I picked up this book by luck. I was just browsing through many subjects which were on display.

The title caught my attention initially. When I saw the book cover, I was a bit intrigued. A couple of hours later, at home, I started reading the first chapter.

From my perspective, each person learns something different from the same book. So here are some of my thoughts on this one.

What the author tried to do here, was to put the leadership skills of different people in a story. Probably because it makes it a lot easier to imagine yourself in a similar situation. This should make a bigger impact than just by reading “Person x was successful because he had y skill”.

I think it worked. Basically, it's a collection of different short stories.

A sense of direction

The thing that resonated with me the most was the value of having a vision. The importance of it in various scenarios. This happened probably because I'm currently in a similar situation where the vision is defined.

Having a clear vision also helps with making decisions. Whenever facing a difficult choice, you can fall back to the vision and make it easier on yourself (or faster) to take action.

It also helps with preventing any person from drifting. If you find yourself in repeat mode: Each day, each week, they feel the same and nothing really happens -- it might mean you don't have a clear idea of where you are heading to. Having no direction, leads to drifting, doesn't it?

So the combination of vision and objectives help. They help in making tough choices, they help when there's too many “urgent tasks”. Urgent != important.

Unleashing your potential

I call this a nice surprise. Another lesson from this book is that your leadership potential can be fulfilled only when the company's vision and yours match.

So, if you gave it your best shot, and it didn't work, analyze things from this perspective. It might be the case that you are not really in the right place. And that's one of the things you should look out for in the future.

You don't have to be all

For a long, long time I lived under the impression that I had to have all the skills from all the successful people I read about. Crazy right?

This last lesson served as a reminder. There are different leadership styles out there. And also, there are different fields that require different styles. You just have to be yourself. Work on your weak points and take advantage of your strong points.

Then find the right fit. The right company or partners. And build the right team.

And also, never neglect proper communication.