"The Leader of the Future" from the Drucker Foundation and edited by Frances Hesselbein, Marshall Goldsmith and Richard Beckhard is a management "sampler," comprising essays from academics and corporate CEOs about leadership, or specifically the kind of leadership that will be required for success of organizations in the future.

Clearly, the writers do not believe in "closed" management (the direct and control sensibility of the days of yore). To a one, they advocate investing in those below you, creating leaders in all sectors and at all levels, trusting, collaborating and "leading with vision." Some particularly interesting essays were "Leading from the Grass Roots" by Sally Helgesen, "Leadership and Organizational Culture," by Edgar H. Schein, the "father" of organizational psychology, and "The Ultimate Leadership Task: Self-Leadership" by Richard L. Leider. In general, the section with essays entitled "Learning to Lead for Tomorrow," which was about education and executive training and development was the most engaging for me.

I bought this book because I read a very engaging portrait of Marshall Goldsmith in the New Yorker in April, who is a very successful "executive coach," helping executives with personal problems in their organizations turn their relationships around. The book overall had a kind of hypnotic effect, as it repeated the same message throughout. Here's a representative excerpt:

"The challenges ahead will require leaders to identify, promote, reinforce, and live as role models of key core values; inspire diverse groups to common, shared action in which they trade some of their autonomy for a long-term greater common good; and give their best efforts in pursuit of that common good." This is from an essay by George B. Weber who is listed as the secretary-general of the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies.

It's mildly interesting. I would recommend reading it in bits between other, different books.

This book is an outstanding compilation of 31 articles, by current and past organizational leaders, futurist, authors, etc., who share their knowledge and experiences. As they point out, the leader of the future must be serious about communication and not just pay it lip-service, they must share as much of their power, as possible, with members in the organization to make it a more powerful organization. This open communications and power sharing leads to a learning organization, that is inculturated to adapt to the changing enviornment and more importantly help "lead-turn" the organization to ensure a sustained competitive advantage.

'The Leader of the Future' adresses a significant and timely topic. It should be on every manager's must-read list.

Peter F.Drucker writes in his foreword, "Leadership must be learned and can be learned-and this, of course, is what this book was written and should be used for." And hence, he defines simple but basic characteristics of effective leaders:

1. The only definition of a 'leader' is someone who has 'followers.' Some people are thinkers. Some are prophets. Both roles are important and badly needed. But without followers, there can be no leaders.

2. An effective leader is not someone who is loved or admired. He or she is someone whose followers do the right things. Popularity is not leadership. 'Results' are.

3. Leaders are highly visible. They therefore set 'examples.'

4. Leadership is not rank, privileges, titles, or money. It is 'responsibility.'

After this excellent foreword, Frances Hesselbein, Marshall Goldsmith and Richard Beckhard divide this seminal book into four parts. Here, they note that "These parts have been chosen in a somewhat arbitrary manner. We deliberately gave the authors a free hand, and our revisions have been only mirror. The authors are all experts in their own right, and we wanted you to hear their views in an unfiltered form."

It is a great chance to read never before published essays of 37 distinguished authors under one roof.

Highly recommended.

I would walk barefoot to the bookstore to read something new by Peter Drucker. Now in his ninety-fourth year the man still seems preternaturally able to unearth new insights, no matter what subject commands his attention.

The 23 essays in 'Leading Beyond the Walls' are based around the premise that we've all gotten a little too comfortable with business as usual. More to the point, that our comfort zones aren't only comfortable, but limiting. It's a slightly self-evident conclusion called by a new and more awkward name.

Drucker gets first crack at the topic with an essay on the hazards of unfettered pluralism. Drucker is always didactic, but not in a painful way. One never feels talked down to. Instead it's as if a wise old man has watched things develop from the vantage point of a tall tower, then comes down periodically to tell us where things really stand. His call for new community in an age of pluralism is cogent, to the point, and on the money.

The remaining essays come from some name brand organizational thinkers including the likes of Jim Collins, Peter Senge and Steven R. Covey. Not surprisingly the writing and thinking are little uneven. That's the usual price of admission for these collected works.

'Leading' was published in 1999 and there's more than a little of the Fast Company group-think that now has been so thoroughly disavowed. ...

And so reading parts of 'Leading Beyond the Walls' now is a little like déjà vu all over again. For instance, C.K. Prahalad's breathless, dense essay 'Preparing for Leadership' reads like old Latin after Vatican II. In separate essays William Bridges and Sally Helgesen wave the 'everything's different' banner so reminiscent of the go-go 1990s when it comes, respectively, to partners and leaders. Time will tell.

By contrast, there is a wonderful timelessness to Stratford Sherman's 'The Power of Choice,' an insightful case study on a Catholic priest in the Philippines who successfully uses choice to redeem Manila's most hardened street children.

There are no bombs thrown in 'Leading.' But one of the more incendiary essays comes from consultant Charles Roussel, who suggests that corporate governance is paternalistic and determinalistic. Roussel wouldn't abolish boards and executive teams just yet. But he finds them largely unprepared to change or lead change, especially when it comes to modern alliances. Instead, new decision routines should be established and governance decisions driven by 'decision expeditors,' 'alliance champions,' and frontline employees.

There's a lot of meat here and my pages of 'Decision Making Beyond the Boundaries' were well marked by the time I finished reading it. Roussel's conclusions may be right on, but I'm still digesting his rather challenging recommendations.

When cocoon becomes rigid walls, it provides seemingly secure, safe and comfortable environment. But imagine we are enclosed in home walls, no interaction with neighbors or outside world... the walls are the cells of a prison! .

In this world of complexity, we continue to build rigid walls around us. In organization, we hide ourselves in silo, in departments. In society, we peddle around the designated sector: industry, interest group. In the supposedly global village, we narrowly focus on territories of national boundaries ... in the meantime, an underlying force is erupting to connect and interact with everything in space and time. A force that can have consequences beyond our imagination, as we are truly living in a world of highly interconnected and interdependent. There will be negative consequences to the extend of the peril of mankind if we leave it to chance and random happening. But a bright new world if there is emergent leadership beyond the walls. Where are these leaders?.

Read on the thoughts of a panel of prominent thinkers on this subject.

An excellent study from the Drucker Foundation. As written by F. Hesselbein, M. Goldsmith, and I. Somerville, "Leading Beyond the Walls focuses on the first requirement of leadership in the twenty-first century. In the chapters, leaders at all levels will find inspiration and practical advice on building effective organizations that focus on their strengths and employ the resources of individuals, organizations, and communities beyond their walls. This book explores what is needed to transcend the personal walls that inhibit effectiveness and the organizational, social, and political boundaries that inhibit reaching out. It will help all leaders to achieve personal excellence and high performance and to lead beyond the old boundaries to forge partnerships that are essential in the increasingly challenging period ahead. Leading ourselves and our organizations beyond the walls is the first requirement for success in the years to come. It's a call for engagement; one each of us must answer" (from the Preface).

In this context, for instance:

* Jim Collins displays four important points to executives in order to be effective in the next century (pp.19-28):

- First, executives must define the inside and the outside of the organization by reference to core values and purpose, not by traditional boundaries.

- Second, executives must build mechanisms of connection and commitment rooted in freedom of choice, rather than relying on systems of coercion and control.

- Third, executives must accept the fact that the exercise of true leadership is inversely proportional to the exercise of power.

- Fourth, executives must embrace the reality that traditional walls are dissolving and that this trend will accelerate.

* C. K. Prahalad argues that "In the new millennium, managers are likely to live and work in a new competitive environment characterized by the coexistence of intense global competition and increased global opportunities". Hence, he outlines some of the personal traits of leaders in the new millennium (pp.29-36).

* Charles Roussel explains how some leading companies are expanding and deepening governance to cope with the demands of the networked global enterprise by comparing new and old governance (pp.57-69)

* Stephen R. Covey identifies principles you need to be an effective leader beyond the walls (pp.149-158).

* Marshall Goldsmith and Cathy Walt, in addition to communicating vision, demonstrating integrity, focusing on results, and ensuring customer satisfaction, describe emerging competencies for tomorrow's global leaders such as thinking globally, appreciating cultural diversity, demonstrating technological savvy, building partnership, and sharing leadership (pp.159-166).

* Rita Harmon and Mel Toomey define five specific characteristics, or abilities, needed by leaders beyond the walls:

- the ability to design powerful relationships.

- the ability to create systemic change.

- the ability to distinguish and work with preservative, creative, and development systems.

- the ability to develop comfort with risk while building trust.

- the ability to value diversity as the source of contribution.

Finally, Peter F. Drucker writes, "There is need for acceptance of leaders in every single institution and in every single sector that they, as leaders, have two responsibilities. They are responsible and accountable for the performance of their institutions, and that requires them and their institutions to be concentrated, focused, limited. They are responsible also, however, for the community as a whole...Yes, each institution is authonomous and has to do its own work the way each instrument in an orchestra plays only its own part. But there is also the 'score', the community. And only if each individual instrument contributes to the score is there music. Otherwise there is only noise. And this book is about the score" (p.17).

Strongly recommended.

My tattered copy sitting on the shelf as I write this attests to it's value. I'm no major astronomer in any sense of the word, but a major part of what I DO know about the night sky was gleaned from its pages. It is what the title suggests: "For Beginners". It refrains from being too technical, the charts for the months of the year are easy to understand and use, and it's ar less expensive than other books of its kind. If your wish is to begin a hobby in astronomy, or better yet, if you simply are curious as to how to find your way around the night sky, this is a wonderful place to start. You will amaze yourself with what you'll know after only a few nights with this book. However, please note how up-to-date your copy is when buying it here or elsewhere. Hopefully, it will be as much a joy to you as it has been for me these past six years.

I'll echo the comments of the reviewers below. I've looked at many books of star maps and I've written articles on the night sky for local newspapers. This book is by far the best - it's easy to use and the constellations are depicted just as they appear in the sky - without a lot of confusing, unnecessary additions. The accompanying essays are informative, entertaining and easy to understand.

It's a huge shame that this book evidently has not been updated in 10 years. So, yes, the planet information is out-of-date. (But before you learn to find planets you first need to learn to identify constellations and bright stars - that's where Star Maps for Beginners outshines all the others.)

I, too, have given away countless copies of this book. It's great for almost all ages. (Well, let's say for a bright 10-year-old and up.) I'm buying it again as a gift for someone who sells telescopes for a living. He never heard of it and he doesn't know what he's missing.

It's true, it doesn't show where the planets are but for identifying constellations and stars, any time from about 6 pm to about 5 am, you can't beat this book. I write a What's Up In the Sky weekly column and I'd be lost without this book. It gives basic information, delineates the differences in the seasons, skywise, and throws in some mythology also. The chart, telling which sky map corresponds to the time of night is invalueable. I can't imagine looking at the sky without this book.

The problem with this book is that kids love it--but it's torture for parents. It's like the Monty python joke that never ends, or like a Kafkaesque tunnel with no apparent termination. While your child sits enthralled with the repetitive, bizarre narrative, you will be rubbing your face in misery, JUST WANTING IT TO END. Other than that, it's an OK book, I guess.

Every year my first grade students tell me this is a great story. The book rhymes and the children love the rhyme. The children love the illustrations and the action that happens to the main characters ball.

This was the first full length story book that my son (27mths) was completely enthralled by. The story told in simple rhymes is easily followed and remembered. Abdul Lateef was also completely bowled over by the detailed and humorous illustrations. And at the risk of sounding sacrilegious, I'll still say that this book is much more suitable for little kids than genuine Dr Seuss books, which often have many nonsensical words and far too convoluted ideas that young children may not understand or appreciate.

My son is 4 and loves this book! We have read it every night this week, at his request. It is a wonderful book for learning new words (cavernous, scurry). It taps into my son's sense of the absurd. The theme of a child conquering big, scary things is very age appropriate. I highly recommend this book!

We got this book because we thought it was WRITTEN by James Marshall. Oops. Was told it was a good "positive book for girls" etc. kind of stuff. Yeah. Its okay. The rhymes just aren't very in-sync. Sorry, but its just okay. Some of the phraseology is not easy for younger children to understand. Since this book apparently is supposed to flow, by rhyme, taking time to explain (why Isabel gave the doctor a cure by giving him his own shot in the butt, for example) each new rhyme on each new page of Isabel's weird adventures makes it unappealing. I haven't been asked to reread this book since I bought it. PS. James Marshall does a great job illustrating, though! :)

This is a terrific book. In using it as a children's librarian, I never met a kid who didn't love it -- and many wanted to check it out right away. It's got a strong heroine & lots of humor. James Marshall's pictures are perfect for the Ogden Nash poem.

This book has some stories about bomber crews but not as many as I would like.

Excellent book on all the big bombers,it's all here,excellent photos. Very nice.

This book is full of excellent photos of three of the main bombers in World War II. It is set up so that each plane has its own section with a seperate author. The text is good as an introduction but what really makes this a good book are the photos. It's hard to find such a nice book at such a reasonable price and I recommend it.

I read this book in the original German edition and thus don't know how well the English edition conveys this example of a very 'German' post-war destiny. Ika was a "Besatzungskind" - a very negative and subjective term for a child born to a German mother and a (most commonly) G.I. father from the "occupation forces". Her story is just one of a whole babyboomer generation of both white,and mixed-race children, and what a sad story it is, particulary of those little "Black Germans"! Ika's coerced removal from her mother and placement into a Christian institution was a common occurance for 'illegitimate' children of any description. The mothers of Black children were seen as nothing more than whores who were not fit to raise the children they should not have had in the first place. The racially motivated mental and physical abuse that Ika endured makes for painful reading - particularly since the abuse was carried out (as it often is)in the name of Christ and for her salvation. That Ika managed to grow up into the strong, beautiful person she is today is a testimony to her strength of character and indomitable spirit. I was so happy for her that she did manage to find her father and come to terms with her struggle over identity. With the growth in recent years of Afro-German organisations I hope that many more stories like Ika's will be published. They will give voice to that previously invisible 'Stolen Generation' who now, in middle-age are finally given a change to come to terms with their unique history and identity.
Postscript: As a white contemporary of Ika's I had many class/playmates who were black, with family backgrounds similar to hers. Certainly the Catholic institution (Jugenddorf Klinge in Seckach/Baden) were I spent some years, was not guilty of evil such as experienced by Ika. For a long time now I have wondered about the subsequent fates of my special friend Monika and the other girls I knew.

This is the only book that ever made me shed a tear. All I can say is "READ IT!" It's a truly inspiring story.

Soon after I began reading Ms Marshall's book I experienced a thrill of recognition. In the brutally honest account of her child and early adulthood in Germany, her stories of recognizing and overcoming her internalized racial self-hatred, I remembered and re-lived some of my own similar experiences growing up as a light-skinned, adopted black child in the black community in Baltimore Maryland.

Ms. Marshall's harsh treatment at the hands of the staff at the home she was sent to as a child sheds light on the brutal and uncaring treatment many children, especially children of color, still experience today. Her writing is both personal and informative (she quotes several government documents of her childhood that "institutionalized" the racist treatment of Afro-Germans) and draws the reader into her story so that one cannot help but become caught up with her as she tells it. I found it difficult to put it down.

That she survived such a childhood and has become both a strong woman and outspoken opponent of racism in Germany, is a testement to her inner power and strength, as well as to the love she received from her mother before she was taken from her at the age of six years old.

Ms. Marshall is still fighting the demons of racism in a country that carries its nationalism in it's breast pocket, as it were. It's not that bad in the US of A...yet.

The book Goldylocks and the Three Bears was a very good book. The book was about a family of three bears who decided to go on a picnic. There's first a big papa bear, then a medium mama bear, and then there is a little baby bear. Then Goldylocks comes trottying along and Stumbles upon the three bears's home. She sees that no one was in the house so she decides to go right ahead on in. Then she eats the bears food, breaks one of there chairs, and falls asleep in baby bears bed, and of course they catch her. I always loved reading this book for some reason, maybe because it takes place in the blackwoods of Germany. This book is a definate read for all children. No child should go with out three little bears, it's a classic!

This is the original story, well told. I rate it at 4, versus 5, stars, though, because of the illustrations. Although absolutely beautiful, from an artistic point of view, they are a little complicated, from a child's point of view. For instance, there is an illustration of Goldilocks sitting on Papa Bear's chair, but no illustration of Mama Bear's chair or Goldilocks trying it out. Same for the beds. The main illustrations are framed with smaller illustrations which seem to be referencing all that Goldilocks does, but I bought this book for my two year old (who LOVES it), and I think it would be clearer for him if it had more explicit illustrations.

Our behavior determines how folks feel about us. Clearly Goldilocks was not favored by her family, friends, or the three bears. Be careful the impression you leave behind.

The British economist Alfred Marshall is one of the greatest political economists of all times and this book represents a deep effort to address in an orderly way the many social and economical issues that were at stake at the turn of the 19th to the 20th century. This way of addressing disturbing social questions is an Alfred Marshall trademark.

In this sense, his motto could well be the oft quoted " Natura non facit saltum" , which is Latin for "Nature does not evolves in leaps and bounds", and all things are going to be all right in the future but it will take some time untill they consolidate themselves into a coherent whole, where everyone in this world will have an opportunity to fully develop his natural propensities for love, companionship and free will. His view is helped by the many mathematical formulae he uses to illustrate his points of views, using differential calculus, due to his mathematical background. But the reader has not to worry if he/she is not proficient with this type of mathematical tools, because they are used only as a side-line to the text, which is dense and full of logical thinking in itself. Marshall, despite his mathematical background, didn't judge Mathematics as a fundamental tool to Politcal Economy.

Alfred Marshall is the most influential representant of the minimalist movement called Neo-Classics Economics (Stanley Jevons, Vilfredo Pareto , Karl Menger) and in this capacity is the most notorius proponent of what today is taught and learned in all Economics Schools over the world as Microeconomics, or the economics of particular competitive or non-competitive markets. In some way, he is both the inheritor of the Utilitarian theories of Jeremy Bentham, as of the economics doctrines of David Ricardo and Adam Smith. Also, one of the interesting facets of Marshall is that he had both John Neville Keynes (the father) and John Maynard Keynes (the son) as one of his pupils in Economics.

His knowledge of History and Mathematics is astounding and if he has not reached the status of Keynes or Adam Smith, this is more due to the constraints of the Victorian era in which he wrote this book, and the influences he received, than to any lack of deep understanding of economics realities, which were indeed recognized by John Maynard Keynes himself as fundamental to the latter development he gave to the so-called Dismall Science.

This is certainly one of the most influential books ever written, and served as a pathway to a lot of governmental measures adopted at by many countries to adopt its fiscal, employment and money policies to revert the forces of recession in the United States and Europe.

But this is not a book easy to read, given the fact that Keynes had to break a lot of prior misconceptions and fallacies of earlier economists. Also to be taken into consideration is that Keynes was especially keen of linguistics and got all the opportunities to present a very refined text with big literary value. What Keynes had in mind was to discard the useless precepts of free-hand economics, in the very tradition of early British neo-classical economists like Alfred Marshall and Stanley Jevons, and to energetically recomend state intervention to secure full-employment policies.

Keynes was instrumental in many important policies adopted in the first half of the last century and along with Adam Smith, David Ricardo and Karl Marx, deserves to step to the pantheon of the most influential economists of all times.

The other two reviews in this page are both correct but they review different books. Both reviews, however, appear under both items. I would, therefore, keep the ratings of each reviewer for each edition.
The Great Minds Series is indeed abridged and omits crucial material from Marshall's Principles. Marshall put all the mathematical apparatus in the Mathematical Appendix which is omitted in the Great Minds Series. The Porcupine edition is the unabridged edition of Marshall's 1920 8th edition of the Principles. The first edition was in 1890.
There is also a variorum (9th edition) of the Principles edited by C. W. Guillebaud, 2 vols (1961), which is out of print, but it appears as volumes 4&5 in Peter Groenewegen's Collected Works of Alfred Marshall,Thoemmes, 1997. There is also a great free on-line edition in the Library of Economics and Liberty.
The book is by all means a classic. It consolidated neoclassical economics and it was one of the most influential books on economics ever written. Indeed, the very change of the name of economic science from "political economy" to "economics", although not suggested by Marshall, is due to the influence of the Principles.
To understand Alfred Marshall (1842-1924), I would suggest to read John Maynard Keynes's "Alfred Marshall" essay in Essays in Biography (1933) or Peter Groenewegen's magisterial biography "A Soaring Eagle: Alfred Marshall 1842-1924", Elgar,1995.