Review by Vannaskivt -- Effective Leaders and Leadership

[Vannaskivt]

[Following is a volunteer review of "Effective Leaders and Leadership" by Mildred Stallworth.]

---

1 out of 4 stars

---

Share This Review

---

Leadership is a diverse topic with a huge array of literature, books and resources that have been written to help aspiring and current leaders grow. It is vital that literature written about the topic of leadership be available and current as we continue to define and redefine leadership in various arenas.

Effective Leaders and Leadership, written by Mildred Stallworth, explores leadership in a variety of settings. The book begins with a definition of leadership and then moves chapter by chapter to discuss leadership qualities and skills. Each chapter attempts to discuss leadership in a certain setting (ie: business, workplace, groups, politics, the home and spirituality). While Stallworth makes a valid attempt at synthesizing an overwhelming amount of information on the topic of leadership, she unfortunately falls very short on her endeavor due to being extremely subjective, choppy, difficult to follow and largely unorganized.

One of the most challenging aspects of this book to navigate as a reader is the contradictory message that is sent throughout the book. Mildred begins her book with a chapter on defining leadership. Unfortunately her definition falls short of being encompassing of leadership in general, and focus very heavily on defining leaders as an ‘authoritative figure with the most significant position in a business, organization, household, body or group of people’(Stallworth, location 24). This narrow definition simply did not resonate with my personal experience and definition of leaders as it completely ignores those who leading without positional power. Additionally, in subsequent chapters, she directly contradicts this by stating things such as ‘leadership is action, not position’ (Stallworth, location 212)

Another area that fell flat for me, especially as a work of non-fiction, is the lack of examples throughout the book. Mildred constantly states things in very black and white language (ie: Leaders always do this and should never do this…) without one concrete example of an actual leader (current or historical) to back up her position. Without these evidenced based examples, the book is completely subjective, leaving the reader to feel as though they are reading a book based solely on the author’s opinions, rather than a synthesis of the information that is available on the topic of leadership.

Included throughout the book are quotations pertaining to leadership (and this aspect of the book was most enjoyable to me) from various leaders and other authors that have the potential to help unify the author’s message. Unfortunately the author seems to utilize this quotes in tangentially related places and then rather than building from them, seems to paraphrase them, even when they contradict her original definition of leadership.

It is clear from the beginning that the author is passionate about religion and uses leadership in the context of ‘spirituality’ as the latter third of the book. The information does not take into account all perspectives on religion or make note of all religions. Again, as a reader this makes the information come across as biased and one sided.

Overall I would rate this book as 1 out of 4 stars. I would not recommend this book on leadership especially when there are so many other resonating options to choose from. The writing feels choppy, immature and biased, falling flat for the reader and not at all educational or motivating.

******
Effective Leaders and Leadership
View: on Bookshelves | on Amazon | on iTunes

[Yvonne Monique]

It's contradictory that in a book about leadership, the author can't lead an organised content herself. Going by your review, hopefully not many feature leaders will use this book as their guide.

[Iconicsmt]

My goodness, this sounds like a book on how not to write a book on leadership! Her intentions seem noble, but examples and tips on embracing adaptation with respect to differing environments go a long way. Being a leader is far more than just being a boss. Thank you for the great review.