Leadership is not for the faint of heart, it is a real skill and can take real work.

It is easy to remember the good leaders you’ve had the pleasure of knowing in your life. That is usually because great leadership is rare. The leaders who were not as effective at their jobs, or who weren’t good at what they did probably stood out too, because of all of the problems that they caused. No matter what your personal history has been with leaders, I am sure you know the important part that leaders play, and why leaders are so important to each and every one of us.

Great leadership, can take an organization through the best of times or through the worst of times. People with bad leadership skills can make an organization or group crash and burn in record time, it can really tear things apart.

There have been a lot of books and discussion on leadership recently. How important leaders are and how you can be a better leader if you do X, Y, and Z, but great leadership honestly takes hard work.

I was really excited about reading this book, Impact, when given the chance because leadership is such an important skill to cultivate and develop, in every area of our lives.

In these 15 chapters, Tim Irwin talks about leadership from soup to nuts. He takes us through the pit holes and the successes of leadership with examples about both good and bad leadership models. He talks about the things that we need to be cautious of as leaders and what we need to be aware of in order to be successful.

I greatly appreciated Tim’s focus on the leader as a person first, and how our actions as leaders can help or hinder those we lead. His attention to the ways we can sabotage ourselves and ultimately our teams when we are leaders left a lot for the reader to ponder, and consider.

Tim talks about our needs to take the time to do self reflection and introspection. His examples and questions make you understand your role as a leader. His conversation about what your actions can do and what we as leaders need or can expect, is incredibly helpful dialogue.

Clearly, this book is a great leadership for business, but it would also make a great book for families and individuals who just want to find out how to improve the way they look at life, and how they interact with others. As parents, this is also a great conversation to have with your children. It is great to think about how these lessons can help your children become more responsible, and prepare them to become better leaders.

The section in the back of each chapter walks you through questions that you can consider in order to improve the way you live, and the way you think.

This book was surprising because it really spent a lot of time helping the reader become a better person. It would be a great book for groups to read together and also a great way to do some team building in an organization, or a company. I really enjoyed Impact and found it quite refreshing.

If you want to read this book, please leave a comment about some of your leadership challenges, or how you have dealt with leadership problems in the past.

Disclosure: I received a copy of this book for my honest review, but the opinions are totally my own.