Image: The Contrarian’s Guide to Leadership by Len Lantz (CC BY-NC-ND)
Synopsis: Len's Star Rating: 10 out of 10. An excellent, unconventional book on leadership.
BY LEN LANTZ, MD, author of unJoy / 6.15.2024; No. 123
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Star Rating – 10 out of 10
Rating guide: 1 = horrible, 5 = average and 10 = wow
Author
Steven Sample
About the author
Dr. Steven B. Sample (1940 – 2016) served as president of the University at Buffalo (1982 – 1991) and the University of Southern California (1991 – 2010) and guided both universities to substantial growth, prestige, and success as research institutions. He earned his BS, MS, and PhD in electrical engineering from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. At USC, Dr. Sample remained an active faculty member and co-taught (with Warren Bennis) the course “The Art and Adventure of Leadership,” which is also the title of Sample’s second book.
General description
In The Contrarian’s Guide to Leadership, author Steven Sample shares his discoveries of effective leadership and explains how many of his approaches run counter to popular thought. He uses examples from his life as a university president and explores ideas from leaders throughout history, such as George Washington and Niccolò Machiavelli. One of the central themes of The Contrarian’s Guide to Leadership is that leadership can be taught and learned. The author provides many practical suggestions on how to grow as a leader by developing practical leadership skills. Topics covered in this book include:
The processes of thinking gray vs. thinking free
The concept of artful listening
The potential benefits of delaying conclusions and postponing decisions
The need to be careful when using experts and consultants
The importance of recruiting and spending substantial time in helping your lieutenants
The value of being an original leader and the ineffectiveness of attempting to copy your way to success
Unique and most important aspects
The Contrarian’s Guide to Leadership, now over 20 years old, remains highly relevant today. In each chapter, I learned something new or saw something I already knew in a different way. Steven Sample shares information that readers can immediately apply as strategies in their current leadership role. Unsurprisingly, The Contrarian’s Guide to Leadership is on many people’s list of top leadership books.
Steven Sample is willing to be controversial and provocative, and his unconventional approaches have substantial merit when applied correctly. Because of this, some of his revolutionary approaches are now viewed—over 20 years later—as mainstream. The author provides a high-level overview of leadership rather than a down-in-the-weeds perspective in solving specific problems that leaders face. Essential ideas in this book include:
The finding that most effective leadership is situational and contingent
The dangers of binary thinking in leadership
The influence of the “supertexts”
The paradox of exerting authority by deferring to it
The reason to not humiliate an opponent
The importance to an organization of having a credible creation story/myth
The effect of having multiple “people chains” in creating “leadership leverage”
Dr. Sample’s 70/30 Formula (70% of a leader’s time is spent on trivial/routine matters, and 30% of their time is spent on substantive matters)
The maxim: “Anything worth doing at all is worth doing just well enough.”
Best quotes
“But the fact is, the twentieth century was far more barbaric than the preceding four centuries, and as such represented a severe backsliding in terms of man’s inhumanity to man.”
“But leadership can be taught and learned.”
“But whether staff or line, advisers are human beings, not machines. It is to be expected that they will have their own agendas. Every person, when he opines, has an agenda, perhaps so well hidden that he may not recognize it himself. That’s why I expect my inner-circle (sic) of advisers to have openly acknowledged agendas.”
“One needs to understand whether the person giving the advice is communicating opinions from two people or two hundred and whether he heard those opinions directly or indirectly.”
“An important part of thinking gray for a leader is listening gray—absorbing stories, reports, complaints, posturings, accusations, extravagant claims, and prejudices without immediately offering a definitive response.”
“As someone who has spent a great deal of time working both as an expert and a leader, I would agree with Warren Bennis that it’s essential for an expert to be a ’deep specialist’ and for a leader to be a ‘deep generalist.’”
“But as I look back, I can see that those of my clients who benefited most from my services were leaders who never became too dependent on me, who always maintained their intellectual independence, and who never kidded themselves that expertise could be a substitute for leadership.”
“All the bad press Machiavelli has received notwithstanding, we should give him credit for being a man of practical virtue.”
“Now here’s one of the most contrarian bits of advice you can imagine: Once you know what hill you’re really willing to die on, keep it to yourself.”
“As Warren Bennis has observed, effective leaders manage people’s attention, and that requires some degree of entertainment skill.”
“Moreover, creating a sense among followers that they are under attack from outside forces, and that they must stick together and fight like hell just to survive, is the best antidote there is for combating factionalism and complacency in any organization.”
Who would enjoy this book?
Readers looking for a book that shares atypical yet practical ideas on leadership are likely to enjoy The Contrarian’s Guide to Leadership.
Who would not enjoy this book?
Readers who would view any older book on leadership as outdated or who are looking for a topical book on specific problems a leader might face are unlikely to enjoy The Contrarian’s Guide to Leadership.
Conclusion
The Contrarian’s Guide to Leadership is an excellent, unconventional book on leadership.