Gayle Beebe is the President of Westmont College and one of the finest leaders I know. I serve on the Board of Trustees for the college and have watched Gayle navigate the institution through some very turbulent years. His academic credibility combined with savvy leadership style make him highly effective.

So it’s no surprise that he would write The Shaping of an Effective Leader: Eight Formative Principles of Leadership. Gayle walks the reader through his concepts of leadership, drawing heavily on his experience as a student under Peter Drucker. But this is not a rehash of Drucker ideas. Gayle outlines eight principles of leadership that form a progressive pyramid of understanding.

The foundation of Gayle’s pyramid is character. His opening chapter on this topic should be mandatory reading for every business major or MBA candidate. If our business and economic leaders had followed the principles that Gayle outlines, a lot of the nastier economic news of the past few years would have been avoided.

Upon this foundation of character Gayle builds seven more principles: competence, chemistry, culture, compatibility, convictions, connections and commitment. Taken together, Gayle creates a structure for leadership that is easily understood and followed. Not that becoming a leader is easy — quite the contrary, because the book outlines some hard steps that good leaders must take. But the structure gives context for growing into the role of leadership.

This is a solid book reflecting Gayle’s impressive achievements and experiences. It is a book well worth reading if you are interested in growing in your understanding of leadership.