Kirkus Calls ‘Leadership Bites’ Engaging
Kirkus Review recommends Leadership Bites: An Approachable Handbook for Emerging Leaders, by Ian J. McCoog. The comprehensive survey of leadership styles is distinguished for its narrative approach, to the delight of readers. Here’s the review:
McCoog explores various concepts of leadership in this nonfiction debut.
The author, a professor working in academic medicine, leans heavily on a narrative approach: “Stories are how we understand our world,” he writes. “Formulating and telling a story is something just about anyone can do.” Starting with the example of Lucy, the chimpanzee who was taught sign language at the University of Oklahoma, and progressing from the Leadership Continuum developed in the 1950s by Robert Tannenbaum and Warren Schmidt to more recent examples like The Leadership Challenge, first published in 1987 by James Kouzes and Barry Posner (which asked, “What do leaders do when they are at their personal best?”), McCoog looks at a wide variety of leadership theories and models that have been proposed over roughly the last century. He’s clearly read a vast amount of material on the subject, including contemporary books like David Rock’s Quiet Leadership(2006), which posits that an effective leader “allows the team space to brainstorm and hypothesize solutions.” McCoog imparts a warmly human tone to his research by weaving in many moments from his own life, which are often so well told that they almost distract from the more clinical leadership discussions; in one memorable anecdote, random circumstances combined to make the author’s beloved mentor the only person waiting to congratulate him upon successfully defending his doctoral dissertation. “The man who believed in me and started my journey into the field of education,” he recalls, “was with me at the end of one path and the amazing beginning of another.” Readers looking for a comprehensive survey of various schools of thought about leadership styles will find plenty to interest them here, and they’ll be delighted by the personality with which it is delivered.
An engaging, wide-ranging study of how leaders lead.