The Contrarian's Guide to Leadership (J-B Warren Bennis Series) | 
 enlarge | Author: Steven B. Sample
Publisher: Jossey-Bass
Category: Book
List Price: $18.95
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Rating:  29 reviews
Sales Rank: 22347
Media: Paperback
Edition: 1st
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 224
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.6
Dimensions (in): 9 x 6.1 x 0.9
ISBN: 0787967076
Dewey Decimal Number: 658
UPC: 723812486625
EAN: 9780787967079
ASIN: 0787967076
Publication Date: April 2, 2003
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Amazon.com
In The Contrarian's Guide to Leadership, University of Southern California President Steven Sample offers up a refreshing perspective on the characteristics of a successful leader. Some of Sample's prescriptions: try reading Machiavelli's The Prince instead of The New York Times, learn to work for those who work for you, and "Anything worth doing at all is worth doing poorly. It may be worth more if it's done well, but it's worth something if it's done poorly." This book is not just for CEO's: middle management and anyone interested in promoting good leadership will benefit as well. --Harry C. Edwards
Product Description
In this offbeat approach to leadership, college president Steven B. Sample-the man who turned the University of Southern California into one of the most respected and highly rated universities in the country-challenges many conventional teachings on the subject. Here, Sample outlines an iconoclastic style of leadership that flies in the face of current leadership thought, but a style that unquestionably works, nevertheless. Sample urges leaders and aspiring leaders to focus on some key counterintuitive truths. He offers his own down-to-earth, homespun, and often provocative advice on some complex and thoughtful issues. And he provides many practical, if controversial, tactics for successful leadership, suggesting, among other things, that leaders should sometimes compromise their principles, not read everything that comes across their desks, and always put off decisions.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 24 more reviews...
 You Are What You Read March 24, 2008
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
You have two options for learning about USC President Steven Sample's "contrarian's guide to leadership." Option #1: Join 40 juniors and seniors at the University of Southern California for Sample's popular spring course, "The Art and Adventure of Leadership," co-taught by Warren Bennis, global leadership guru and author. You'll study 20 historical and contemporary leaders, read 1,000 pages on leadership, interact in class with a dozen guest leaders, write a dozen four-page papers, and participate in a group project.
Option #2: Order this book. Sample writes in Chapter 4 that "you are what you read." I agree. I'm a cheerleader for leaders who read. "The Book Bucket" is one of the 20 buckets in my book, Mastering The Management Buckets: 20 Critical Competencies for Leading Your Business or Non-profit.
Samples' contrarian approach to reading is unique. He reads 30 minutes a day along a "left to right" spectrum of newspapers, trade journals, new books and supertexts (The Bible, Plato's Republic, Machiavelli's The Prince, etc.). But...he rarely reads what others are reading. The short list of supertexts that have endured at least 400 years attract him the most. He engages his team in conversations about what they're reading. Before buying a book, he prefers a five-minute conversation with someone who has already read it.
Addicted to newspapers, he once went six months without reading one--but stayed current through the art of listening. Sample says that for the contrarian leader, most truly original ideas will often come from outside his or her established field. This chapter is worth the price of the book. It's contrarian and refreshing. It changed my thinking. How often does a book do that for you?
When "taking the road less traveled" gets you there February 20, 2008
I must like this book or I would not have bought over a dozen to give to business friends. Sample takes a different path to the making of decisions. And it is one that my personal experience in international business and personal life has proven to work. It is the secret of "letting" the thing work out. Thinking "gray" takes time and gets better results. An very valuable approach that should be listened to in this fast paced segmented world.
Frederick R. Andresen, Author of "Walking on Ice, An American Businessman in Russia," over sixteen years in Russian business, six years in residence.
A Contrarian View December 30, 2007
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
Dr Sample's views on leadership are refreshing, but honestly not so altogether contrarian. Don't get me wrong, I think the book is a useful and well written collection of leadership best practices and it is a welcomed addition to my personal library; but students of leadership shouldn't expect to find anything as contrary to conventional wisdom as found in say "First, Break All the Rules" by Coffman and Buckingham.
The book could be more correctly titled, "A Guide to Leadership that Flys in the Face of Your Bad Boss's Ideas on Leadership." Dr. Sample recommends that leaders "think gray" instead of in right and wrong, either/or, binary state conclusions (so does Plato). He also encourages us to beware of experts and filter their advice through our own opinions (so does Walt Whitman). Sample believes that leaders should be very careful of what they read and pay attention to (so does Ben Franklin), and he gives us very good advice about working for those who work for us ( much like Robert Greenleaf advised in "Servant Leadership" back in 1976).
To be clear, I completely agree with all of Dr. Samples conclusions (yeah, so?) and think "The Contrarian's Guide..." is a solid four out of five stars book. Just don't look for revelations; unless of course your one of those bad bosses who never quite knew how to lead -- you're going to learn tons.
A Practical Primer January 12, 2007
Steven Sample has led USC for the past 15 years. He is by training an engineer and probably holds the patent on the control circuit that runs your dishwasher. This book is not about leadership theory, it states what Steven Sample believes works for him and why he believes that. Many of the concepts work anywhere, others are dependent upon the leaders situation both within the organization and the type of organization. If you are looking for something that restates current pop management buzzwords of the day this isn't it.
This book for me had many "Aha! I never thought of it that way type of moments" and I've been a successful leader for over 30 years with a Masters degree.
One Of A Kind. March 17, 2006
8 out of 9 found this review helpful
Steve Sample is a very unusual University President.
The most surprising aspect of his career is that he wasn't run off.
Sadly, I do not think a Steve Sample could happen again in the current environment where unorthodox men of subtle mind, unusual patience, and serious commitment to achievement are run out by lesser men and women of banal sensibilities.
The Contrarian's Guide to Leadership has its appeal to Contrarians. A conformist will never become such a person.
The Conformist will hit .225 and the Contrarian will always be slamming off-speed pitches into the power alleys.
Sample is an example of the best of what has happened in leadership the last 30 years: the migration of engineering discipline into the mainstream of executive management.
But Sample is what most engineers are not: an obviously selfless kind of leader who can bring to bear his immense abilities on executive management because he obviously doesn't need the applause of his public.
Perhaps the best advice Sample gives in his book is the confidence he places in quality of input rather than the hectic and insipid filling of one's mind with contemporary trends.
Sample tells us to read and re-read the "supertexts." I have the happy experience of daily indulging as deeply and often as I can into the Scriptures, so it's especially invigorating to me for someone of Sample's caliber and achievement to boldly tell others that such a practice is essential for leading others.
In the final analysis, it doesn't matter a lot what I say about this book, because Sample's achievements in his field of endeavor are most remarkable, and speaks beyond my plaudits.
After all, USC is not your average college.
I can tell you this book is an interesting read, and if it was taken seriously by leaders in higher education, we'd be in a lot less trouble as a nation.
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