Reagan on Leadership by

itle and Author: Reagan on Leadership by James M. Strock

Synopsis of Content:

Subtitled Executive Lessons from the Great Communicator Strock's 1998 book on what one can learn about leadership from President Reagan has been released in a new Reagan Centennial Edition on the former President's 100th birthday.

First what this is not - this is not a book defending Reagan's policies and politics. So no matter where you come down on those subjects this book has a lot to offer. I must confess that I was and remain a fan of Ronald Reagan and it does appear that Strock is too. However no matter what you thought of his politics or his policies there is no denying that he was an adept leader.

In the Introduction to this new issue Strock tells the reader that an increasing number of historians are acknowledging Reagan's leadership talents. James MacGregor Burns, a well known presidential historian disagrees profoundly in Strock's words with Reagan's policies but concludes that Reagan and FDR stand out as the two most consequential presidents of the 20th century. Another historian, the late John Patrick Diggins said that Reagan belonged with Lincoln among the three or four greatest presidents.

In Part One of the book Strock helps us understand Reagan's effectiveness as a leader through his compelling vision, his decisiveness, his adeptness at negotiation and his ability to learn from mistakes and move on.

In Part Two he reveals how effective Reagan was as a manager, putting first things first, limiting his own work to what his subordinates could not do and making meetings useful.

In Part Three he discusses how effective Reagan was as a communicator, something nearly all of his harshest critics readily admitted then and now.

In Part Four we learn how disciplined Reagan was and how he used his leadership skills as a way of life.

In the foreword Tom Peters does not exaggerate when he describes Strock's analysis of Reagan's leadership skills as brilliant. As you read the book you will conclude the same. Strock does a masterful job of identifying Reagan's strengths and using many illustrations of how he outwitted his domestic and foreign foes to preside over one of the most successful presidencies ever in terms of achieving what he set out to do.

If there is a criticism of the book is its tendency to minimize Reagan's faults and failures. However one can forgive this in light of all there is to learn from his successes. At 234 pages this is a concise review of what made Reagan effective and everyone can learn a great deal from it.

Readability/Writing Quality:

As with all of Strock's work this is very readable. Crisply written and well organized the reader is never lost.

Notes on Author:

James Strock is an authority and prolific author on leadership. He also wrote Serve to Lead and Theodore Roosevelt on Leadership. He has had a career in business and in high levels of government including being the first Secretary of Environmental Protection for California and chief enforcement officer for the EPA.

Three Great Ideas You Can Use:

1. Vision is the indispensible key to leadership of any enterprise.

2. By aligning words and deeds, decisive actions add predictability and certainty to an enterprise.

3. Every organization and very person will make mistakes. The key is to view those mistakes as opportunities to learn.

Publication Information:

Reagan on Leadership - Executive Lessons from the Great Communicator by James M. Strock. Copyright by James M. Strock, 1998 and 2011. Published by Serve to Lead Press.

Rating for this Book

Over all Rating for Book: Excellent

Writing Style: Easy to read.

Usefulness: Very useful to anyone serious about improving their leadership skills.

Disclosure: the author of this book review has no relationship or financial arrangement with the author or the publisher of this book. Some publishers and authors do provide a copy of the book for reviewers to read

Death Before Freedom

Book Title: Oliver Tambo, Beyond the Engeli Mountains
Author: Luli Callinicos
Publisher: David Philip Publisher, an Imprint of New Africa Books

Oliver Tambo, Beyond the Engeli Mountains is a story of a man who died three days before the dawn of freedom that he had fought for six decades. It is a social biography of one of the least celebrated anti-apartheid luminaries, Oliver Reginald Tambo, affectionately known as O.R. He led the African National Congress (ANC) now South Africa's ruling party during the tumultuous 30 years of exile (1960 to 1990).

Tambo was a visionary and a pathfinder. He founded the first black owned law firm in South Africa together with the International icon, and the now retired first democratically elected President of the Republic of South Africa, Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela.

Tambo was born on 27 October 1917 in the rural hinterland of apartheid South Africa. He died on 23 April 1994, only three days before South Africa's first democratic all race elections. South Africa held its first democratic elections on the 27th April 1994.

The book examines the ways in which Tambo's own life experiences instilled in him diverse repertoires - homestead culture; Christian morality, education of the missionaries, and of course the radical revolutionary discourse of the time. In the words of those interviewed for this book, Tambo represented their own 'age of innocence'.

Tambo was thrust into the post of Acting President of the ANC accidentally after many leaders were arrested in the 1960's government clampdown on popular resistance following the Sharpeville Massacre. The Massacre occurred on the 21st March 1960, in the South African township of Sharpeville in the Transvaal (now Gauteng Province). During a peaceful demonstration held mainly by black South African protesters, the South African Police opened fire on the crowd, killing 69 people. Today, March 21, is celebrated in South Africa as Human Rights Day.

Author, Lulu Callinicos tells the remarkable story of a man who ran a quasi parallel government of South Africa in exile. Callinicos worked through Tambo's unfinished scripted memoirs, tapes, notes taken at meetings, and diaries kept over three decades at the helm of the ANC. She also conducted interviews with a range of anti-apartheid figures across the globe, ANC leaders, family and friends. She delved through ANC documents and archival material. The product of her (Callinicos) work is a complete and independent scholarly biography of a man who shunned the limelight. Tambo specifically requested that his biography be published after his death. During the exile years, he repeatedly refused to be referred to as President insisting that he was holding fort for Mandela (then prisoner on the South Africa's notorious Robben Island prison).

The book is rich in history and analyses of a period that ordinary South Africans knew little of as a result of the then apartheid government crack down on free media and free political activity. The biography is not just a story of Oliver Tambo. It is a story of the international community's participation in the struggle against racial oppression. The story of how Tambo ran a tight sheep - leading ANC cadres scattered across the globe - Russia, US, England, Denmark, Angola, Tanzania, Swaziland, Lesotho and Mozambique among others. Tambo was able to manage the diverse repertoires and he came to personify the coherence and 'moral high ground' of the ANC Mission in Exile.

Tambo is presented as a complex figure - intelligent, deeply religious, an accomplished militant revolutionary but always affable.

Callinicos writing has lifted a lid on the dark chapter of South Africa. Oliver Tambo, Beyond the Engeli Mountains is a story of hope in the face of a recurring nightmare. A story of bravely of men and women who fought in the bitter struggle to liberate a country from the yoke of racial oppression. It is also a tribute to all those who died before seeing beyond the Engeli Mountains - the dawn of democracy.

Tambo was a consensus builder and the glue that held the ANC together during exile years. He was also a true internationalist in that he maintained warm relations between the West and East during the period of the Cold War. In recognition of this international role, the democratic government of South Africa has named the highest honour that can be bestowed on a foreign national (who have promoted South Africa's interests and aspirations through solidarity), the Order of the Companions of O. R. Tambo.

Bhekisisa Mncube is a qualified journalist and member of the Book Review Panel at the New Agenda academic journal in South Africa. Mncube is the former senior reporter (politics) at the Witness newspaper. He is also a columnist (Witness/Echo), his column 'On the High Road' appears on Thursdays.

What Blogging Gurus Don't Want You To Know

When it comes to blogging there are a lot of things involved but the fact of the matter is there are a lot of things that guru's don't want you to know. When you think of a guru you probably think of somebody telling you every secret and how to take your blog to the next level but the reality of it is gurus have certain secrets that they don't want ordinary bloggers to know. What are those secrets you ask? That is exactly what I am going to teach you today but just understand that with these few blogging secrets you will be able to make cash online like never before.
What blogging guru's don't want you to know
RSS Feeds are a must - When it comes to getting traffic and making money one of the things you must have is a RSS feed and the reason is because you don't even need people to come to your site in order for you to make money. What most people think is an RSS feed is just a email that gets sent to you but the truth is it is free marketing that if you are not taking part in then you are missing out.
Establish a network - What every blogger has in common is they belong to some kind of network, even it if is just a few guys that they get together with every month to talk about new projects. The reason you need to establish a network is because you want people who you can go to for support and most importantly name drops. The nice thing about having a decent sized network is the fact that your other group members will drop your name every once and a while and give you a link.
Guest posts - This is not really a secret but since most people do it wrong I wanted to bring this up. What you need to understand is the more guest posts you have online the higher your blog value will be. For instance if you want to write about blogging the best website to get on would be problogger.net. All you have to do in order to get a decent amount of traffic is write a few good guest posts each week. The secret here that most gurus use is their network or friends and other blogs that follow them, what you want to do is email bloggers you know and see if they will publish your guest post. The reason you want to do this is because it is a lot nicer to be able to email somebody when you are ready for a new guest post and simply ask them to publish it on a certain day. The one thing that you need to always remember is the better your writing and the more posts you have means you will get more traffic

Blogging For Traffic - What Your Blog Needs First Before You Will Reap Any Traffic Benefits

Blogs generate huge volumes of traffic, particularly blogs that are updated regularly, are interactive and filled with comments by readers. Some blogs have built up regular followers who give feedback and even one blog post can attract a large readership depending on the interest the topic generates.
To get traffic, your blog must possess the following:

1. The blog must be user friendly, interactive, informative and useful to the needs of the reader. When someone comes upon your blog, what are their first impressions? Can they find what they are looking for? Is it easy to navigate? Does it contain up to date and relevant content?
2. It should target a particular audience and be receptive to their needs. Does it answer their questions, is there a way for them to contact you for more information?
3. The blog owner should build up a relationship with its readers and always offer value either through the content of the blog post, a free giveaway etc. How well was your question answered? How well were other questions answered? Is this someone you can relate to and would you be willing to come back again?
4. The blog should contain links so that the blog post can be passed through social bookmarking methods. These comprise a variety of social bookmarking plugins such as Tweetmeme, Sociable, Digg, Follow Me On Twitter etc which can be put above or below the post.
5. It should contain an RSS feed source as some people prefer RSS format for reading.
6. It should be topical and ideally write on a topic that is current and that people are generally interested in. If people are talking about it, they will be interested in reading about it too. Note: Check out sites such as Ask Jeeves, Google Insights and relevant forums. When using forums, check out the number of posts, threads and comments for popularity and write about your observations.
7. A number of plugins to assist with traffic generation is essential and very easy to install. A few that I would recommend are All in One SEO, Google XML Sitemaps, No Follow Case by Case, Sociable, Subscribe To Comments, AdSense Deluxe, What Would Seth Godin Do? There are so many more out there. Just type in "top plugins for traffic" in your browser window to get a list. I will address the most popular ones in detail in a separate post.

If I was to leave you with a final tip and tell you the most important thing a blog must have, it would be "fresh content". Your regular readers will dwindle if you do not encourage them to come back and new readers like to see blogs that are dynamic, responsive and reflect a real presence of someone actively participating in their blog.

Blogging For Beginners - How To Make Money Blogging

How can you make money by blogging you probably ask yourself time and time again, right? Better yet if you are a complete beginner, which I will presume many who read this will be, you might even be wondering, what is blogging?
So you have heard people talking about blogging and better yet you have heard that some how these people manage to make money by doing so. Is this all fluff or is there someway that anyone, yes even you, can get a piece of the pie?
Does it matter if you are male or female? No, Statistics show us that 50.9% of bloggers are female and 49.1% are male. Better yet 61% say the reason they blog is to supplement their income! And really, if I had to guess, I would say that is pretty much the only stat you are interested in!
That's all well and good but you still don't know what blogging is exactly, correct?
We have nearly all come across a blog at one stage or another on the internet whether we realised it or not. Simply put, a blog is an internet journal that records whatever happens to be on the writers mind at the time. That is really all they are!
Blogs are typically written in an informal tone, as if the writer is having a friendly discussion with their readers. Even though blogs have exploded in popularity recently, still very few retailers realise the potential that having a blog can have in driving sales for their internet business.
That's briefly what a blog actually is
But how can someone like me and you actually see some of the green from blogging?
First you got to know where to start. You can't make money from blogging unless you have a blog!
Here is very briefly how you can begin blogging, by this evening if you want:
• You will want to sign up with a free commercial service (blogger.com or blogspot.com)
• You will want to begin blogging!!
What do you blog about?
That is up to you. However, lets presume here that one of the ways you are hoping to make money through blogging is to promote affiliate products.
You will find a product you are interested in promoting, have a look at it, do some quick research on it, learning as much as you can yourself and then in your blog you take what you have learnt and write it back out in your own words. Simple but very effective
This does two things if done correctly
1. It gives you top informative information for your blog, (which is what draws the crowds)
2. More importantly, is positions you as an expert adding more perceived value to your blogs
So now you know what a blog is. First step is to set one up and begin blogging. Second step is to get people (traffic) to your blog, I have a tip, as a little bonus at the end for this step. Third thing you want to do is use your blog site to make you some real money. Here's a few ways how,
• Sell ad space on your blog. Basically if you are blogging on a particular subject and your blog becomes popular, other people trying to make money online in the same subject will want to advertise on your blog. They pay you and you litterly don't have to do anything different to what you always do
• Amazon! With this you will advertise Amazon products on your page. People visiting your page will click on the links and be sent to Amazon via your personal link. If they buy anything on Amazon you get paid!
• You can also sell items straight from your page. A good example would be an eBook that is on the same subject that you are blogging on. This is very effective as the person reading your blog is already interested in the subject matter.
TIP: A very effective but simple way to increase people visiting your blog is to go to a forum on the subject you are blogging on and simply reply to some of the questions being asked. Even if you don't know the answers, research them. You will be surprised as how easy it is to find answers to some of these questions.
The reason for this is to once again to position yourself as an expert in the subject and more importantly every time you post an answer to someone's query you can link back to your website or blog!
So you have reached the end of this short article. If you take what was shown to you and actually implement it you will indeed make money from blogging. How much will depend on how much work you put into it.
A trick with making money online is learning as much as you can about the whole process and more importantly implementing what you have learnt. There are no magic formulas to making money online. It is done by you and me taking the time to learn and implement. Sadly this isn't done by about 95% of people who think that a magic 'push button' formula is actually out there

Sean Doody is a full time internet marketer Sean spent months learning how to set up a sustainable online business from scratch Sean found that one of the very first steps was to set up your own simple one page website!

Installing a Fence: Wood or Vinyl?

Fences are seen in almost every neighborhood around our country. Homeowners choose to install fences for privacy, containment, security, and to mark their property line. Choosing which building material to use can be quite difficult with so many great options available on the market. Vinyl and wood fences are among the most popular choices as both offer unique and appealing advantages.
Wood Fencing:
One of the biggest advantages of using wood is the fact that it is a natural product. It blends easily into the trees natural areas already present in your yard. If left unpainted, it becomes a part of the landscape. Unlike vinyl fencing, wood is biodegradable and can be broken up and use as firewood rather than taking up valuable space in our nation's landfills.
Wood is one of the most durable and long-lasting natural resources available. Even the harshest weather conditions are no match for a properly installed wooden fence. With very little maintenance, your wooden fence should last for many years. If damage does occur, one or two planks can be easily replaced without having to replace the entire structure.
Wooden planks can be easily trimmed or altered to change the entire look of the fence. Homeowners can sculpt the wood into a design that they find appealing. Also, a wooden fence can be designed to fit in unique and uneven spaces. This ability to customize the look of the fence is a distinct advantage over other building materials.
The initial cost for a wooden fence is much less than that of a vinyl fence. However, there are some maintenance costs associated with wood. It will need to be stained and some posts may need to be repaired or replaced if they should happen to rot or warp.
Vinyl Fencing:
Recently, vinyl has become one of the most popular materials for fences due to its numerous advantages. One characteristic that homeowners appreciate about vinyl is that it is virtually maintenance-free. Spraying it off with a garden hose will wash away dirt and grime that accumulates over time. Vinyl will never need to be repainted and will not lose its luster. Plus, it is made from a stain-resistant material and will not rot like wood.
Vinyl fencing is completely safe. It is non-toxic, non-flammable, and will not crack or splinter. Since vinyl is quite flexible, it will not break or collapse in high winds or storms.
There are a variety of styles and designs available. Whether you desire an ornamental or more traditional fence, vinyl offers numerous style options. Homeowners can choose what height they would like their fence to be as well.
Vinyl fences are easy to assemble and install. The initial cost of these fences is much higher than wood or metal. However, because there is absolutely no maintenance required, homeowners may save some money over time. These fences are very durable and should last for many years. Unlike wood fences, many times the manufacturer will offer a warranty on vinyl.
Keep in mind that some neighborhood associations require homeowners to use specific materials when building a fence. Be sure to consult all of your neighborhood and local regulations before installing a fence. Also, make sure you are working with a reputable fence company who has trained and knowledgeable personnel who will guide you throughout the entire fence building process.

Confusing the Speaking of Words With the Art of Communicating

People confuse the speaking of words with the art of communicating, and then are dismayed with the outcome. The space between listening and speaking is where communication takes place.
Assuming I am correct, how did we ever get the idea that when we speak words we are communicating? I looked up the definition of communication and what I found was interesting. Wikipedia defines communication as the activity of conveying meaningful information. The thesaurus provided synonyms such as to stay in touch, exchange a few words, speak, talk... no wonder we believe that speaking is communicating.
We don't teach children to communicate; we teach them to speak a language. They learn to communicate their displeasure by throwing tantrums, and how do we respond? We ignore them, scold them, or give in to them. What did they learn? They learned that without speaking a word they got us to take an action.
How does this translate to the business world? Perhaps you have an employee who is habitually late. Sometimes we don't confront them yet hope their behavior changes. Other times we may share our displeasure with them and give them the 'shape up or ship out' talk. And if they provide excuses and/or their behavior doesn't change, we give in and let them come in late. What did they learn? We used words but often our actions speak louder than our words. We communicated through our actions, not our words.
Let's take another example. You have a demanding, difficult customer. The decision is made to talk to the customer and tell them their demands are unreasonable. The conversation goes something like, "Mr. Customer, we have attempted to satisfy you but regardless of our actions you seem dissatisfied. I'm not sure what else we can do at this point." Few of us would specifically tell a customer their demands are unreasonable. We'd dance around the topic, speak some words and then wonder why the outcome is not what we want.
Just because we speak does not mean we are communicating. Do your words match your actions? Are you clearly communicating what you want to say, or are you expecting someone to read between the lines? Next time you are dismayed with the outcome of your communication, ask yourself if you spoke words, or if you delivered a message that could be understood. Did you say one thing but mean something else? Were you hoping to not have to be direct but that the other party would still get the message? Confusing the speaking of words with the art of communicating will not get you the results you want