The Contrarian's Guide to Leadership. . - book review

School Administrator, Sept, 2002 by Arthur W. Stellar

Leadership probably would make a publisher's list of topics most commonly addressed in the last hundred years. Most works tackle leadership from a conventional standpoint, so it is not surprising to find the word "contrarian" in this title. Traditional approaches to leadership are already well-covered.

Steven Sample, author of The Contrarian's Guide to Leadership, buys some of the commonly accepted wisdom about leadership, but he believes that counterintuitive concepts are more stimulating and may prove more beneficial.

Sample's advice runs along these lines: Think gray, see double, never completely trust an expert, read what the competition doesn't read, never make a decision that could be delegated to a subordinate, work for those who work for you, know which hill you're willing to die on, and know the difference between being leader and doing leader.

Superintendents can easily relate to the stories used by Sample, who is president of the University of Southern California. Likewise they can appreciate the author's view that leadership "is highly situational and contingent; the leader who succeeds in one context at one point in time won't necessarily succeed in a different context at the same time, or in the same context at a different time."

One word of advice Sample suggests is that leaders do not read everything that comes across their desks. However, if this book should land in your midst, you should read it. You will be inspired by his down-to-earth, offbeat approach laced with classical examples from Machiavelli, Lincoln, Washington and others.

(The Contrarian's Guide to Leadership, by Steven Sample, Jossey-Bass, San Francisco, Calif., 2002, 234 pp., $24.95 hardcover)