Want to be a Leader? Start with this!

For our traveling leisure we decided to crunch down and make the most of our time and start having conversation with great authors on a wide range of subjects.

The Leader Who Had No Title
by Robin Sharma
Reader: William
Method of Reading: Hardcopy
Rating: 4 out of 5

The first friendly encounter was with Robin Sharma’s book called The Leader Who Had No Title.  It’s a story of Blake as a young man. It tells about his past and how his parents had passed away. Fast forward to the time of the storytelling, he is back from the war and finding himself working in a bookstore. He was not really feeling like he fit into his place in the world and he was having troubles integrating with the normal society after all he had been through. Out of the blue he meets this old eccentric 77-year old man named Tommy who was just transfered to the bookstore and now has taken an interest in Blake. Turns out that Tommy was old friends with Blake’s dad and is the number one employee in the company; receiving awards, trips and refusing to be promoted. Tommy has some leadership principal that he wants to pass on to Blake and that’s where all the golden nuggets lay.

Tommy has these four people he meets along the way to show him how he became so successful in his life and his career. It all starts with LTW (Lead Without a Title), it has a nice ring to it and I really understand the concept. But to bring it to life there had to be more clarity on what that meant.

Blake met with his first mentor Anna, who instilled the principals on ” you need no title to be a leader.”  The acronym was IMAGE which stand for:

I – Innovation. To be creative.
M – Mastery. Of your craft.
A – Authenticity. Be trustworthy.
G – Guts. Face what scares you.
E – Ethics. Doing what’s right.

The second mentor was Ty, his lesson was that turbulent times build great leaders. His acronym was SPARK:

S – Speak with condor.
P – Prioritize.
A – Adversity breeds opportunity.
R – Respond versus react.
K – Kudos for everyone.

The third mentor was Jackson with the lesson that the deeper your relationship, the stronger your leadership. His acronym was HUMAN:

H – helpfulness
U – understanding
M – mingle
A – amuse
N – nurture

The last teacher was Jet with his lesson, “to be a great leader, first become a great person”.The 5 rules are SHINE:

S – see clearly
H – health is wealth
I – inspiration matters
N – neglect not your family
E – elevate your life style

Now having these short little reminders to reflect on and to put into practice will be hard but anything worth doing is worth the effort. These are my golden nuggets I’ve taken away from the book and I would totally recommend the read for yourself. It was a very fun read with a lot of practical advise to imminent. Remember that a book is like a acquaintance, the more time you spend with them the closer you become and the more you get to understand about their world. Keep your friends close and visit them often, you never know what they’ll teach you next.

Check back on our Golden Nuggets reading challenge. Who will get to 52 BOOKS in 52 WEEKS first!