The Contrarian's Guide to Leadership

In this offbeat approach to leadership, college president Steven B. Sample-the man who turned the University of Southern California into one of the most respected and highly rated universities in the country-challenges many conventional teachings on the subject. Here, Sample outlines an iconoclastic style of leadership that flies in the face of current leadership thought, but a style that unquestionably works, nevertheless. Sample urges leaders and aspiring leaders to focus on some key counterintuitive truths. He offers his own down-to-earth, homespun, and often provocative advice on some complex and thoughtful issues. And he provides many practical, if controversial, tactics for successful leadership, suggesting, among other things, that leaders should sometimes compromise their principles, not read everything that comes across their desks, and always put off decisions.

• On Becoming a Leader
• One Piece of Paper: The Simple Approach to Powerful, Personal Leadership
• Creative People Must Be Stopped: 6 Ways We Kill Innovation (Without Even Trying)
• The Tao of Leadership: Lao Tzu's Tao Te Ching Adapted for a New Age
• Accelerate: Building Strategic Agility for a Faster-Moving World
• The Clayton M. Christensen Reader
• Beyond Success - The 15 Secrets to Effective Leadership and Life Based on Legendary Coach John Wooden's Pyramid of Success
• The Analects of Confucius
• The POWER PRINCIPLE: INFLUENCE WITH HONOR
• The Way and Its Power: Lao Tzu's Tao Te Ching and Its Place in Chinese Thought