What Really Counts: Leadership for Life

by Kelvin Kent

Overview

What Really Counts: Leadership for Life takes a fresh look at what the world appears to see and accept as qualities necessary to reach the top. More importantly, the author questions this approach. To become a leader requires many different characteristics but that does not mean that all leaders are good people or become the ones that others would like to serve under.
Teachers, schools, students, uniformed services, up and coming business managers, adventurers on expeditions, professionals wishing to excel and everyone (both men and women) with an open and inquiring mind can benefit from the author’s extensive experience in laying out the criteria for lasting success and effective, goal-orientated and value-based techniques for achieving optimum results – both at work and in personal lives.
This book is eminently practical. It is not theoretical. It is based on insightful and objective personal experience, lessons learned and decades of study on the subject. It challenges all of us to take another look at what it takes to succeed meaningfully while enjoying lasting happiness and peace of mind. Hundreds of examples of world, national and local leaders are represented historically and currently via their respective fields as nation builders, military commanders, political leaders, business tycoons, adventurers and plain ordinary folk who have made a difference. This easily readable and eminently practical account examines many different aspects of the subject including human psychology, personality types, human nature, ambition and legacies to be left behind and how we judge success; but digs deeper to reveal the negative repercussions and ramifications of wrong uses of leadership – even though history demonstrates that gullible masses and weak individuals have tended to follow mindlessly or out of fear. Conversely the book highlights the rewards of good leadership whether inherited or learned along the way and to what degree these positive qualities are based on art or science.
Kelvin Kent, originally from the UK but having lived in the United States for 35 years, builds his case for strong, ethical and effective leadership by emphasizing all the traits, characteristics and qualities that are necessary for a worthy and respected leader to understand and develop. The goal; becomes one of producing better, lasting results, without loss of face, usurping of power or having to resort to bad practices. He then refines this list into what he calls the Fourteen Pillars that are indispensible in order to achieve the maximum and most beneficial outcome as win-win whereby everyone participates.
With personal business experiences and anecdotes, lessons learned as a military commander, community leader and adventurer in the field and how leaders of expeditions cope when things go wrong, Kelvin Kent illuminates the way forward to attaining what is necessary and right. In short: How leadership is acquired and how it works. Kent’s personal life, with its many ups and downs, is an amazing journey in itself and provides, in a frank, honest fashion, what we need to know to excel in our respective fields.
Not least of what is covered is the subject of ego and its damaging effects, if not recognized and corrected. Women are also highlighted for their own particular brands of leadership, often regarded as more relationship-orientated and gentler in approach while still showing and gaining respect, to reach the highest positions.

Product Details

BN ID:	2940013193000
Publisher:	kelvin b kent
Publication date:	08/01/2011
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
File size:	2 MB

About the Author

Kelvin B Kent
Kelvin Kent is a true believer of the term “teach what you need to learn”. From living under German occupation in the British Channel Islands to experiencing corporate life in London and serving 16 years as an officer in the British military, while participating in numerous world-wide expeditions and operating his own business in the US for 25 years, he has made it a point to study leadership in all its forms so that he could learn from it and impart this knowledge to others.
Kent experienced combat duty in Asia in the early 60s, drove overland to Calcutta from the UK via Europe, Turkey, Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Nepal and India, was deputy leader of the British Trans Americas expedition which took two Range Rovers from Anchorage Alaska to Tierra Del Fuego in Southern Chile, summited the highest mountain in SE Asia and Kilimanjaro in Tanzania, trekked over 2,500 miles in Nepal, lived in or traveled though over 60 countries, climbed with Sir Chris Bonington on the South Face of Annapurna and Southwest Face of Everest, taught leadership as a company commander at Britain’s Royal Military Academy and served as president of numerous local organizations from Rotary and Chamber of Commerce to Performing Arts and Church Councils.
He ran his own successful small business for 25 years.
He has had four books published ranging from hiking in southwest Colorado to fundraising.
When not travelling (he has been to India and Nepal 17 times) he spends summers in the San Juan Mountains of Colorado and winters in southern Arizona and is well known as a presenter on several subjects including adventurous expeditions, leadership, world religions and cultures, the Indian Sub-Continent, small business and fundraising.

Editorial Reviews

Kelvin Kent, a leader in his own right, through distinguished British military service, historic mountain and overland expeditions, and running his own businesses, makes the strong case that true and effective leadership is a matter of character, based on one’s values, virtues, and principles. He then boils it all down, making it simple for the reader, into what he calls his fourteen Pillars of Leadership. It’s easy to follow, and if put into practice, could change the world. So, i

Jerry Overton

I have read this book and have no hesitation in recommending it as a fine source of highly useful information, presented in a most exciting and readable fashion that would be of immense value to college students and faculty alike. The world needs this kind of approach to leadership in every field out there and hereI include the uniformed services, business,community involvement and anyone, male or female who wishes to suceed.Richard Poole, PhD, Retired Vice President Oklahoma State Universit

Richard Poole

A bold and timely challenge to the status quo of what the world has come to accept as qualities for our leaders, whether they be junior, senior or those at the very top. Kent utilizes his vast experience as an observer and leader himself to re-assess what values are the most important, not just for the aspiring leader but for those under him or her and for the world. No one can fail to gain from this inspiring and practical book that explains all that we need to know to succeed and still be happ

Charmian Neville

Trust and Courage: Two of the fourteen characteristics essential in a good leader according to this eminently readable and accessible book which is part autobiography and part instruction manual. Drawing on his own and others’ experiences, the author sets out an achievable program for all aspiring leaders. It should be read, too, by all the world’s movers and shakers. Beth Lloyd. Former BBC Broadcast journalist, senior manager Heritage Organization and travel company owner.

Elsbeth Lloyd

I was transfixed by the sheer passion and enthusiasm for the subject. Kelvin Kent obviously possesses the qualifications to convey what he has observed and gained himself to save the rest of us time, energy and cost. By refining every aspect of human nature and behavior and employing lessons learned over the centuries by hundreds of world leaders, both great and small, he builds his case for the Fourteen Pillars which can become a blueprint for the world to follow, if it comes to realize What Re

Gary Fischer