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The Radical Leap
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The Radical Leap

A Personal Lesson in Extreme Leadership

Steve Farber
Kaplan Publishing, 2004
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Editorial Rating

6

Recommendation

This basic, common sense, practical and down-to-earth guide to leadership will delight anyone who has always wondered how to become a leader but never figured out how. Steve Farber, author of this treasury of leadership lore, is the leader who can help you find the leader within you. His parable is full of the kind of characters who delight storytellers, such as the affectionately-limned 22-year-old blonde in a bikini who approaches the author on a beach to ask what he thinks leadership is, or the Zen-like old, grizzled sage of leadership. These characters are designed to inspire you to believe that you, too, can be a leader, no matter how low your self-esteem. Moreover, Farber pushes business writing to the edge (in fact, one of his main characters is named Edg). He even manages to work in quotations from decadent, drunken, insane poet Charles Bukowski, author of such classics as Notes of a Dirty Old Man. Read this book and learn to follow the leader to leadership. It turns out that leadership is surprisingly easy once you know how to do it. getAbstract.com believes we are not giving away too much of the ending if we tell you that the author believes "Love" is the final answer to the question, "What is leadership?"

Summary

Keep It Personal: The Story Line

A business consultant is relaxing on a sunny day on Mission Beach in San Diego, watching the hunks and the babes, when a beautiful, blonde, 22 year old in a bikini comes up behind him and says, "Excuse me, sir, may I ask you a question?" He turns and looks at her through his fashionable sunglasses, and notices that she is holding a clipboard and a stack of papers because she is researching the subject of leadership for a business school class at a nearby college. Her question is: "What is leadership?"

Somewhat taken aback, the consultant responds by offering to show her his definition of leadership if she will show him hers, which can only consist of all of the other answers that other people have given to this question. She agrees.

He quotes an author who said, "Leadership is the art of mobilizing others to want to struggle for shared aspirations." She shows him hers — a batch of answers from people in their twenties who believe that leadership is important and who have, each of them, a unique definition.

Then a surprising thing happens. A middle-aged man with a goatee happens to be sitting nearby, and offers a definition...

About the Author

Steve Farber is a former vice president of The Tom Peters Company.

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