A Passion for Leadership: Lessons on Change and Reform from Fifty Years of Public Service Paperback – January 10, 2017

Robert Gates is a government executive of renown. He has been effective as Director of the CIA, as national security advisor, as President of Texas A&M and as Secretary of Defense.Harsh words are seldom spoken about Bob Gates’ competence or intellect. In A Passion for Leadership, Gates he gives us a dazzling display of a uniquely American philosophical foundation as a tool for leadership. He can write. This is a very good and valuable book.A Passion for Leadership is a tell-all, a how-to tale that weaves chapter and verse of how to effectively lead and manage vast, complex organizations. It provides the link between convictions and actions in several layers and over time, and Gates did a fabulous job at helping the reader navigate the levels of abstraction, the second and third order effects of seemingly simple solutions to American problems. It goes beyond Duty, his last book, to tell how one takes a foundation of reason and reality based convictions to a series of specific actions in specific circumstances within the amorphous bounds of those convictions.Gates is one of very few legendarily effective government executives. Perhaps the broad performance canvas he earned and inherited allowed him to develop more nuanced leadership skills than others who were constrained by narrower bounds. For example, another of those quietly famous leaders is Admiral James Loy, who rose from the Coast Guard Academy to be Commandant, then the President’s “go-to” guy to manage change in the vastly complex intersection of politics, government and management. Loy built TSA from scratch after the 9/11 disaster changed the way we fly and then built from scratch again as Deputy in the new Department of Homeland Security. Loy managed change well and described in his writings how to do it, step by step. Managing change consumed Loy’s time, but in each job his decisions suffered a layer or two of bureaucracy between him and the President, including those tiresome vetting and approving minions who served the President as staff.Inevitably, even perhaps by design, that extra time for staff approval slowed the execution of Loy’s visions; Gates suffered far less of that. Loy was required to keep his head down to manage complex change in government; Gates was required to look up in his intelligence and national security roles to report and anticipate. In Gates’ career, the confluence of his roles provided deep opportunity to observe behavior and multiple orders of unplanned effects. His observations are delivered with grace and wit. Gates’ background ran from Director of the CIA, to national security advisor, to President of Texas A&M, to Secretary of Defense, and he tells a moving tale of those experiences. Both Loy and Gates write well on leadership, but Gates has been challenged more broadly, so perhaps writes with broader exposure and perspective on the various problems of leadership, albeit with less specificity than Loy’s P to the seventh power (‘proper prior planning prevents piss-poor performance’.) Gates may also have had time to observe Loy’s success and generalize the lessons. It was Gates’ job to watch, learn and confirm. It seems he did those things well, among others.Gates’ leadership canvas broadened when he slipped from one bureaucracy into another, leaving government to become President of Texas A&M University. Gates was charged with leading an effective effort to regain A&M’s academic stature. University politics are legendarily vicious, but the faculty activists there were over matched in the multi-year scrum that followed. Gates provides an executive primer on the utility of building on a foundation of moral principles and values. It’s great theater.Gates’ time after A&M, when he returned to the US government as Secretary of Defense under George W. Bush, is the capstone of both his career and this book. Consider the challenges of being the only cabinet member to serve in the transition from Bush to Obama, from conservative Republican to liberal Democrat, then observe as Gates negotiates those shoals. Again, it is marvelous theater. Gates is a wonderful storyteller who weaves his powerful characters into compelling discussions of the problems of the world. He skillfully posits solutions and resultant actions within those discussions.The word among admired government executives is, “Bob Gates is one of the good guys.” His book certainly reflects that.A Passion for Leadership is a timeless work of leadership and management genius. Read it.Robert E. Cook, author of Pulse Pulse: The third of the Cooch adventures in national security (The Cooch series of national security thrillers Book 3)

I am in the process of listening to this product and I love it. I worked all my life in bureaucracies and suffered a lot for the controlling power rigid stances that most work place and school bureaucracies take on. Sometime, there is the opposite: lax, corruption, not effective supervision etc. I have been a student and a worker but a thinking one and I tried to have my voice heard in many of them and always felt alone and unheard. I was going to write a book but I am not important enough and also have not been in such high positions as to be able to figure in depth what was wrong. Robert Gates does an excellent job on what works and what does not work in such bureaucracies. I think this book should be taught and incorporated in all organizations whatever they are for the problems are similar. Even and maybe specially so in Governments and groups around the leader of a country who may forget and loose sight of what they are there for and create a click of comfortableness. These CD's based on the book where healing to my soul because of my anguished struggle with bureaucracies, and I always felt alone and unheard. People somehow adjust and work with what is or leave but that is not a good way. I think there should be, in every bureaucracy, a specialized unit whose sole job is to make sure things flow and are run in a healthy way with integrity. I believe that is of utmost importance to add that to any structure. The people doing that should have the highest integrity, the best communication skills and the knowledge that is within this book on what works and what does not. Thanks Robert Gates for your thorough contribution via this book.

I read Duty first and then saw he had written this. So far, this book is very good .

Duty was a great book and so is, A Passion For Leadership. The latter should be read after reading John C. Maxwell's , The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership. The two books go hand in hand. I wish they had been written when I was 21 instead of 61. Very few young people are exposed to leadership. They see management and do not understand the difference.I worked as a Department of the Army civilian employee for over 36 years. I saw very few people during my entire career that did not put the mission first, IMHO, Mr. Fukuyama is incorrect. During my last four years of service, we followed Colonel Pete Blaber's philosophy, " The Mission, The Men and Me".Robert Gates would make an extremely good President, much better than the current candidates on either side of the table.

There are many books out there (and I have read many of them) written by accomplished leaders who tend to highlight their achievements but scarcely mention their failures or how they overcame them. Their books are interesting and informative but not really helpful to actual or aspiring leaders. Bob Gates' A Passion for Leadership is a wonderful exception. His book is interesting and informative but also an important contribution to the meaning of leadership. Gates is not shy about sharing the many challenges he faced successfully throughout his outstanding career but he does not hesitate to elaborate on what he wished he could and should have done differently. In my opinion, he left each agency or institution he was in charge of in much better shape than when he arrived and given the prominence of those organizations, our nation is the better for it. Thank you, Bob Gates, for sharing your thoughts and ideas in a way that encourages others to emulate your passion for leadership.

A good management manual.

Excellent insight in driving change.

As with most memoirs, very self-serving. A boring, here'so how to lead because I did it that way.