My friend Don Mercer, a dedicated fellow "watchman on the wall” of Bible prophecy, has led a fascinating life of service to his country in the arena of military intelligence, serving closely with Generals Colin Powell and Norman Schwarzkopf, two of America’s most famous military leaders of recent years. During that time, the author learned and took to heart amazing leadership principles that few even at the very top of government and business truly comprehend or employ.

Mercer has boiled his vast knowledge into this slim though powerful volume, making accessible to all who lead at any organizational level the essence of what he has learned. Follow to Lead is a work I find to offer uniquely preparatory guidelines for carrying out the most effective leadership possible. But it is not the leaders who are the stars of Mercer’s inspirational thinking. The followers are the heroes of this book!

The author puts forth that to have the most dynamic sort of organization, there must be developed a “followership culture.”

Mercer writes:

Great leaders are precious; great followers, priceless!

 

Are leaders the most important people in an organization? Is the CEO the main change agent? While leaders do indeed make an important difference, your view of how organizations succeed is about to be turned upside down.

 

Follow to Lead focuses on the misunderstood and underrated subject of Followership. Think about this: who are our heroes? Quarterbacks. Military generals. CEO's of highly successful companies. Their organizations all have one thing in common: success is not solely dependent on the leader, but on the efforts of their followers.

 

Organizations of all kinds will be successful when they incorporate a Followership Culture. A simple set of highly memorable principles create the Followership Culture and set the tone for leaders and followers alike. The Followership Culture is the glue that holds the organization together and promotes success.

 

Follow to Lead is more than a book of principles; it is a how-to-do-it guide for establishing the Followership Culture in any organization from an army to a zoo.

 

Follow to Lead is for busy people who don’t want to read hundreds of pages of research and anecdotes to get to the nuggets that they can apply. Follow to Lead is just the nuggets. It cuts to the chase on surviving and thriving in all types of organizations!

 

It is a tool you can use today whether you are a leader or follower or both. No training required; only a change in your thinking.

Mercer masterfully takes the reader through his riveting presentation by way of an illuminating fable that solidly imprints upon the mind how the followership culture is developed and implemented.

Eliminating the usual hundreds of pages of anecdotes and research, Follow to Lead gets to the nuggets you can use and presents them in a most unique way so that they are usable in the real world. They are:

· Brief: There are only seven principles/nuggets.

· Practical: This is an uncommon, common-sense approach to learning and using the principles in any organization.

· Highly memorable: They all begin with the same letter.

· Simple to teach and quickly implemented: The book contains a how-to-do-it guide to make the principles relevant to the organization and impact what people do every day.

You need this book if you:

· Are busy and don’t have the time to read hundreds of pages, but you want just the nuggets in a brief book you can refer to time after time.

· Think that your organization could operate on a higher level if you could figure out what it takes.

· Feel like you are at the lowest level of the organization and want to learn what it will take to excel, lead, and leave a legacy.

· Are at the highest level in the organization and want to know how to be a principled leader and develop a common culture enjoyed by all in the organization.

· Are a leader, a follower, or both.

· Want more than just words on a page; you want a step-by-step, how-to-do-it guide to implementation.

· Would like a ready-to-use method to get everyone in the organization on the same page of expectations and principles to govern organizational behavior.

The magic of the book is in its simplicity and straightforward style. Following the out-of-ordinary thinking in Follow to Lead will give you extraordinary results.

This is a book for busy people.

Follow to Lead rejects conventional wisdom that a book must consist of hundreds of pages of material backed by research and footnotes to be of high value. It cuts through filler and gets to the essentials—those things that actually work and can be implemented today.

I highly recommend Follow to Lead by Don Mercer.

Follow to Lead

Author: Don Mercer

Publisher: Tate Publishing, LLC

Pages:

ISBN: 978-1-61777-468-31

Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Follow-Lead-Mercer-Carlos-Fontana/dp/1617774685/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1309735134&sr=1-1

Barnes and Nobel: http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/follow-to-lead-mercer-fontana/1103794623?ean=9781617774683&itm=1&usri=follow%2bto%2blead