By Harvey Mackay

Rudy Giuliani wrote the book on leadership when he was mayor of New York City. He steered the nation through the harrowing experience of Sept. 11. Now he has put pen to paper. Giuliani has captured the essence of leading people. He's done it as well as any elected official since Winston Churchill. Giuliani’s book is called Leadership. If you only buy one book this year, this is the one.

Practical hints on how to excel? This book offers nearly 400 pages of eye-popping tips. “A leader must manage not only results but expectations. … Prepare relentlessly. Underpromise and overdeliver.” Let's say you're a law enforcement official. Want to bust crime in the nose? Giuliani supports the “‘Broken windows’ theory of crime-fighting.” If you pay “attention to ‘minor’ infractions like aggressive panhandling, graffiti and turnstile-jumping [it] would greatly reduce all crime. ... The idea of sweating the small stuff applies not only to crime but to every challenge a manager faces.” How did he beat crime in New York City? One ace up his sleeve was a system called Compstat. “Crime statistics were collected and analyzed every single day to recognize patterns and potential trouble before it spread.” A cornerstone of the book is “seeing things with your own eyes and of setting an example.” Why? So he could “evaluate ... every crisis … first hand.” When St. Agnes School caught fire in Midtown Manhattan in 1992, Rudy Giuliani learned about it on the spot as a concerned citizen. He walked into the fire zone and helped clear people out. He wasn’t even an elected official back then. The traits proved invaluable as he walked lower Manhattan nearly a decade later as the World Trade Center collapsed.

Giuliani's account of the Sept. 11 disaster is gripping. He saw one man jump from the 102nd floor of Tower One. “That someone would choose certain death,” he writes, “brought home the reality of what was unfolding on the floors above where the planes had hit.” In the middle of it all, Giuliani focused on a single practical goal. “My objective was to re-establish city government.” I wanted leaders of companies involved in future disasters to understand what was expected of them – clear, honest, timely communication.”

Great leaders lead by ideas. Leaders must find a balance between speed and deliberation. — Rudy Giuliani, former mayor of New York City

What do you do in a crisis? “Calm people down ... contribute to an orderly and safe evacuation.” And, prepare for the next blow. “I tried to get inside the heads of the terrorists. What were they going to attack next?”

Here's the guy who took the smut out of Manhattan's Times Square. “My aim was to solve the problem directly, to send the message that government could accomplish things.”

And, there's a personal story too. Last week, mayor Giuliani and I spent a day together. Among the many things we discussed was prostate cancer, a peril we both know personally. He went on to tell me, “No matter how open one is about a life-threatening illness, ultimately you face it alone.”

What permitted Giuliani to do his job so well? The hand-picked team he surrounded himself with. Diversity? “Some bosses hire only those of like mind. A leader has to surround himself with a complementary staff. ... Many times I selected people for jobs knowing that I'd be criticized for choosing them.”

Even the best leaders have to stand up to denial. He writes of Sept. 11: “I closed my eyes and expected to open them and see the Twin Towers still standing. This is not real. This is not real,” he writes. “Then I'd shake myself. Damn right it's real, and I had better figure out what I'm going to do about it.”

Mackay's Moral and Rudy's Rules: “Be direct and unfiltered” and “Stick to your word.”

How did Giuliani master this crisis so well? Link it back to the practical and basic style of his management as mayor. Take the routine morning meeting: “The main purpose of the morning meeting was to get control of the day.”

This book is hands-on from start to finish. One piece of advice: “Visualize things for yourself.” Giuliani admires a “nun who taught my class in grammar school about how a bill becomes law.” When he became mayor, Giuliani did what too few city moguls do; he “read the entire city charter, paying particular attention to the chapters about how spending bills proceed.” “Great leaders lead by ideas,” Giuliani contends. “Leaders must find a balance between speed and deliberation.”

Mackay's Moral and Rudy's Rules: “Be direct and unfiltered” and “Stick to your word.”

Reprinted with permission from nationally syndicated columnist Harvey Mackay, author of the New York Times bestsellers Swim With The Sharks Without Being Eaten Alive and Pushing The Envelope. Mackay can be contacted through his website www.mackay.com.

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