The Leadership Crash Course: How to Create Personal Leadership Value; Second Edition.

The Leadership Crash Course: How to Create Personal Leadership Value; Second Edition. By Paul Taffinder. Kogan Page US, 176 pages, $27.50.

In this updated version of a book first published in 2000, Paul Taffinder effectively explores the basic personal and emotional components of leadership. A psychologist by training, Taffinder aims to dig deep into not just what people do right or wrong, but how elements such as body language can send messages that don't comport with what is being said.

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Taffinder, now a partner with Marakon Associates, says he added more case studies and "updated war stories on leaders" to this edition--as well as a final chapter on seven different types of leaders (Transformational Leader, Enforcer, Deal-Maker, Administrator, Visionary, Serial Entrepreneur and Spin Doctor) that echoes other leadership books that construct archetypes tied to actual individuals.

The book's organization is much like a textbook, with a formal organization into "modules" and "self-testing" elements. While his examples are relevant and effective, the presentation tends to be list-heavy and a bit disjointed. Indeed, Taffinder himself notes in a preface that the book "was to be a series of modules that individuals at many levels could study, deploy in their departments or businesses, or simply use as a reminder from time to time of what leadership was really about." In that, he's succeeded: this is a comprehensive and well-constructed resource on leadership skills and how to improve them.