Tuesday 11 November 2014

Book Review - The Secret Red Book of Leadership by Awdesh Singh

THE SECRET RED BOOK OF LEADERSHIP
by Awdesh Singh

From the back cover

The hidden truths of leadership - bitter or sweet - revealed like never before!

Great leaders are like icebergs. They conceal more than they reveal. Indeed, mystery, and the art of retaining it, it is integral to leadership.

Leadership, then, is more an art than a science. It is not a reality that you can touch, feel and measure, but an illusion that is created by many tricks, which you should be able to learn and practise in a way that others are not able to grasp. This book, written by a serving officer of government, is an eye-opener for anybody who aspires to be a leader, at whatever level - nation, community or a small social group; and in whatever sphere - business, politics or administration.
Bon voyage!

About the author:
Dr Awdesh Singh is an engineer from Indian Institute of technology, and a senior officer of Indian Revenue Service. He holds his PhD degree in the area of e-governance and possess over two decades of experience in Government of India. His book Practising Spiritual Intelligence For Innovation, Leadership and Happiness has been on the bestseller list in India. He has written extensively on management, happiness, spirituality and leadership.

About the book:

Title: The Secret Red book of Leadership
Author: Awdesh Singh
Publisher: Wisdom tree
Pages: 229
Genre: Management

Many of you would have had at least one experience of reading management/self-help books. Also, you would have had chosen it to read expecting miraculous guidelines for your life? Did it deliver what it promised? Is it not lying in your bookshelf untouched, after you went through the initial few pages? Does it look menacing when you try to reach it? 

All these kind of books order you to do something. The books are always written in a general sense. No one writes a book particularly for a Mr.A who gets up at 5 in the morning to rush to work and returns home at the dearth of night. No one tells him how to manage time.

All the books tell us to do the right thing. Do what is considered as right in the broader sense?

Now with all these experience, if one is to bold enough to pick a book ( like me here), how can he/ she experience what he really wants?

Now I will tell you whether this book was of such an experience.

This book is named The secret red book of Leadership. Now, you may be wondering whether it has rules lines out in points ordering you how to behave in order to be a leader. Then you are in a different lane, my dear. Because this book deals with Leadership in a broader sense.
Like, dealing with the lives of the great leaders.

Strictly speaking, apart from a few people, all gain knowledge about our Leaders from movies. These movies depict them as people who have lead the nation or a group with morale.

On reading this book, you are going to gain the knowledge which are never shown in movies.

This book has 6 divisions and each involves different aspect of Leadership or a Leader. For example, the first chapter is titled, The Need for Leadership and the second chapter is titled The Dilemma of Leaders.

Now, looking at the chapter title, some may wonder out loud, do leaders have dilemmas? Absolutely yes. More than us. Since their decisions can affect a larger part of people.

Many of us may think that being a leader is the easiest job in the world. It should be easy, isn't it? Just commanding everyone to do their jobs.
No.

This book absolutely clears that notion.
A Leader is a person who is looked upon by many. They do what the leader says and they follow them in every aspect.
How does that come into being?
Do we really need a leader? Yes? No?
This book answers all these and most importantly, Who is a leader? You? Me?
Reading this book made me feel more confident than many other so called self-help books. Read the book to find out more interesting material.

About the narration:
If you are going to expect paragraphs and paragraphs of rules and regulations, I am sorry to say that this is not for you.
This book contains multitude of little stories. They are the real life stories about some of the world leaders and some other stories, which will make you realize that you need not be that perfect to be qualified as a leader. What you achieve with what you have is much more important.

Likes:
Interesting narrative
Including stories in the book
Makes u think

Dislikes:
None

Rating:
9/10

Final:
As the book cover depicts a Leader fish leading all the other fishes, this book leads you deep into the ocean and when you emerge out, you become ready to lead others yourself.

I would like to thank the author for sending the review copy.

You can buy this book at Flipkart here.

Disclaimer: The opinions expressed in this review are my own.

1 comment: