Leadership and the One Minute Manager: Increasing Effectiveness Through Situational Leadership

I was asked to read this book for a Leadership Training that I'm currently attending through my employer.

This is one of those books that is kind of easy to make fun of. It isn't high literature. It is short and written very simply. It only has one focus-- to provide a clear example illustration of the author's ideas about situational leadership. It reaches that goal, and it reaches it quickly and reasonably well. The concept itself is not revolutionary at this point, but it does bear repeating.

I do think that it's kind of a racket that this 106 page book with very very big type somehow apparently retails in the hardback edition for $19.95-- this according to the dust cover on my copy. But--hey-- more power to them, right? And I'm guessing that it's mostly training firms and companies who actually pay the price.

(My star rating actually was hurt by the value-for-money issue. Otherwise I probably even would have given it four stars.)

Kind of useful. Have to admit.

Amazing how they can fill a book of 110 pages with a very, very simple idea. And even this idea is so simplified that even someone who has no knowledge at all can put holes in it. E.g. The levels of development a person can have has 2 parameters, with 4 possible values each so means 16 options. This is simplified to just 4 options.

The quotes used are completely out of date, like "work smarter, not harder" come on people, we're way past the 80's. But at least they fill an entire page.

Then the paternalistic way it is written..the know-it-all one minute manager and the entrepeur who just loves everything he says. And all the people in the company are soooo happy with the one minute manager. It was required to read for a course I did...and it was the worst struggle I had with a book since long. I constantly was temted to throw it out the window. Luckely the mere 80 pages are half filled and a large font is used. And what did I learn...There are 4 styles of management and you have to adapt to the person you're dealing with. It would fit in a single sheet of paper. The rest of the text is just "social talk and talk about how good the one-minute manager is".

So imo the author has more commerical qualities than management qualities. It's stunnig people pay money for this book and even are happy with it...

an absolute horror

A very effective tool in leadership and management. Clearly defines several styles of leadership, as well as several levels of "competence" among employees. This makes it quite easy to understand Blanchard's point about needing to treat different people differenlty in order to get the best result out of them. I think that is the key point, is that you are working to maximize your return on each employee.

I purchased these books so that our boss could hand them out as Christmas presents and they arrived right on time for our Christmas party. The books came in excellent condition and the price was a good one. Thank you for prompt delivery. I will purchase from you again.

The style of the book is great, it's a story. Someone discovers the method just like we would do it.
It's fiction (I suppose) but the situations are clear and the lessons are clear.
This makes the methods usefull, you understand them immediately.
Putting it into practice will require some thinking and self-training, but the principles are sound.
It's all too obvious, but in practice I see that not doing this is very unproductive.