Uncommon Greatness by Mark Miller presents five fundamentals to transform your leadership. I’m a big fan of Miller’s books and gleaned a lot of wisdom from his latest offering.

What I Liked About Uncommon Greatness by Mark Miller

One thing I liked about this book is the simplicity of the language. Miller is straightforward and uses words that are easy to comprehend. His research is solid, but he doesn’t use a lot of jargon to get his points across. He stays on topic and doesn’t chase a lot of statistical rabbits that many leadership gurus fall victim to.

Miller uses the acrostic SERVE to help people remember his five fundamentals: See the future; engage and develop others; reinvent continuously; value results and relationships; and embody a leader’s heart. You may have heard these before in some form, but the author presented them in a fresh way with good examples.

Each fundamental has an overview chapter followed by a chapter with specifics on how to put it into action. It’s a great way to present the material.

What You’ll Like About Uncommon Greatness

Miller gives great examples that make it easy to see how to apply the fundamentals. You’ll walk away with useful steps to put into action. This is the beauty of the book. You can start using the information immediately.

You’ll find a comprehensive Notes section at the end of the book if you want to learn more. The actual research references he used for the book are there.

If you happen to be a leadership student, you may be familiar with some of the topics, but you’ll learn something new too. Miller mentions the work of Paul Hersey and Ken Blanchard as well as Martin Seligmann for example. I can always use a refresher, and it’s great to get validation that I’m on the right track.

Final Thoughts

I really enjoyed this book. Miller has a solid background in leadership development and never comes across as pretentious. My favorite part of the book was the epilogue where Miller showed how Truett Cathy embodied the five fundamentals. This really brought the information to life for me.

For more book news and reviews, visit my blog.