The Persuasive Leader: Lessons from the Arts [Hardcover]

'The Persuasive Leader' is an innovative, insightful and thought provoking book. It encourages the reader to develop and deploy a style of leadership that is subtle, yet deliberate. The choice of examples and case vignettes span the centuries and draw on a myriad of characters and contexts. Managers and all aspiring leaders will find these stories and lessons uplifting and instructive. Carroll and Flood have written a book with broad appeal and a fresh, lively narrative. I recommend it to anyone interested in the art of leadership communication and motivation in the complex world of modern management.

Professor Thomas Lawton
EM Lyon Business School, France

I read a lot of books on leadership and management, and this one is by far the worst I've ever read. It seems like it was written by someone with severe ADHD. The ideas are scattered, non-sequitur, and at times pointless. The examples (cases) had little to do with the chapters they were introducing. There is no retaining any information in this book. After each chapter you can't help but wonder what the heck did you just read. The answer is nothing. You might as well be reading a word search.

This book is way over-researched which made for absolutely no original thought or ideas within the book. The worst part about it is that the research was lazily done, and sloppily compiled. Large portions of the book were merely direct quotes from other publications (including Wikipedia! WTF!) The bibliography has more citations than there are pages in the book. That tells me that the authors have little to no expertise on the topic and it really shows.

The chapters are plagued with brevity and generalities. Chapters are about 5-6 pages long with about 2-3 topics per page and a lot of white space. The cases are wrought with misinformation, mostly based on scenes from Hollywood movies depicting historical figures. You want an example? Here's a direct quote from the beginning of chapter 5 "Persuasive Leadership Planning Considerations" (You would never guess that this is the topic of this chapter by the way). "John Quincy Adams, the FOURTH President of the United States...." ARE YOU KIDDING ME!! HE WASN'T EVEN THE 5TH PRESIDENT!!! After that, all the other information they had about him was from the movie "Amistad."

John Wiley & Sons should be ashamed for publishing such a tired effort and the editor should find a new career. The authors (Both college professors) should be ashamed of themselves. They represented themselves and their universities poorly with trite non-sense. I would venture to guess the only other reviews of this book were by them (both 5 star ratings).

For anyone interested in art and leadership, this is the book to get. Many books use some combination of art and leadership in their titles, but most don't address the art part--they discuss leadership craft and/or science instead. In contrast, Carroll and Flood's book deals directly with the question of what an art of leadership has been and could be. Leadership is thoughtfully and thoroughly considered using a wealth of art lenses, from literature to the visual arts to the performative ones, and the reader is left with a terrific cornucopia of ways in which she or he might become a better leader. While the title suggests that the book is mostly about persuasion, this isn't the case. It covers substantially more ground than this and could be used as a general introduction to the field of leadership. Add in the fact that the book is enjoyable and refreshing to read and you have a rare and valuable work. Highly recommended.