Sequel to a popular 1996 collection of essays on leadership, The Leader of the Future 2 re-examines leadership in the context of globalization and the growing emphasis on organizational social responsibility. Editors Frances Hesselbein, editor-in-chief of Leader to Leader and founding president of the Drucker Foundation, and Marshall Goldsmith, an executive educator, have collected essays from leaders in the academic, nonprofit, corporate, and military sectors to bring a wide range of authority and experience to the issue of leadership. More importantly, the contributors to the volume are all innovative thinkers and adept at looking ahead to what leadership will and should entail in the future rather than what has worked in the past.

The result is a thorough analysis of the professional assets that drive nonprofit leadership, as well as an examination of the role of corporations in remedying global economic disparities at a time when for-profit organizations can no longer afford to promote the bottom line as their sole raison d'être. The authors are precise, authoritative, and do a superb job of distilling their insights and opinions into compact essays that should be valuable to anyone looking to cultivate a leadership role in his or her organization.

While the volume focuses on the traits shared by effective leaders, most notably the forward thinking that would-be leaders must cultivate in order to succeed in today's global environment, it also provides useful information on a range of topics, from the importance of true diversity (i.e., valuing a variety of viewpoints based on different perspectives rather than just "filling quotas") to effectively inspiring knowledge workers in a competitive environment where job security is rarely guaranteed.

Leadership studies have flourished in the last decade, in part due to the staggering success of the original volume in this series. A tough act to follow, for sure, but the second volume doesn't disappoint. While the voices captured between the book's covers range from the academic to the informal, every contributor to the book puts a premium on readability and the practical applications of his or her ideas. The result is a book you'll gladly read for pleasure as well as inspiration.