The Basics of Leadership
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Maxwell is a name for leadership (not just coffee).

In Developing the Leader Within You, John Maxwell outlines several areas to grow as a leader. These include:

Defining leadership by Influence
Priorities are the key to leadership
Integrity is the most important ingredient
The ultimate test of a leader is creating positive change

And many other topics.

Maxwell's books read very quickly and easily. You'll find a number of anecdotes and quotes from a wide variety of leaders in all fields.

Bottom line - if you want to be a leader, you need to have a positive influence over people. That is how it works. Without people, you're just a guy taking a walk. (as they say)
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If you're looking for a place to find the fundamentals of leading people they can be found here in this book. I love the story behind the values that it instills in leaders.  Should be required reading for beginning leaders. Established veterans can find value in the principles as well.
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Leadership requires crafting an agenda, working in a deeply political world and working closely with other people. Schools do not teach this. Business school fails dismally to teach this, and most corporate training swings wildly between technical training (accounting and systems) and tree hugging, raft building and team building on the other side, according to Jo Owen in this book.

The book aims to provide a framework for observing and learning from leadership experiences, by briefly describing a large number of different leadership skills. The skills are grouped into mindset skills, career skills, people skills, moment of truth skills, daily skills, organization skills, and values and behaviours.

While reading the book it seemed to me as if the author had overlooked a number of important leadership skills, but after making my own list and re-reading the book I am satisfied that the book does cover almost every skill I could think of, although not in the terms I would have used. The authors forthright and sometimes Machiavellian advice includes:

 The received wisdom about (the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator) is that there is no bad category. This is a fiction used by facilitators who want an easy time with the groups they lead.
 Managers use numbers the way drunks use lamp posts: for support, not illumination.
 (To motivate people) try to figure out how to appeal to fear, greed and idleness.
 An effective leader needs to be unreasonable, selectively. In setting expectations the leader learns to be selectively deaf: you will not hear all the excuses about rising input costs, increasing competition and demanding customers.

I found the book entertaining to read, but I am still uncertain how valuable it is within the context of leadership development. It provides a useful checklist of skills, but the few pages devoted to each skill are insufficient to give a full understanding. As the author says, leaders learn from experience, not from courses. Perhaps the book helps you to recognise a mistake once you have made it.
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Some of the highlights of the book I enjoyed:

-- "Followership means we rely on each other, set aside personal agendas, and collaborate for the good of the organization."  Before we can be good leaders, we have to be good followers first.

-- Leadership moments do not require much time.

-- Nkosi Johnson's challenge (very effective).

-- Leadership legacy.  Important part of this book as we often times don't realize the impact we have on an organization when we leave.
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This is an easy read, clear and great suggestions for leaders and the training of new leaders.  I will use it with my Leadership Team
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This book is a concise recipe to improve anybody's leadership skills. John Manning clearly identifies the key issues we all need to focus on when striving to become better leaders.

In his book John exposes challenges we might not of encountered or thought about then outlines detailed solutions offering powerful tools to prevent potential stumbling blocks that could unintentionally undermine our leadership's efficacy.

There are no perfect leaders John writes recognizing there is no one size fits all leadership style. Instead, Manning focuses on the best practices to develop oneself into becoming the best leader we can be.

In the fifty-two concise and powerful lessons John Manning clearly scribes valuable insights in an easy to read book with short chapters and useful take-a-aways.

These are just a few reasons I recommend this book to anyone looking to develop their leadership skills at work, home, school or for their community. Enjoy!
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Relatively quick read and as a leader already it's a great learn and review of one's style. To be a great leader one should read this book along with others.
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This book is a great book for any leader or anyone would like to be a leader should read it. It showed you the path to a leadership even with no leader position. As mentioned in the book "Anyone can stir the ship but it takes the leader to draw the course".
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This is a great read.  Dave shares tips and information from his years of experience in leadership.  The ideas presented are sound principals to implement in business and other sectors where leadership is required for success.
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Traits Of A Leader reminds us that managing people means learning how to treat people just as we would like to be treated. Leadership is not always about what the leader knows and wants; sometimes it is just the opposite. This book is that steady reminder for me.
It's also great for those who don't have a lot of spare time. It can be read as short daily thoughts or all at once - whichever fits your schedule!
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A great book for personal leadership. It is a great resource for those beginning  a new leadership position. And for those who need to take their leadership to the next level
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I personally believe there is no such thing as a bad book based upon Leadership. If it helps you to become a better person, overall, it is worth it. This book is no exception. It is a very good book which can be incorporated into both your business and personal life.

The book is easy to read and absorb the given information. The author breaks this book into what she exclaims as the Big Four: Dreamer, Thinker, Lover and Warrior.

However, the book lacks simple structure and is very repetitive. Overall, this 384 page book could probably have been condensed into at least 300 or less pages. Overlooking the repetitive nature of the book, it is a very worthwhile read. Improve yourself!
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"Leaders are not born they are made". We are always talking about how to be a leader and how to work with team. Leadership is critical in nowadays life. This book provides us different solutions to make leadership effective. It not only provides the tip of how to be a leader, but also have Dr. Odom personal experience to help us to understand. The language in the book is easy to understand. I find one of the most important thing for leader is to create a safe and winning culture. As I learn in the class, leader work with people and lead the project. All organizational problems are people problem. Following with that, Dr. Odom mentioned that show up the same way every day, which respects your fellows. Think thrice, question twice, act once I find it useful for my personal life. Action taken can be one second but effect may not. As a newcoming for professional life, bad impression may hang over for a while in a company. I need to get used to behave after thinking.  He or she is a bad solider who doesnt dreaming of being a general I am highly recommend this book for new officers as well as managers.
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This is a short and effective summary of good leadership principles. This is less of a how-to manual and more of a brief overview of the realities of power in an (especially corporate) environment. "Laws" is definitely used here in a quasi-scientific way. Maxwell is identifying a lot of principles that operate in the background of corporate power structures. There is a weird, politically-conservative theme to all of the examples that Maxwell picks, but it's subtle enough that I won't hold it against him. This is a thoughtful, short book on principles to consider when leading a team. -Ryan Mease
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This is one of the best books on leadership that I have ever read.
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Next Generation Leader: Five Essentials for Those Who Will Shape the Future by Andy Stanley is a leadership book that offers mentoring and guidance for those who seek to stand out rather than follow.

The five characteristics are courage, competence, clarity and coachability, which all lead into character.

In this book you will learn how to gather and release your fears, find and work with a personal coach, find and use your strengths, take advantage of uncertainty and maintain morals while becoming and  being successful.

This book is short but powerful. There are historical and biblical examples of great leaders and a set of commandments of how to get from here to there without sacrificing faith, ethics or success. Other books on becoming a leader take a lot more verbiage to get to the point. This one does not need to.

What I liked the most is that the author explains that no man will ever have all the answers. And character is a must, whether you are a CEO of a Fortune 500 company or the CEO of your own business of one.

Disclaimer: I received a free copy of this book from Waterbrook Multnomah in exchange for my review. I was not required to write a positive review. The opinion here is entirely my own.
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I believe leadership is universal, and I enjoy reading leadership books written by people in different fields because each one highlights different things, and says things in their own way. The Three Meter Zone is very clearly written, with direct recommendations to the reader about how to be a better leader. Even for a civilian like myself, the references and anecdotes reinforce the important lessons of how to be a better leader. While I may not refer to a US army manual for details, I know what the equivalents are in my own work, and the instructions are clear and meaningful to me. NCOs know leadership, and they can explain things clearly, so I enjoyed the book.