Transforming Leadership Paperback – January 30, 2004

This books is deceiving. Although the title and author lead the reader to believe the adventure is going to include theory, experiences, studies, and experiments in leadership, the truth is that there is a bonus history lesson included. The author weaves a beautiful narrative of Western civilization and the leaders responsible. From Napoleon to FDR, Burns explains the difference between leaders and dictators, transforming leaders and transactional leaders, and transformative leaders with changed followers. This is the seminal work on transformational leadership for all the right reasons.

With not a lot of political background but a love for reading leadership, I thought this book was excellent. I came away from the book understanding political leadership and the dynamics that are at play. I was really inspired by the call to creative leadership but more so reading the development of the American documents and the leadership that went into it. Great foundational book for political leadership.

Boring book; some useful info and good material for college courses

Hopefully it will inspire him to do great things! Our high school social studies department chooses our best social studies student each year in the spring, and presents a book as our award. In this case, our senior was going off to attend Burns' alma mater, so it seemed apropo.

It is a little obvious the transformative leaders he chooses to talk about. One that threw me was the mention of Hitler as not being a transformative leader. Whoever thought Hitler was a transformative leader, especially if you are familiar with tB.Bass's theory on transformational leadership? I felt like Burns had done the homework and I was getting to read his notes. If you are not familiar with the theories of transformational or transforming leadership, this book will certainly walk you through the ideas.

El libro muy bueno y me ha ayudado en ver mis temas profesionales.

Great Book!

The book arrived early (always a +), in great condition. The book itself was more of a history lesson than anything. Many of the topics the author touched on, I had already learned in class. Some of the information was helpful, but I would have preferred a more uniformed approach. A lot of background information though as well as reiteration on what I learned in the past.