The West Point Way of Leadership: From Learning Principled Leadership to Practicing It

Col. Larry R. Donnithorne (Ret.)

Retail Price: $26.00 LS Price: $0.00 Availability: Out-of-Print Format: Hardcover, 182pp. ISBN: 9780385417037 Publisher: Currency Doubleday Pub. Date: October 1993 Average Customer Review:

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West Point takes leadership very seriously. They must: military leaders literally hold lives in their hands. Living up to such critical responsibilities takes courage, determination, integrity, self-discipline - and the highest performance in each of these areas. West Point has trained more leaders than the Harvard Business School to meet precisely these standards. This book takes the reader inside one of the most demanding and unusual leadership programs anywhere. Raw recruits at West Point are stripped of everything experience has taught them about success and motivation and teamwork. They spend every waking moment learning the toughest lesson of all: character. They are taught how to live by their word - and they discover why that is a leader's most powerful single action. A leader who lives by his word can be counted upon to choose "the harder right" - put the needs of the organization ahead of personal considerations - in every instance.


Reviews

Before he retired from the West Point Academy, colonel Donnithorne taught moral philosophy and the leadership training program discussed in this book. After establishing the problems of leadership based on hierarchy and authoritarianism, he describes the model successfully adopted by West Point--a model focusing on character, personal honor and teamwork, stressing an individual's complete absorption in group and institutional goals. Donnithorne overreaches himself, however, in asserting the applicability of West Point methods to the business world. Patterns suitable for 18- to 22-year-olds who have selected a military environment, and who are serving, in effect, an apprenticeship, cannot be transferred readily to corporate structures staffed by experienced men and women. The stakes of military leadership, moreover, differ in essence from those of the corporate world: lives are involved, not balance sheets.

—Publishers Weekly, January

There is no good leadership without good character. The West Point Way of Leadership helps us strive for both.

—Max DePree, chairman, Herman Miller, Inc.

This engrossing book reveals the Military Academy's innermost ingredients for all to see—and use. This should be required reading for anyone who aspires to leadership in any field.

—General Dave R. Palmer, former superintendent,
United States Military Academy at West Point

[Larry Donnithorne's] philosophy of leadership is right . . . His techniques and tactics will work in the modern era of leadership.

—Dana G. Mead, President and Chief Operating Officer,
Tenneco, Inc.

1	White Phosphorus!	3
2	Followership is Job One	19
3	Finding Courage in Fear	39
4	Honor is the Language We Speak	51
5	"The Harder Right"	61
6	Learning to be a Team Member	73
7	Just and Unjust Leadership	87
8	Face-to-Face Leadership	96
9	Pushing Character to an Extreme	113
10	Leading Leaders	121
11	Executive Leadership	135
12	Following Our Own Advice	149
13	The End of Leadership Is to Stand for Something Good	163
	Acknowledgments	335

Leadership Lessons from West Point: Building Stronger Leaders