The Leader Who Had No Title
This is a book summary of the book “The Leader Who Had No Title”. This book is written by Robin Sharma.
Main character of this book is Blake Davis who is a war veteran. Who is living an ordinary life and working for a book company. He lost his parents and he didn’t have a good love life. He looked back on his military life as a bad phase of his life and he is not able to come out of it.
Meeting with Tommy
One fine day, Tommy comes to the bookstore to meet Blake. He introduced himself and as a friend of this father. Tommy is an old person aged around 77 years. He works in the same book company where Blake works. He is one of the most respected employees of the book company. He won all the prestigious awards in the book company. The CEO and other leaders of the company take business related advice from Tommy. He introduced him as “Leader Without Title” LWT. Tommy tells Blake that there is no need to have any formal title or authorities or designation to lead others. Tommy expressed his interest to teach him LWT theory. Unhappy to life, Blake decides to follow Tommy.
Next morning, they both met at a cemetery next. He finds that the old man has dug up two graves, each containing a tablet, the first having “The 10 Human Regrets” inscribed on it and the other, a golden one, with “The 10 Human Victories”. These are 10 regrets with which we die and on the other hand if we do 10 things, we would have a great successful life. Here are both regrets and victories for your reference.
| S.NO. | 10 Human Regrets | 10 Human Victories |
| 1 | You reach your last day with the brilliant song that your life was meant to sing still silent within you | You reach your end full of happiness and fulfilment on realising that you are all used up – having spent the fullness of your talents, the biggest of your resources, and best of your potential doing great work and leading a rare-air life |
| 2 | You reach your last day without ever having experienced the natural power that inhabits you to do great work and achieve great things | You reach your end knowing that you played at a standard of concentrated excellence and held yourself to the most impeccable standards in each thing you did |
| 3 | You reach your last day realising that you never inspired anyone else by the example you set | You reach your end in noisy celebration for having the boldness of spirit to have regularly confronted your largest fears and realised your highest visions |
| 4 | You reach your last day full of pain at the realisation that you never took any bold risks and so you never received any bright rewards | You reach your end and recognise that you became a person who build people up versus one who tore people down |
| 5 | You reach your last day understanding that you missed the opportunity to catch a glimpse of mastery because you bought into the lie that you had to be resigned to mediocrity | You reach your end with the understanding that while your journey may have not always been a smooth one, whenever you got knocked down you instantly got back up – and at all times, never suffered from any loss optimism |
| 6 | You reach your last day and feel heartbroken that you never learned the skill of transforming adversity into victory and lead into gold | You reach your end and bask in the staggering glory of your phenomenal achievements along with the rich value you have contributed to the lives of the people you were lucky to serve |
| 7 | You reach your last day regretting that you forgot that work is about being radically helpful to others rather than being helpful only to yourself | You reach your end and adore the strong, ethical, inspirational and empathetic person you grew into |
| 8 | You reach your last day with the awareness that you ended up living the life that society trained you to want versus leading the life you truly wanted to have | You reach your end and realise that you were a genuine innovator who blazed new trails instead of following old roads |
| 9 | You reach your last day and awaken to the fact that you never realised your absolute best nor touched the special genius that you were built to become | You reach your end surrounded with teammates who call you a rock star, customers who say you’re a hero, and loved ones who call you a legend |
| 10 | You reach your last day and discover you could have been a leader and left this world so much better than you found it. But you refused to accept this mission because you were just too scared. And wasted a life | You reach your end as a true Leader Without a Title, knowing that the great deeds you did will endure long after your death and that your life stands as a model of possibility |
Morning meeting with Tommy really inspired Blake. He was keen to learn LWT theory. Tommy then, during the course of the day, takes him to meet the four great leaders (Anna, Ty, Jackson and Jet) who gives Blake different insight of leadership (LWT).
Meeting with Anna
Anna works as a housekeeper in one of the best hotels in New York. Anna says, if you look at people consider a housekeeping job as an insignificant job but this is something very crucial in the functioning of any hotel. She is a master in housekeeping and taking care of customers. Hotel customers (great CEOs) who stay in the hotel request Anna to be their housekeeper. She really made a great rapport with customers with her work. She gave more meaning of LWT. She shared 4 “Natural Powers” which are there in every human being.
Natural Power # 1 – We have power to go to work each day and express the Absolute best within us and you need no title for that
Natural Power # 2 – You have power to inspire, influence and elevate each person we meet by the gift of a great example and you need no title to do that
Natural Power # 3 – You can passionately drive positive change in the face of negative conditions, and you need no title to do that
Natural Power # 4 – You can treat all the stakeholders with respect, appreciations, and kindness and in so doing raise the organization’s culture to best breed and you need no title to do that.
Meeting with Ty
After meeting with Anna, Tommy takes Blake to the next LWT teacher, Ty Boyd. Ty is five times skiing champion. Who met with an accident due to which he could not continue his sport career. He told him, “Turbulent times build great leaders”. He shared his LWT secrets with him in a 5 letter acronym “SPARK”. Please refer to the mind map to understand the meaning of SPARK.
Meeting with Jackson
Post that, they went to meet the third teacher, Jackson Chan. He is an ex-CEO of a multibillion-dollar technology company turned gardener. He learned that,” The deeper your relationships, the stronger your leadership”. The acronym that he gave was “HUMAN”. Please refer to the mind map to understand the meaning of HUMAN.
Meeting with Jet
Then they met with the fourth and the last teacher of LWT. His name was Jet Brisley. He was one of the best-known massage therapists in all of New York. He told Blake that ..
- Blood, sweat and tears are necessary to reach dreams, hopes and joys.
- To be a great leader, one must first be a great person. One must be a leader of self.
- According to Jet, the seven fundamentals of personal leadership are: learning, affirmations, visualization, journaling, goal setting, exercise and nutrition.
Learning acronym for personal leadership was “SHINE”. Please refer to the mind map to understand the meaning of SHINE.
In the book closure, we came to know that Tommy was down with cancer. He started coughing blood and beginning to shake terribly and he left this world. He leaves a note for Blake and gives him his car (Porsche). His last words in the letter read, ‘Dream boldly. Live beautifully. And to your last breath Lead Without a Title.’
Before I read this book, I used to think Leadership is something which comes with experience and when we reach a certain level in our professional career. I really liked the concept of LWT, wish we would have known it when we started our career. It would be helpful for the organization to take it to the next level if they can implement LWT philosophy in organization DNA.
I expect this book summary will give you a fair idea about the book. If this blog inspired and created interest, then please read the book. I am sure this book will bring a positive change in you.