Defining Species: A Sourcebook from Antiquity to Today (American University Studies V: Philo... Book

I really enjoyed this book. It was a slower read, but very informative and helped me think about another aspect of leadership, teaching. I don't follow football, so I didn't know anything about Bill Walsh before I read this book. I picked it up because I read an article on the Harvard Business Review blog talking about his leadership style and it mentioned this book. I wanted to get a "non-corporate" perspective on leadership and coaching.

There were a couple things that really stood out to me in the book.
- A big part of leadership is teaching. He spent a huge a amount of time teaching everyone what he wanted done. I think (and he admits at the end of the book) that he didn't delegate enough. However, he reinforced for me that a good leader is always teaching.

- His level of concern for the details was tremendous. He talks about paying close attention to the right details (and not the wrong ones). This is something that also seemed true to me from the Alan Mullay book (American Icon: Alan Mulally and the Fight to Save Ford Motor Company) and the David Marquette book(Turn the Ship Around!: A True Story of Turning Followers into Leaders). All three of them dove very deep into the details as part of the turn around effort.