{"id":1068,"date":"2015-12-30T08:07:48","date_gmt":"2015-12-30T15:07:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/nickduffel.com\/?p=1068"},"modified":"2015-12-30T08:07:48","modified_gmt":"2015-12-30T15:07:48","slug":"book-review-the-heart-led-leader-by-tommy-spaulding","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nickduffel.com\/?p=1068","title":{"rendered":"BOOK REVIEW: &#8220;The Heart-Led Leader&#8221; by Tommy Spaulding"},"content":{"rendered":"<body><p><\/p><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" decoding=\"async\" class=\" size-full wp-image-1073 alignleft\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.nickduffel.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/12\/51cbf7qnenl-_sy344_bo1204203200_1-1.jpg?resize=232%2C346\" alt=\"51CBF7QnENL._SY344_BO1,204,203,200_\" width=\"232\" height=\"346\" loading=\"lazy\">A leader who doesn\u2019t lead with his heart is not really a leader. How can a person lead without passion and expect others to follow? In his excellent book, <em>The Heart-Led Leader<\/em>, Tommy Spaulding takes this idea to the next level. Leaders don\u2019t just need to use their heart to lead with passion, they also need it to lead with love.\n<p>As a Christian leader, I\u2019m familiar with the concepts of servant leadership and \u201cleading with love,\u201d but these concepts seem to be breaking through in a big way in the business world in the last decade. On the surface however, \u201clove\u201d and \u201cbusiness leadership\u201d seem to be strange bedfellows. I\u2019ll admit I even squirmed a little when I read in the introduction that \u201clove\u201d of all things is what could increase the stock price and profits of your business. Is that going too far?<\/p>\n<p>As story after story in this book demonstrate, no, it\u2019s not going too far. Now, this isn\u2019t a book about using the power of love to increase your business profits, but sometimes that is a happy byproduct of creating an organizational culture where people are valued for who they are, and not just what they bring to the table.<\/p>\n<p>Spaulding loves to tell stories, and the largest section of the book is comprised of eighteen vignettes (one for each inch between the head and the heart), and each of these contains real, human stories illustrating vital aspects of love like \u201ctransparency,\u201d \u201chumility,\u201d \u201cencouragement,\u201d and \u201cforgiveness.\u201d It may be a little crass, but this book would be a great one to keep in the bathroom since it really functions as a leadership devotional of sorts.<\/p>\n<p>And the stories! These are some incredible stories. Spaulding deftly avoids falling into the maudlin trap, and instead these are messy, raw, and emotional stories of people loving others when it was really hard. Love is elevated to where it belongs, out of the realm of \u201cfeelings\u201d and into that one reserved for the courageous and tenacious. Love isn\u2019t for the faint of heart, it\u2019s for leaders. In fact, it\u2019s often what turns ordinary people into leaders.<\/p>\n<p>I suspect Tommy Spaulding is a believer, although he doesn\u2019t wear his faith on his sleeve, preferring keep these important leadership lessons aimed at a general audience. It should be said, though, that Jesus is the ultimate model of the principles put forth in this book, as the ultimate heart-lead Leader. I appreciate this book so much, and I appreciate Spaulding for having the courage to write a book like this. This is a must-read for all leaders, believer or non-believer. I pray the business world, the nonprofit sector, and the leaders in the church all take notice.<\/p>\n<p>Please Note: This book was gifted as a part of the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.bloggingforbooks.com\/\">Blogging for Books<\/a> Reviewers Program in exchange for my unbiased review of this work. This has in no way influenced my opinion or review of this work.<\/p>\n<\/body>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A leader who doesn\u2019t lead with his heart is not really a leader. How can a person lead without passion and expect others to follow? In his excellent book, The Heart-Led Leader, Tommy Spaulding takes this idea to the next level. Leaders don\u2019t just need to use their heart to lead with passion, they also&hellip;&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.nickduffel.com\/?p=1068\" rel=\"bookmark\">Read More &raquo;<span class=\"screen-reader-text\">BOOK REVIEW: &#8220;The Heart-Led Leader&#8221; by Tommy Spaulding<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"neve_meta_sidebar":"","neve_meta_container":"","neve_meta_enable_content_width":"","neve_meta_content_width":0,"neve_meta_title_alignment":"","neve_meta_author_avatar":"","neve_post_elements_order":"","neve_meta_disable_header":"","neve_meta_disable_footer":"","neve_meta_disable_title":"","_themeisle_gutenberg_block_has_review":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[3,4,12],"tags":[15,32,111,113,114,116,150,157,168,169],"class_list":["post-1068","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blogging-for-books","category-books-2","category-reviews","tag-52-books","tag-books","tag-jesus","tag-leaders","tag-leadership","tag-love","tag-reading","tag-reviews-2","tag-servant-leadership","tag-service"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p7EHHr-he","jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nickduffel.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1068","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nickduffel.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nickduffel.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nickduffel.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nickduffel.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1068"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.nickduffel.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1068\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nickduffel.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1068"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nickduffel.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1068"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nickduffel.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1068"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}