philip Ball

Steam by Andrea Sutcliffe

Superman versus the Ku Klux Klan by Rick Bowers

Water by Marq de Villiers

Water by Steven Solomon

When the Rivers Run Dry by Fred Pearce

Barry, James M. Rising Tide: The Great Mississippi Flood of 1927 and How It Changed America. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1997.

The Leadership Triad by Dale E. Zand

Zand, Dale E. The Leadership Triad. New York: Oxford UP, 1997.
ISBN 0-19-509240-6

Dale E. Zand discusses what leadership means and what its requirements are in a rapidly changing world. He calls this new leadership “triadic.” Three principles are the foundation of triadic leadership: knowledge, trust and power. He devotes parts of the book to each, defining the principles and demonstrating their practical meaning in leadership. As the book progresses, he shows how these principles relate and build in each other.

The book is full of interesting material. An item that stands out in my mind is Zand’s discussion of knowledge work and how to manage knowledge workers. My job, at its best, is knowledge work. I was surprised to find my coworkers, myself, and our reactions to different management approaches succinctly described. As Zand predicts, we respond positively to supervision that recognizes the nature of knowledge work and our professionalism. Supervision that fails to recognized this stirs up resentment.

Zand, like several other authors, makes good use of short case studies for illustration. It is not enough; it just whets my appetite. I think a few detailed, chapter-long case studies related to the use of the three principles would add a lot of depth to the book without adding many pages.

I originally wrote this review in 1999 when I read the book for a class. I’m still a knowledge worker, though as an entrepreneur instead as an employee. You can find out more about my business here.

Double Your Brain Power by Jean Marie Stine

In Double Your Brain Power, Jean Marie Stine doesn’t tell you how to make your brain more powerful. She tells you how to get more out of the power your brain already has.

There are five major areas of brainpower covered by the book: learning, memory, reading, listening and thinking. Under each part, a few short chapters introduce specific techniques for improving performance.

I was particularly interested in the chapter on reading. I read a lot for pleasure and work. If I can get my work reading out of the way more quickly, I’ll be able to manage my other duties better. If I can read more books, I’ll be able to post more reviews on my blog. I’ve picked up some books on speed-reading and found the techniques to be so tedious that I never followed through on developing the skill. Stine doesn’t try to teach speed-reading. Her focus is on reading smarter, getting the information you need without reading every word, and remembering the important information. The techniques probably won’t help you get through Moby Dick in a day (though they might get you through it faster than if you didn’t use them), but they probably will help you plow through the paperwork, memos, and reports that come across your desk.

I also paid close attention to the chapter on memory. If you’ve read books on mnemonics, you’ll have seen some of the techniques Stine includes. The down side of mnemonics is it takes time and effort to be good as using the techniques. Fortunately, this is not the only, or even the primary, thing in the chapter.  There are effective, and easily mastered, methods for remembering better that Stine includes.

There are recurring themes that apply to many areas of brainpower. Be attentive. Relax because your brain works better when you relax. Believe you can do better and have a firm intention of improving. Focus and concentration improve all areas of brainpower. Make connections to the things you want to learn and remember, both to things you know and to your personal experiences. Use your feelings as well as you thoughts. Review important information.

Double Your Brain Power is almost a model how-to book. It focuses on specific areas one may want to improve and skills for making those improvements. Stine built some of the skills she teaches into the structure of the book, especially reviewing. The reviews are very brief, so the book does not seem repetitive. Illustrative stories are few, brief, and directly related to the skills discussed.

This structure lends itself to including a lot of information and to brevity. I find that to be a very good quality in a nonfiction book.

In addition, Stine follows the old adage about speaking or teaching: “Tell them what you are going to tell them, tell them, and tell them what you told them.” This is not as bad as it sounds. Stine does not linger on introductions and reviews. They serve their purpose of reinforcing the major points briefly.

Double Your Brain Power does not have a great deal of original concepts, and the author readily acknowledges when ideas or techniques are adapted from others sources. The advantage of this book is that it brings many useful skills together, gets to the point and describes them briefly.

If you’re interested in this book, you may also be interested in

The Genius in All of Us by David Shenk

Idea Mapping by Jamie Nast

Moonwalking with Einstein by Joshua Foer

The Relaxation Response by Herbert Benson with Miriam Z. Klipper

Your Intelligence Makeover by Edward F. Droge, Jr.

Stine, Jean Marie. Double Your Brain Power. 1997. New York: Barnes & Noble, 2000.

Undaunted Courage by Stephen Ambrose

Ambrose, Stephen E. Undaunted Courage: Meriwether Lewis, Thomas Jefferson, and the Opening of the American West. 1996. New York: Touchstone, 1997.

Undaunted Courage is a biography of Meriwether Lewis. It is also, to a large extent, an account of Lewis’ expedition, co-led by William Clark, up the Missouri River, across the Rocky Mountains, down the Columbia River to the Pacific Coast and back again.


The Lewis and Clark expedition, the bicentennial of which was celebrated in 2004 through 2006, is rightly presented as the centerpiece of Lewis’ life. Ambrose shows how Lewis’ early life in the plantations and wilderness of Virginia, as a militia officer during the Whiskey Rebellion and under the political tutelage of Thomas Jefferson uniquely prepared Lewis to lead a company of explorer-soldiers with a broad mission. His life after the expedition was brief and troubled.

The western exploration, beginning in 1804 and ending in 1806, is the major focus of the narrative. It was more than simply a trip. Lewis and Clark were charged with scientific observation (particularly geography, botany and zoology), Indian diplomacy, establishing trade, and what might be considered a touch of espionage. With the exception of Indian policy, Lewis, Clark and their men performed admirably.

Lewis, throughout the mission and afterward, wanted to make it clear that he and Clark had equal parts in the leadership of the expedition. It is extraordinary that this worked so well. One gets the impression for the book that Lewis was the senior of these equals, which may explain it. Even so, Lewis seemed to prefer the close companionship of trusted peers and friends.

Lewis achieved great success while still relatively young, in his early thirties. Early success can be tough, but Lewis seems like a man who can handle tough situations. However, his few years of life after the expedition seem to be characterized by failure. Certainly, the political situation in the Louisiana Territory, where Lewis was appointed governor, was very difficult, and he may not have been cut out to be a politician and bureaucrat. However, he left important matters that were easily within his grasp undone. Notably, he never published the expedition journals, which more than anything else may have sealed his fame, supported his policies and multiplied the fruit of his exceptional labor.

The final years of Lewis’ life, which ended in suicide, raises many unanswered, and possibly unanswerable, questions. Even so, Ambrose’s biography of the man is an interesting story, and sometime and exciting tale of his great adventure.

Pulp Art by Robert Lesser

Lesser, Robert.  Pulp Art: Original Cover Paintings for the Great American Pulp Magazines.  1997.  New York: Metro Books, 2009.

Pulp Art seems more like a collection of essays about the art of pulp magazine covers than a full book.  Each chapter-essay focuses on a particular genre.

Similarly, author Robert Lesser comes across as a knowledgeable enthusiast more than an academic or a professional writer.  At times he is almost a florid as the magazines that are his topic.

What will draw someone to this coffee-table book is not the history, though that is interesting.  The attraction is the large reproductions of pulp magazine cover art.

The art in this book is a little strange.  Part of the strangeness comes from its quality.  Many of these artists were much more skilled and creative than they needed to be.

The other element of strangeness is that such well-crafted art had such unabashedly commercial intent.  The covers were intended to sell magazines.

Oh, how they sold magazines.  Pulps were fundamentally adventure stories.  They covered several genres, detective, fantasy, science fiction, western, horror, even romance, but the intent of all was to give the reader a thrilling escape.  “Spicy” (i.e. sexy) stories did very well to, and they had correspondingly suggestive covers.

In some ways, the best thing about pulp art is the implied story.  Storytelling in art goes back to the earliest art.  The pulp covers had to imply a story that suggested the kind of adventure, danger, and weirdness within.  They often drew their subject from one of the stories in the issue, but sometimes a great painting was the inspiration for a story.  The art was not always strictly representational, it sometimes approached the subject in an abstract way.  Energy and dynamism come through the paintings, and even the artists with the most static style infused their image with a sense of the exotic and otherworldly.

Pulps are collected now more for their covers than for the stories they contain.  Lesser devotes a chapter to pulp collecting.  The collector, or potential collector, might be the main audience for the book.

Lesser includes brief biographies of the artists he discusses.  Many of them had success outside of pulps, and many fine artists resorted to pulps to pay the bills.  Lesser includes several pieces by other who were pulp artists or had connections to them with their recollections of the pulp era and its art.

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