Becoming A Leader Worth Following by Mike Easley draws upon the author’s lessons learned while serving as the CEO for an energy cooperative. Much of the information is geared for the people who have made it to the C-suite. However, those at lower levels in the hierarchy will still find this book useful in developing leadership skills.

My Thoughts About Becoming A Leader Worth Following by Mike Easley

Easley is a student of the Ken Blanchard way of leading. Blanchard is a genius in leadership development, so it was easy for me to agree with much of what Easley said. Many of the concepts discussed in Becoming A Leader Worth Following were familiar. I’ve spent a lot of time reading Blanchard’s books as well as teaching situational leadership at the university level. If you’re not familiar with Blanchard, you’ll learn many great ideas in this book.

A student of leadership development will find this book somewhat of a refresher or review of things you’ve already learned. This isn’t a bad thing. We can all use a reminder about best practices from time-to-time and Easley covers the key aspects of what makes a good leader very well.

I did learn a few things I hadn’t heard of before that I think are gold. I’d heard of scenario planning, but I’d never had it explained in such a clear and concise way. Top leaders develop the scenarios and then cross-functional teams take the scenarios and develop a future based upon them. This is a brilliant way to develop strategy.

I also found the motivational interviewing very informative. Easley explained this in great detail and is an extremely useful way to get people to take responsibility for making changes both personally and for the organization.

Final Thoughts About Becoming A Leader Worth Following

Easley writes in a clear, concise style that is easy to understand. He shares his own leadership lessons as well as others that bring home his key points very nicely.

If there is a criticism of this book it is the use of political examples. I could make an assumption about his political leanings based upon the negative airtime he gave one party over the other. Politics is very divisive, and I think political examples serve no good purpose. There are plenty of business-related bad examples to use so you can leave politics and religion out.

Finally, I want to give Easley a big kudo for keeping the language clean. I don’t see that much anymore and really appreciated that he could make his points without using coarse language. In addition, this book is superbly edited, which is rare these days.

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