Book Review: 10 Powerful Personas

Ever wonder what makes a leader great?  Ever spend time thinking about what the strengths are in your personality or how you might be able to become more like great people around you? Kevin Vogelsang has and he's written a book to help you answer those questions.  In his just released book "10 Powerful Personas," Kevin examines key attributes of 10 different qualities found in leaders. I learned a lot from the book and I'd like to share a few of the lessons here:

1) Leaders come from everywhere

One of the most interesting things about Kevin's book is the balance in people he uses as examples of different leaders.  He uses everyone from General Patton to his football coach to his mother as examples of the different powerful personas to great effect.  Because of his wide variety of examples, it made me think about who around me, both famous and friend, that exhibited the traits he describes; it was an excellent reminder that you can really learn from anyone around you if you simply raise your awareness and look for it. 

2) There's a slippery slope

With every persona, there was also an "evil twin." These anti-personas were cases where a persona had gone too far.  Example pairings were the Enthusiast vs. the Fanatic and the Clown vs. the Fool.  In the case of the Clown, many can use humor to great effect as leaders, but if you're clowning around all the time, no one will take you seriously when you have something important to say, which makes you the Fool.  

It's important to remember you need to have everything in moderation; Kevin made sure to remind us that even great leadership personas can go too far.

3) Leadership is a skill to be learned like anything else

The last section of the book is focused on how you can learn and apply the personas in this book to your life.  The key is to recognize that these are skills to be learned. We can all improve our leadership, but it requires effort.  Change does not happen overnight, and so commitment is required. Kevin has been through his own journey to learn the leadership skills he has and he does a great job of sharing his own struggles and triumphs in learning from others.  He recommends identify which personas you most easily relate to and honing them first; these will come easier. It takes more focus and determination to add an entirely new persona, but it can be done if you apply yourself and observe others who have the traits.

If you're looking to learn more about the key traits of leaders or just more about yourself as a leader, this is a great book to pick up.  I already have a lot to think about because of this book. I look forward to learning more effectively from others around me because I can now better recognize what others are doing as great leaders.