A Leader's Destiny: Why Psychology, Personality, and Character Make All the Difference

by Elias Aboujaoude

A psychiatrist puts leadership “on the couch” to explore the crucial, often ignored psychological and personal character foundations of leadership.

Elias Aboujaoude explores how simplistic and hollow our concept of leadership has become, how divorced from the actual qualities and circumstances that make a truly great leader. The Everywhere we look, from corporate boardrooms to elected officials, we see failures of leadership.

Dr. Aboujaoude begins with a takedown of the foibles of so-called leadership experts he dubs the “leadership industrial complex.” an unholy alliance of gurus, coaches, business professors, TED-talkers seemingly united in a modern form of alchemy to create leadership gold.
 
Rather, he vividly illustrates, leaders emerge from a combination of personal, psychological, and situational factors that vary from person to person. Personality, he shows, is sticky, not malleable, viciously resisting attempts at manipulating it into something it is not. To a large degree, great leaders are born, or happen, with the help of innate temperament, talent, opportunity, timing, and circumstance, in ways that we do not fully understand.  

How Leaders Happen is a refreshing take on a classic subject " Frank and unflinching, it empowers readers to break free from the simplistic and hollow cult of leadership. Step up to lead if you are willing and capable, Dr. Aboujaoude urges, but if you decide otherwise, there are equally, often superior ways to make your contribution in the world."
 

Genres: Nonfiction, Leadership, Business

320 pages, Hardcover

Published May 21, 2024

Reviews

[Michael Guzman · Rating 2 out of 5]

The book started strong then went off the rails halfway through. His main point is that not everyone is capable of being a leader. The author states that personality plays the main role in determining if someone will be a good leader. As personality is sticky (most people don't change their personalities over time), leadership courses simply don't work or only work on the margins. You can't turn someone into a leader that doesn't have the right personality.

He switched topics halfway though the book. He makes the conclusion that unequal representation of fortune 500 CEOs in regard to race and sex are evidence of racism and misogyny. He also states that the women that were CEOs were purposely set up to fail when their respective companies didn't perform well. It's as though he believes boards of directors at multiple companies would purposely waste millions of dollars on compensation packages and lose millions more in market value just to prove women cannot be effective CEOs.

I was ready to rate this book 5 stars, but the author lost me when he started down this path. I do recommend reading part 1 of the book. Don't waste your time with the rest.

[Ell · Rating 4 out of 5]

As a former leader who became a freelancer many years ago I found this book quite interesting. Has leadership changed? Yes, I agree with the author that it has. Has it changed for the better? Whether your answer to that question is yes or no, there are undoubtedly opportunities to make the way we look at leadership less theoretical and more practical. Innate temperament, talent, opportunity, circumstances, and timing play crucial roles in great leadership. Cultivating egotistical tendencies does not. Cultivating cookie cutter leadership personas also falls short. Want to become a better leader or understand why leadership styles at your company are falling short? Pick up A Leader's Destiny, open your mind, and prepare to learn from one of the nation's top researchers and psychiatrists and the author of the thought-provoking books, "Virtually You: The Dangerous Powers of the e-Personality" and "Mental Heath in the Digital Age: Grave Dangers, Great Promise."

[John · Rating 3 out of 5]

The core premise of this book is that leadership requires soft skills that are to a large extent innate. Leadership can't be taught in these kind of quick-fix leadership programs you see throughout our business culture. His focus though is on what I would call "big L Leadership," presidential, executive, c-suite. He doesn't focus on the kind of leadership many of us in management roles have to do, something more personal, individual and workaday. Still, the book provides good food for thought as it meanders through its screed against the leadership industrial complex, the attention deficit of social media, DEI programs (not the concept, which he seems to support, but the execution), and the death of liberal arts education.

[Spenser White · Rating 3 out of 5]

The initial premise is fantastic-leadership is less “taught” and more caught or risen to the occasion
But he should stick to psychology and leave politics out.