The Secret: What Great Leaders Know--And Do

Version: Unabridged
Author: Ken Blanchard , Mark Miller
Narrator: Rick Adamson
Genres: Business, Management & Leadership
Publisher: Highbridge Company
Date: November 2004
Length: 2 hours, 30 minutes
Ratings:
Formats :
  • CD
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Overview

The Secret answers the question, "What do I need to do to be a great leader?" Books on leadership abound, and most of them emphasize one or another of the ideas explored here. But only The Secret pulls all of the five essential concepts together into a coherent plan for achieving leadership success. The core idea, based on the authors' years of experience and drawn from examples of the best leaders, is that leadership comes from service. The five ways in which leaders can succeed through service are seeing and shaping the future; engaging and developing others; reinventing continuously; valuing results and relationships; and embodying the values. Each strategy is explained in detail, with exercises and tips for integrating them into the leadership matrix. The Secret is not dry dogma; the authors show their ideas at work by following the example of a struggling leader who enrolls in a mentoring program at her company. It traces her progress in understanding and applying these concepts, and her subsequent transformation into a respected and effective leader.

Reviews (1)

What Secret? Call it "The Obvious"

Written by Richard Zdanis on April 25th, 2007

  • Book Rating: 2/5

I didn't want to give this book a bad review, but it felt like a basic book that insulted my intelligence. Becoming a leader may just come too easily to me. Either way, I felt that this story was too basic for even those who haven't been leaders before. It brings up the obvious, such as "getting to know your employees," and "delegating responsibilities based on each employee's strengths and weaknesses." I apologize, but we have heard all of this many times before. Give us some new information that we can use! After listening to this book twice (maybe I hadn't heard something the 1st time), I still found it to be too basic and sometimes rambling. Nuff said.....

Author Details

Author Details

Blanchard, Ken

Few people have impacted the day-to-day management of people and companies more than Ken Blanchard. A prominent, gregarious, sought-after author, speaker, and business consultant, Dr. Blanchard is universally characterized by his friends, colleagues, and clients as one of the most insightful, powerful, and compassionate individuals in business today.

When Ken speaks, he speaks from the heart with warmth and humor. His unique gift is to speak to an audience and communicate with each person as if they were alone and talking one on one. He is a polished storyteller with a knack for making the seemingly complex easy to understand.

From his phenomenal best-selling book, The One Minute Manager®, coauthored with Spencer Johnson, which has sold more than 12 million copies and remains on best-seller lists, to the library of books coauthored with Sheldon Bowles, Raving Fans®, Gung Ho!®, Big Bucks!, and High Five!, Ken’s impact as a writer is far reaching.

He wrote his latest book, Leading at a Higher Level: Blanchard on Leadership and Creating High Performing Organizations, with the founding associates and consulting partners of The Ken Blanchard Companies. This definitive "Blanchard on Leadership" combines more than 25 years of breakthrough leadership insights in one extraordinary book.

Ken is Chief Spiritual Officer of The Ken Blanchard Companies®, an international management training and consulting firm that he and his wife, Dr. Marjorie Blanchard, founded in 1979 in San Diego, California. He is also a visiting lecturer at his alma mater, Cornell University, where he is a trustee emeritus of the Board of Trustees. Ken is cofounder of The Center for FaithWalk Leadership, which is dedicated to helping leaders walk their talk in the marketplace.

Ken has received many awards and honors for his contributions in the fields of management, leadership and speaking. The National Speakers Association awarded him its highest honor, the "Council of Peers Award of Excellence." He was inducted into the HRD Hall of Fame by Training magazine and Lakewood Conferences, and he received the Golden Gavel Award from Toastmasters International. And in 2004 Ken was awarded with The Thought Leadership Award for continued support of work-related learning and performance by ISA—The Association of Learning Providers.