Review: The Conviction To Lead

So admittedly, I've been slacking off in book reviews as of late...pregnancy and birthing a child simply took priority.  But now that my daughter is almost three months old, I'm slowly starting to figure out what our new normal is, and I'm feeling less and less zombie-like each day (well, for the most part).  I've missed reading as much as I used to do, so I'm making a point of trying to read a little bit each day (at least, as much as my daughter will let me).  First up is Albert Mohler's The Conviction to Lead.

First off, my rule about books in general is that if a very large picture of the author takes up a good portion of the cover, I'm not very likely to enjoy it...which is why I was a little disappointed when I saw Dr. Mohler's face smiling back at me when I picked up the book.  But I tried not to hold that against him when I started reading. 

The Conviction to Lead has a subtitle of '25 Principles for Leadership that Matters'.  Okay, just another little nit picky thing: I realize 'matters' is referring to 'leadership', but it sure as heck through me for a loop when I first read it, thinking there was a blatant subject-verb disagreement on the freaking cover.  Maybe if it was phrased differently so there wasn't that tricky prepositional phrase beginning with 'for'.

But I digress.  Onto the meat of the book.  Let me preface this by stating that I believe Dr. Mohler is a genius.  I have been in his personal library a few times, and it is nothing less than ah-mazing.  The man reads an insane amount of books, newspapers, journals, magazines, etc.  And what is really admirable is that he reads so prolifically; he doesn't focus on any particular genre.  Pretty impressive...so needless to say, the man is a lot smarter than me.  And yes, sometimes I have no earthly clue what he is saying, but he also is a very gifted communicator; he does an exceptional job of expressing his points in this book.  His use of examples from history was one of my favorite aspects of the book.

He systematically lays out twenty-five different principles of leadership (such as conviction, passion, credibility, etc) and delves into each one.  For the most part, the book reads like an easily-flowing conversation...but for some reason, I thought he might have included more of a 'how-to' aspect at the end of each chapter.  He does offer advice and encouragement on how to improve leadership skills in several chapters, but in more of a back-door way.  It's definitely not a '25 Steps to Better Leadership' kind of book.  And in all honesty, I think the book got a little better toward the end.  My favorite chapters discussed reading (surprise, surprise) and social media.   Yes, Dr. Mohler encouraged his readers to be active on twitter.  Whoops....better get on that.

The only other caveat is that this book about leadership is definitely applicable to a Western audience, but probably wouldn't work so well in some other cultures (the chapter on time specifically).  But other than that, I was glad I challenged myself to read more of Dr. Mohler's writing.

Disclosure of Material Connection: I received this book free from Bethany House Publishers as part of their Blogger Review Program. I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions I have expressed are my own. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission's 16 CFR, Part 255: "Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising."