On Leadership or My Year in Iraq

On Leadership

Author: John Gardner

Leaders today are familiar with the demand that they come forward with a new vision. But it is not a matter of fabricating a new vision out of whole cloth. A vision relevant for us today will build on values deeply embedded in human history and in our own tradition. It is not as though we come to the task unready. Men and women from the beginning of history have groped and struggled for various pieces of the answer. The materials out of which we build the vision will be the moral strivings of the species, today and in the distant past.

Most of the ingredients of a vision for this country have been with us for a long time. As the poet wrote, "The light we sought is shining still." That we have failed and fumbled in some of our attempts to achieve our ideals is obvious. But the great ideas still beckon—freedom, equality, justice, the release of human possibilities. The vision is to live up to the best in our past and to reach the goals we have yet to achieve—with respect to our domestic problems and our responsibilities worldwide.

—From the Preface to On Leadership

Table of Contents:

	Preface to the Paperback Edition
	Acknowledgments
	Introduction
1	The Nature of Leadership	1
2	The Tasks of Leadership	11
3	The Heart of the Matter: Leader-Constituent Interaction	23
4	Contexts	38
5	Attributes	48
6	Power	55
7	The Moral Dimension	67
8	Large-Scale Organized Systems	81
9	Fragmentation and the Common Good	93
10	The Knitting Together	101
11	Community	112
12	Renewing	121
13	Sharing Leadership Tasks	138
14	Leadership Development: The Early Years	157
15	Leadership Development: Lifelong Growth	171
16	Motivating	183
17	The Release of Human Possibilities	193
	Notes	201
	Index	211

Book review: Color Harmony for Better Living or Living with Lupus

My Year in Iraq: The Struggle to Build a Future of Hope

Author: L Paul Bremer

As the American diplomat chosen by President Bush to direct the reconstruction of post-Saddam Iraq, L. Paul Bremer arrived in Baghdad in May of 2003. For fourteen danger-filled months, he worked tirelessly to realize the vision he and President Bush share of a free and democratic New Iraq.

MY YEAR IN IRAQ: The Struggle to Build a Future of Hope is a candid and vital account of this world-shaping task and the daunting challenges lying in wait. With his unique insider perspective, Bremer takes us from the ancient lanes in the holy city of Najaf to the fires of a looted and lawless Baghdad; from the White House Situation Room to the Pentagon E-Ring; from making the case for more U.S. troops to helping Iraq's new leaders write a liberal constitution to unify a traumatized and divided Iraqi people.

The New York Times - Michiko Kakutani

As this book makes clear, the hidden and not-so-hidden agendas of Washington officials and exiles like Mr. Chalabi, along with the clashing interests of various Shiite, Sunni and Kurdish representatives, turned many of Mr. Bremer's 18-hour days into marathons of frustrating conflict resolution. Combined with the daily exigencies of overseeing a country threatening to slip into chaos and the maddening bureaucratic problems of getting even the simplest plans off the ground, they give a whole new meaning to the phrase "crisis management," and they leave the reader with a sobering sense of the staggering difficulties of the situation in Iraq.

Foreign Affairs

Bremer arrived in Iraq only days after President George W. Bush declared "mission accomplished" in early May 2003. A more intractable mission was just beginning. Bremer replaced retired General Jay Garner, who had had little time on the job, and quickly reversed Garner's plan for an early handover of power to the Iraqis. He stayed until June 28, 2004, when he formally turned over sovereignty to an Iraqi government that he had worked to cobble together and then slipped away ahead of schedule to avoid a possible security mishap. Bremer tells us that he favored the early use of force against looters and insurgents such as Muqtada al-Sadr. He writes that he had argued early and late that more U.S. troops were needed. He justifies his decisions to ban Baathists from public office and dissolve the Iraqi army (it had already melted away, although he records that over 60 percent of those later recruited into the new army were former soldiers). He devotes pages to his efforts to work with the various Iraqi political figures, especially the powerful but elusive Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, but does not present a very clear picture of why they acted as they did. This book offers an almost day-by-day narrative that sticks to what Bremer was doing and with whom he was interacting, without providing much analysis or introspection. That is both the strength and the weakness of this memoir covering developments during the crucial first year of the United States' venture into Middle Eastern state building.

Library Journal

This just in from Simon & Schuster, and it's embargoed, but we can tell you that when retired diplomat Bremer was sent to Baghdad as ambassador, he immediately demanded more funds for reconstruction. With an eight-city tour. Copyright 2005 Reed Business Information.