Unusually Excellent:The Necessary Nine Skills Required for the Practice of Great Leadership

The business environment is constantly changing, but the basic laws of excellent leadership remain just as powerful and just as vital to every executive’s success.  

Our summary of Unusually Excellent, by John Hamm,offers both seasoned and aspiring leaders a framework for applying the fundamentals of leadership at every stage of their careers.  This is a summary for leaders, not about them.  It is not about the introduction of clever new notions of leadership, but about the reassertion of proven principles.

Hamm is one of the top leadership experts in Silicon Valley.  He has been a partner at several venture capital firms, a CEO, a board member at more than 30 companies, and a CEO advisor and executive coach to senior leaders at such companies as Cisco, Hewlett-Packard, TaylorMade-adidas Golf, and McAfee.  He teaches leadership at the Leavy School of Business at Santa Clara University.

As Hamm explains, excellent leadership is composed of actions, ideas, emotions, cultural forces, history, and expectations that work together in an interconnected system.  This system forms the core of the winning combination of superb character, skill-based competence, and professional reputation.

Any leader can excel by consistently putting into action the nine skills we will explore in this summary.