Too Many Bosses, Too Few Leaders by Rajeev Peshawaria - Book review

Too Many Bosses, Too Few Leaders

The Three Essential Principles You Need to Become an Extraordinary Leader

By: Rajeev Peshawaria

Published: May 10, 2011
Format: Hardcover, 256 pages
ISBN-10: 1439197741
ISBN-13: 978-1439197745
Publisher: Free Press











"For executive who complain about the increasing complexity of corporate life today, here is a thought: Leaders achieve extraordinary results in spite of the environment, not because of it", writes CEO of the ICLIF Leadership & Governance Centre, Rajeev Peshawaria, in his very perceptive and thought provoking book Too Many Bosses, Too Few Leaders: The Three Essential Principles You Need to Become an Extraordinary Leader. The author describes how very few really great leaders can be found in any organization, despite the huge amounts of time and money spent on training and advice for leaders.

Rajeev Peshawaria proposes the idea that current thinking about leadership is fundamentally flawed and misguided. The author offers the analysis that training programs that focus on the motivation of employees a complete waste of time. For Rajeev Pehawaria, the problem is that managers simply cannot motivate their employees. External forms of motivation are not possible, as employees must motivate themselves. The author presents strong evidence that leadership can't be achieved through a laundry list of recommended best practices. Instead, leaders must be motivated to create real change within their organizations. The combination of this desire to effect change and the energizing of self-motivated employees is essential for moving from being a boss to becoming a leader.



Rajeev Peshawaria (photo left) understands that leadership development is difficult to achieve and to put into practice. For the author, the key to effective leadership involves an internal transformation. Leadership requires large amounts of emotional energy in the form of persevering and continuing on course regardless of the challenges and roadblocks in the way. Rajeev Peshawaria points out that this disconnect between the internal factors and the usual external prescriptions, is where leadership development breaks down. For the author, leadership is all about energy, and the putting of that energy into action to create a better future.

Leaders who are able to achieve breakthrough change know how to:

* Identify their sources of energy to motivate themselves
* Develop a core team of added leaders and align their energy to the goal
* Focus the energy of the entire organization to achieve sustainable success

For me, the power of the book is how Rajeev Peshawaria moves beyond the usual leadership concepts and delves into the internal energy and drive of the leader. This unique ability to harness internal energy is what separates true leaders from mere bosses. The author provides a strong theoretical base for his revolutionary concept of leadership development. Instead of thinking in terms simply producing results, the author shares the transcendent principle of creating energy harnessing conditions for other. Leadership is not simply a measurement of results, but a deeper and more sustainable transformation of internal energy within leaders and followers. The author bolsters his theoretical framework with real world examples of his leadership principles inaction.

I highly recommend the fresh approach to the entire concept of leadership, Too Many Bosses, Too Few Leaders: The Three Essential Principles You Need to Become an Extraordinary Leader by Rajeev Peshawaria, to anyone seeking an alternative but more richly nuanced study of leadership, harnessed internal energy, and what is really meant by the critical importance self-motivation. The author proposes an examinations of the role, environment, and development of each individual that leads to real leadership.

Read the important and idea changing book Too Many Bosses, Too Few Leaders: The Three Essential Principles You Need to Become an Extraordinary Leader by Rajeev Peshawaria, and discover an entirely new point of view regarding leadership, and what it can and cannot do for employees. This book will start that internal voyage to self discovery, that is essential for anyone to move past being simply a boss, and toward becoming a real leader of change.

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