Train Your Brain: LALR
19 May 2008
Our online discussion forum is back up and running. If you have any comments or questions about this review, please post them here!
LALR stands for Launching A Leadership Revolution. That’s a book that carries the subtitle, “Mastering the five levels of influence.” This was something else I found… or rather, that found me at SHOT Show. While I was hanging out in a friendly booth, one of my friends grabbed a guy who was walking by and said, “Hey I want you to meet this guy.” As it turns out my friend had been telling us both about each other because we’re both writers. The book I was being pushed to read and review was this one: “Launching A Leadership Revolution” by Chris Brady and Orrin Woodward. While it’s not recreational reading for entertainment’s sake, it IS interesting reading. Let me tell you why.
The subtitle, "Mastering The Five Levels of Influence" refer to:
- Learn: a leader must be able to learn from anyone
- Perform: Persevere through failure to find success
- Lead: extend your abilities by expanding your team
- Develop Leaders: learn to trust your people
- Develop Leaders Who Develop Leaders: create a legacy
Now as I read the inside cover of the book and decided whether or not I was going to start reading it when I received it, those five levels of influence caught my eye. Particularly, the last two struck me as important. If you look at the first three - learn, perform, lead - it's obvious that you can't even begin to be a leader without them. By default, if you fail to lead, no matter what else you do, then you are following or holding up the process.
But "Develop Leaders"? This is an oft forgotten characteristic of leadership: the ability to create people who
- Don't need to be led because they are capable of leading, and
- Reduce your work load by taking some of it themselves.
And then, "Develop Leaders Who Develop Leaders"? This is a self-perpetuating cycle. If you, as a leader, can succeed in mastering this fifth level of influence then you've launched a leadership revolution by creating a situation wherein leaders will continue to be molded - with or without you.
I won't tell you that the book is entertaining. I'm not sure it's meant to be. Interesting yes; entertaining, no. It is 252 pages of information about leadership, developing it, etc. The first half of the book is about leaders in general: what a leadre is; what a leader brings; what a leader does; how a leader grows, and (the topic of the book) how a leader grows in influence. Chapters six through ten deal specifically with each level of influence respectively.
For me, as I read the book, my test of its validity was comparing the things I read about what leaders SHOULD be to those people in the world I consider to be good (or great) leaders. You see, in my humble opinion, a person may be a great leader according to a book, but not so great according to those (s)he leads. If your followers don't think you're a great leader then it doesn't matter if a book documents you as such. However, as I read the book and applied each concept to those I believe to be great leaders I saw that the book was accurate and therefore carried some value.
Teaching leadership is something that I believe can only be done by demonstration. However, it's like everything else: KNOWING how and being ABLE TO are two different things. You must first KNOW how before you can attempt to accomplish something. In this case, Launching A Leadership Revolution contains valuable information on HOW to be a leader. Armed with the information contained therein, a person could then attempt to become a leader.
There is a website dedicated to the book that you can visit for more information about the authors or purchases. I recommend that, if you want to become a leader or are already in a position of leadership, you check it out. I don't believe you'll be disappointed.
I have a comment on this article.
Don't forget to check out our Tactical Equipment Review of the Pacific Concepts Advanced Tactical Camera.
This week's Feature Article discussing the differences between hunters and prey... in uniform.
For a listing of all reviews in chronological order, GO HERE.
