Business Leadership
BUS 5453.21
Review of Kaltman’s Book
February 8, 2015
Leadership against overwhelming odds
General Ulysses Grant took control of the Union Army against General Robert
Lee. In comparison to General Lee who has defeated numerous Union Army
commanders, General Grant was a “nobody.” Many people believed that General
Grant’s gained victories in Mississippi and Tennessee against weak competition. He
was in over his head attempting to lead an army against a legendary general such as
Robert Lee. However, General Grant proved his many doubters wrong by defeating
General Lee & leading the union army to success. General Grant’s improbable
success could be attributed his leadership skills outlined in the book “Cigars,
Whiskey and Winning Leadership Lessons from General Ulysses S. Grant.” Although
the book documented 250 leadership lessons, ten leadership principles were crucial
to General Grant’s success.
Leadership principle 1: Leaders must read professional development
material on a consistent basis. This principle was gleaned from lesson 5 and 6 in the
book. Most of us would assume that General Grant must have graduated in the top
of his class while studying at West Point Military Academy. However, this could not
be further form the truth. In fact, he graduated twenty first in a class of thirty-nine.
In other word, he graduated in the bottom half of his class. No one would have
predicted that Cadet Grant would one day become a four star general in the United
State Army. However, if we look past the class ranking, we can see that cadet Grant
was an avid reader. He was constantly reading and learning material that would
make him an outstanding leader. In fact, her was the president of the cadet literary
society.
Any leader of any organization must be committed to continuing education.
Many successful leaders including President Abraham Lincoln and Andrew Carnegie
read on a consistent basis. More importantly, these leaders were not reading “Fifty
Shades of Grey!” For myself, my goal is to read one book a month on leadership and
hospital management. For the month of February, I will read “7 habits of highly
effective people” written by Dr. Stephen Covey.
Leadership principle 2: Leaders must place priority on their family over their
career. This principle was discovered from reading and studying lesson 19. Just
from reading the title of the book alone, we realize that General Grant had challenges
with alcohol consumption. As a young military officer, he consumed excessive
amount of alcohol. However, this happened while he was away from his family.
