Lead or Get Off the Pot!: The Seven Secrets of a Self-Made Leader

Leadership is a pretty slow-moving field of inquiry, and ex-Philadelphia 76ers president Croce, author of I Feel Great and You Will Too!, breaks no new theoretical ground. Leaders, he contends, should be servants, not dictators. They should embrace change, articulate a vision, and ignite""visible and visceral passion"" in underlings. They must delegate without evading responsibility, walk the walk, and generally be moral paragons. As far as praxis, he offers perfunctory tips on listening, remembering names, incentivizing workers (consumer electronics bonuses are a favorite ploy) and conducting job interviews (""automatically eliminate anyone who doesn't smile within the first five seconds""), and recommends greeting everyone with""a hearty hello."" His inspirational anecdotes tend to extol routine civility; exemplars include friends of Croce's who returned some money they found in a mislaid suitcase instead of stealing it, and Croce himself, who once helped fix an old man's bicycle chain. What redeems the book is Croce's boisterous motivational tone, which mixes locker-room oratory (""Don't smell like should. Should stinks. Wipe the should off of yourself. Slap the should out of yourself"") with inchoate ebullience (""I love preening and screaming 'Yesssss!'""--or sometimes--""'a guttural 'Yaaaaaa!'""). Without wasting time trying to parse the title, it should be noted that the reference is apparently to a chamber pot, a theme expanded on in several disquisitions on""shit,"" which just""happens"" and should be endured with a positive attitude, and""bullshit,"" which should not be put up with at all. The frequent jolts of salty language and gleeful exuberance make this one of the less soporific examples of the business leadership genre.