Book Review: Lead Like Ike

I have to tell you that I was excited to receive Lead Like Ike by Geoff Loftus from Book Sneeze when I read the synopsis.  Unfortunately, once I received the book, and I cracked it open, my excitement level began to fade quickly.  I love the idea of meshing the worlds of Dwight Eisenhower's role in coordinating the largest military campaign in history up that point in time and the world of leadership. 

The book missed on several points.  At times, it appeared that the chapters were written independently from one another and then pulled together in one book.  The same information, or concept was repeated multiple times yet in a way as though it was suppose to be the first time the reader was seeing it but it wasn't.  To be honest, it was very distracting.  The integration of the management strategies to the history of the D-Day invasion and the planning did not flow well at all.  Inserts for the "business strategy" seemed to be hap hazardly thrown around.  Relation to modern day business was sometimes integrated into the main text and other times as excerpts as well.  With regards to modern day company integration, it appeared Mr. Loftus chose to focus on 4 or 5 companies with the same basic concepts......It seemed very entry level.

As far as a leadership or management book goes, Lead Like Ike is a complete miss for me.  That being said, If Mr. Loftus had focused his efforts on creating a simple straightforward account of Dwight Eisenhower's role (What this book really is) in the D-Day planning, it would have been much better.  Unfortunately, that has been done multiple times and much better than this. 

I tried to find the best in Lead Like Ike.  I wanted to like it.  I was pulling Geoff, but at the end of the day, I was able to get through Lead Like Ike because I was obligated too.  Don't think I could have done it otherwise.