Summary of The Heart of Leadership

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Rating

7 Overall

8 Applicability

6 Innovation

7 Style

Recommendation

Author and Chick-fil-A vice president Mark Miller presents a book-length teaching story – a fable – about learning to lead. He dispenses leadership wisdom through the story of a career-oriented, personal journey. His protagonist, Blake, interacts with different people while learning the meaning of true leadership. Miller explores the core of “leadership character,” without which – despite other gifts – no one can lead. Miller’s readable story, while deliberately and comfortably predictable and simplified for novice leaders, is easy to digest and offers many valuable concepts about leadership qualities. getAbstract recommends this basic, accessible primer on the essence of leadership. If you’ve read Miller’s books written with Ken Blanchard – The Secret: What Great Leaders Know and Do, Great Leaders Grow or The Secret of Teams, you’ll be right at home here. This is an equally useful, straightforward and structured lesson.

In this summary, you will learn

  • Why such attributes as “honesty, integrity” and “loyalty” are not enough to make someone a leader;
  • What vital traits leaders must have; and
  • How to learn to be a leader.
 

About the Author

Mark Miller, a vice president of Chick-fil-A, has sold nearly 600,000 copies of his books across the globe. He writes a leadership blog and is the author of several other leadership bestsellers.

 

Summary

“Something Missing”

Blake Brown was unhappy and disillusioned. Though he was an outstanding performer at Dynastar, Blake learned from his supervisor, Samantha, that he wasn’t going to get the promotion he thought he deserved. “You’re a great individual contributor, but I couldn’t get enough support for you to become the team leader,” Samantha said. Blake didn’t understand. “Outstanding performance – no promotion?” he asked.

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    Sander Kevin L 3 years ago
    Awesome article and what stands out to me in here is having the servant heart not the self serving.
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    Suzanne Schmidt 3 years ago
    I like this quote a lot, “the future has not yet been written – it is written by leaders.”
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    Julia Winston 5 years ago
    I appreciate the point about leadership being a matter of the heart. You can do all the mechanics of leadership, but true leadership is about "being" not just "doing".