Rudolph W. Giuliani's management and decision-making skills have proven to be outstanding through his years as U.S. district attorney and his two terms as mayor of New York City. And on September 11th, 2001, Giuliani emerged as America's steady hand. In this program, Rudolph Giuliani shares with listeners the principles of leadership that guided him then, and throughout his career. He talks about how he was able to take control, show leadership, and make it clear to New Yorkers and the world that under his stewardship, they were in safe hands.

Im in management, and I have taken more than one thing away from this book. Brilliant man, brilliant book, brilliant operational strategies! Wish he could have taken the republican nomination! I would definitely recommend this to anyone in a corporate leadership position.

Forget about politics. Forget about extreme Muslims. Forgot about Republican or Democrat. Forget about Giuliani's personal life. Just forget about it.

This book is about the defining moments of 9/11 and the leadership it needed in order not to descend into chaos. This man has put his heart and soul into this event and showed great leadership you can learn from.

The writings in 'Leadership' give you great insight into the situation of the event and dealings of the mayor. Courage as well as leadership prevail in keeping the objective of his mission close. Information is critical when chaos is lurking around the corner. Sleep can be denied.

Being European I'm not biassed in my judgement of the person or politician Giuliani. When you read this book about mayor Giuliani there's a lot you can learn from.

His head is SO big and he is so stuck on himself. I was really looking forward to reading it but Mr. Giuliani may have confused leadership with ego.

In response to Rachel's review, which I somewhat agreed with, she was frustrated that Giuliani compared running a city to running a business. Running a city IS like running a business. think about it: you cut tax - so more companies come to NYC to do business, which brings in more revenue to the city. that's business! you clean up Madison square garden and make it more family friendly - more tourists come to visit bringing more money to NYC. etc etc.

is it derogatory to call citizens "customers"? absolutely not!! on the contrary: a good business man respects his customers. a good business man's motto: 'the customer is always right' is unlike a politician who would rather say: 'the union board member is always right because he can get me more votes' or 'the big media cooperation is always right cuz they can write more positive one liners for my campaign'

if NYC is a business, and the customer (-citizen) is always right, than the citizen is most respected. more so than the bureaucrat. unfortunately, this honest method did not work for Giuliani - he did not suck up to the media/bureaucrats/unions and therefore failed to become prez.

but as for the book itself - it was not his life story or anything - which is more like what I was hoping for. it was just dry pointers on how to lead. the only interesting part was that fire in the church and some other personal anecdotes few and far in between.

for the record - those who claim that he decided to write it after 9/11 - check your facts: this book was almost finished being written by the time 9/11 rolled by.

Rudy Giuliani has always been a man I admired. When he stood up to the crime bosses I was impressed. As he was finishing off his second term as New York City Mayor he was already known for making incredible crime reductions and for cleaning up 42nd Street. Imagine ESPN Zone and the Disney Store where all the adult XXX stores use to be! Anyone who could accomplish this when everyone else was saying that it was impossible, is certainly worth listening to when he discusses leadership qualities. Rudy wrote what is basically part II of the book as he prepared to leave office.

Then came 9-11. He wisely chose to add chapter 1 on the events of 9-11 and the immediate aftermath. The final chapter describes how the recovery was achieved over the last days of his adminstration. Basically Giuliani was always interested in being a leader. He read a lot about and learned a lot from his mentors. Many of the ideas in this book I had already learned from reading and taking courses in leadership, e.g. empower and make everyone accountable, be open and honest and communicate clearly, let your positions be known but allow for open and honest debate, and consider all reasonable options but make a decision and stick with it.

What the book added for me was the details of Rudy's experience from his father and grandfather teaching him as a child how to stand up to bullies, to the synergism of Torre and Steinbrenner, to the teachings of Judge MacMahon and to the example of Ronald Reagan standing up to the air traffic controller. Not only does Rudy clearly relate these experiences but he also takes examples from his years in the district attorney's office and as Mayor of New York where he applied the lessons he learned. Standing up to Arafat when he crashed in on an engagement was an example of Rudy standing up to a bully when Clinton would not.

Still his achievements as Mayor and the leadership he showed during the 9-11 disaster were remarkable. What was so special about Giuliani compared to other Mayors? One thing was his unconventional way of treating the government of a city like the running of a corporation. He used the organizational and economic principles of business in running New York City. He followed what Jack Welch was doing with six sigma at GE and through his Compstat program successfully used statistical methods for improving police effectiveness. This is very similar to the success that is common in many six sigma projects. It was fascinating to hear the types of information they chose to collect and the dramatic results that occurred when the measures were reviewed in meetings.

I even found myself recognizing Reagan and other Republicans whose vision and leadership I generally discounted in the past. Rudy is not arrogant or a braggard. He is simply trying to describe the key ideas that led to his success. This is great food for thought for all of us.

I took my book to a signing at Barnes and Nobel in Princeton New Jersey and got him to sign my copy and we talked briefly. In 2008 as he runs for president in the republican primaries it may be worthwhile to look at this book again to see if he displays the leadship of a president. If he should get nominated it would take a strong campaign by the democratic candidate to get me to vote democratic and I have never voted for a republican for president before. But more than other candidates except for Clinton and McCain he exhibits the level of leadship that we expect but rarely get from our president.