Book Review

Leadership

By Rudolph W. Giuliani

The influence of 9/11 on this book.

Former New York mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani give in his book, appropriately called “Leadership”, his personal view on the important factors that should encompass leadership. In sixteen chapters he shares the views he learnt over the length of his career in combination with striking examples of his own professional and personal life. When he started to work on his book in the spring of 2001, also his last year of his term as mayor of New York, he did not know that his leadership qualities would be put to the test on last time in September of that year. When on September 11th 2001, two planes crashed into the World Trade Center, mayor Giuliani was in the …show more content…

He gives the example of running for Mayor the first time in 1989, when he and his team expected to face Koch in the elections. No one in his team, including himself, expected Koch to loose the democratic-party elections from Dinkins. But when he did, Giuliani and his staff had not prepared running for mayor against Dinkins, which was one out of a dozen little things that made him loose the elections. When Giuliani ran for mayor again in 1993, he did not let anything unprepared. Since there is no guidebook on being a good mayor, he decided to create one himself. He organized 50 lectures in a year and half time, to get to know everything there is to know when being the mayor of New York. And he was prepared to face anyone in the elections that year. And in 1993 he did get elected as mayor of New York and having learned from his mistakes in 1989. Learning from your mistakes is one thing, being responsible for them is another. Giuliani points this out by stating that leaders should welcome being accountable for their actions at all times. It builds both confidence for the leader and holds employees at high standards. Giuliani stresses the fact that being open and honest from the start, help to prevent harmful situations to occur. As a prosecutor, whenever he had a witness who had a credibility problem of his or her own, he would bring out those facts immediately. This way he could build up the reputation from this witness again from