Book Review: The Visionary Leader How to Inspire Success from the Top Down

When you own a small but growing business, you can use all the help you can get.  A new book entitled, “The Visionary Leader How to Inspire Success from the Top Down,” by Susan Bagyura takes a holistic approach to managing people and team building.  A management coach and seminar speaker, Ms. Bagyura talks to the reader as if the reader were sitting in one of her seminars.

In the beginning of the book, Ms. Bagyura discusses different leadership styles ranging from authoritative to democratic leadership. A chapter follows this on professional success, in which Ms. Bagyura writes, “The most successful people know what their purpose is and persist in what it takes to realize wealth and success.”  This is where the book changes to becoming more self-motivational and talking about ways to believe in you.  She quotes Mary Kaye of Mary Kaye Cosmetics as saying, “feel the fear and do it anyway.”

Recently I was talking with a coach myself about how to grow my business and he told me if I believe and everyone else believes it will happen.  Susan Bagyura reiterates that statement.

In the following chapter, she talks about the team and who’s on the team.  She writes that there are different types that will be challenging and yet need to be managed differently.  The one takeaway from the chapter is that the CEO or President of the organization puts the imprint on the organization and the group will follow the culture.

Another point that Susan Bagyura makes which I found interesting was that she felt it was important to give staff and prospects a personality test to see who fits the organizational mold.  This is followed by learning what your mission and value statements are and goal setting for the staff and the leader.

Interestingly, three months ago, my staff and I created goals for ourselves and we discussed the results today.  Most of the staff achieved their goals because they wanted to make them happen.  One of my staff members wanted to get more involved in networking and try to bring in leads and because she believed it she made it happen.  That’s what Susan Bagyura is talking about – believing in yourself to make things happen.

As the book progresses, she becomes much more spiritual and offers the reader visualizations to believe in him/herself.

The decision chapter is also thought provoking.  I know for myself when I make a tough decision, I think that maybe I should have done the alternative.  She says, once you make a decision, “don’t look back.”  She says don’t be indecisive, don’t have fear and don’t avoid the inevitable.  She tells a story about a group of millionaires who have only one thing in common; they don’t feel as though they can fail.