Book Review: 'The Leader in You' and Organisational Behaviour

This report presents a book review of 'The Leader in You' by Dale Carnegie, focusing on the application of leadership and organisational behaviour principles. The review explores the book's key concepts, including self-confidence, team building, and work-life balance. It highlights the importance of self-investment and understanding one's strengths and weaknesses to become a successful leader. The report summarizes the book's content, discussing leadership qualities such as honesty, integrity, commitment, and compassion. It also evaluates the book's strengths, such as its practical examples and insights into work-life balance, and how it provides readers with a clear understanding of leadership challenges and strategies to overcome them. The review also includes a reference list of sources used in the analysis.

Running head: ORGANISATIONAL BEHAVIOUR
ORGANISATIONAL BEHAVIOUR
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author Note

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Book Review
‘The Leader in You’ is a book written by Dale Carnegie that shows the human relation
and the principles from the perspective of Dale Carnegie and how it would bring forth creativity,
enthusiasm and effectiveness in the professional role of a person. The book explores the role of
the lives of the central figure of the corporate, sports, political, entertainment and academic
world, and how their career choices have helped them in succeeding (Landis, Hill & Harvey,
2014). There are also interviews from famous personalities and eminent figures like Lee Iacocca
and Margaret Thatcher with systematic comprehensive guidelines. There are also inputs from
their end in the form of strategies that would help in excelling the career of a person. ‘The
Leader in You’ features lot of useful and inspiring lessons that would help a person in identifying
his or her strengths and weaknesses. The book is a lesson about self-confidence and helps in
removing the “us against them” mentality of a person (Carnegie, 1993). This in turn makes the
person a team player and also would help in strengthening the relationship between him and his
associates. The book is also a great guide towards balancing work and life that makes balanced
leisure. There are also tips towards the examples that would help in controlling the worries and
energize the life of an employee. Dale Carnegie has also highlighted the issues that were faced
by service based employee in the 1990s when there was no easy solution for the workplace
issues. This issues involve problems bases on diversification, lose of interest, insufficient
opportunities and many more. The book looks at these scenarios and provides justified solutions
on how to tackle them if a person faces them today (Jeon et al., 2015). There are invaluable
advice provided on how to survive the downsizers, the mergers and the bottom-line demands that
are made in a profession field. This is turn would develop and reinforce a strong motivation
along with self-confidence within co-workers and the staff. ‘The Leader in You’ main concept is

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to present or make a person know that the most important investment is the one that is made in
self. It highlights the positive traits in a person and how it would benefit if a person if the
measures that are suggested in the book are applied in real life. It is about excellent power advice
that is suggested to people by which day-to-day relations with others are maintained (Tabassi et
al., 2016). It gives information related to how to interact with the peers and the benefits gained
from it. The importance of understanding one’s self is the key aspect to be a successful leader.
According to the authors, to lead others one person should understand himself or herself first, the
qualities on what makes a good leader and how to sustain it. Dale Carnegie has mentioned
several times in the book that to influence a person, first it is required to influence one self.
Report
Summary of the Book
In ‘The Leader in You’ authors explores the depth of the qualities in a person to be a
capable leader. The book provides information related to lives of the central figure of the
corporate, sports, political, entertainment and academic world, also how they handle their job
roles. The book explains the key points of good leaders such as the quality of being honest and
integrity. The authors also explain the commitment and passion required for a leader as he or
many subordinates would follow her. The person should posses the qualities to inspire others and
at the same time be creative and innovative (Aziz et al., 2015). The authors states that a wise
leader would value his or her team and help others as well. The book explains that the leader
should be compassionate to perceive the needs of the people. When compassion exists, then it
would be beneficial to the leader as well as the team. Courageous qualities explained in the book

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states that a leader can take risks when nobody else is willing to. Even having faith of his or her
team members shows the dedication and loyalty of the leader. The author also has highlighted
the leader to be flexible at all situation and to be open to adaptability. Being diligent and fair to
the job and the subordinates brings out the best in the leaders. The book goes on explaining the
achievements from the perspective of popular leaders of the world and how they have handled.
Evaluation of the Book
The evaluation of the book is to provide the information related to the qualities of a good
leader. The authors have presented a clear idea on what are the issues a person can face as a
leader. Not only from his own perspective but also from the perspective of famous people are
now notable leaders. The authors give a background on the issues and the strategies to overcome
them. With everyday examples, it is easy for the reader to understand and relate to the book
(Othman & Rahman, 2014). Though the book is not written from a reflective point of view, but it
provides the reader to understand the concept from oneself. By providing insights of a work life
balance the authors express some measures, which would let a person, live a satisfied work life
and a personal life at the same time. When a person has self-confidence, it would be easy to
evaluate and tackle the obstacles faced at work. The evaluation of the book explains the ways to
control ones worries and energize their lives from stress and pressure. The author has explained
that anyone regardless of the position he or she works in can be creative and be productive at the
same time (Shanafelt et al., 2015). The concept is to identify the strength and weakness of a
person and develop strategies to achieve the goals. By understanding the strategies used in

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different fields like sports, entertainment, corporate, academics and politics, a person can know
what kind of situation he or she would handle accordingly.

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REFERENCES
Aziz, M. A. A., Ab Rahman, H., Alam, M. M., & Said, J. (2015). Enhancement of the
accountability of public sectors through integrity system, internal control system and
leadership practices: A review study. Procedia Economics and Finance, 28, 163-169.
Black, S. A. (2015). Qualities of effective leadership in higher education. Open Journal of
Leadership, 4(02), 54.
Carnegie, D. (1993). The Leader in You: How to Win Friends, Influence People and. Dale
Carnegie & Associates, Inc.
Jeon, Y. H., Conway, J., Chenoweth, L., Weise, J., Thomas, T. H., & Williams, A. (2015).
Validation of a clinical leadership qualities framework for managers in aged care: a D
elphi study. Journal of Clinical nursing, 24(7-8), 999-1010.
Landis, E. A., Hill, D., & Harvey, M. R. (2014). A synthesis of leadership theories and
styles. Journal of Management Policy and Practice, 15(2), 97.
Othman, Z., & Rahman, R. A. (2014). Attributes of ethical leadership in leading good
governance. International Journal of Business and Society, 15(2), 359.
Shanafelt, T. D., Gorringe, G., Menaker, R., Storz, K. A., Reeves, D., Buskirk, S. J., ... &
Swensen, S. J. (2015, April). Impact of organizational leadership on physician burnout
and satisfaction. In Mayo Clinic Proceedings (Vol. 90, No. 4, pp. 432-440). Elsevier.
Tabassi, A. A., Roufechaei, K. M., Ramli, M., Bakar, A. H. A., Ismail, R., & Pakir, A. H. K.
(2016). Leadership competences of sustainable construction project managers. Journal of
Cleaner Production, 124, 339-349.