What does it take to be a leader in an advertising industry or marketing firm? As I’ve noted before, many great copywriters and art directors don’t make great creative directors. It’s a different set of skills. And sometimes, for the agency or the person, this discovery is made too late — either after a promotion or after someone has left an agency for another, better opportunity.
For a closer look at what professionals need to become effective leaders, there’s Leadership Conversations: Challenging High-Potential Managers To Become Great Leaders by Alan S. Berson and Richard Steiglitz.
What Berson and Steiglitz do very well is here to ask probing questions of the reader. They lay out all the skills required of leaders and the specific sets of issues and decisions leaders often has to make. The examples they use are mostly from non-advertising and marketing companies, along with academia and government. But the core of their information can be applied to our business, and that makes Leadership Conversations a valuable book for folks seeking to climb higher in their career.
Special thanks for Wiley for providing me with a review copy.
