The Leadership Crash Course was first released in 2000. In the eight years preceding that, I had researched and written two books ? one on leadership, the other on large-scale change in organizations. During that time, a common theme emerged in my conversations with clients, readers and colleagues, whether they were CEOs or Chief Finance Officers of globe-straddling businesses, mid-level managers in local operations in Spain or South Africa, investment bankers on Wall Street or in London, or the administrators of sprawling government institutions the world over. Typically the letter, e-mail or conversation would run something like: ?I?ve been to training courses on leadership. I?ve read dozens of books. I?ve thought about the great leaders ? Alexander the Great, Churchill, Mahatma Gandhi, Patton, Nelson, Napoleon, Mandela. It?s all fascinating ? in theory ? but how do I apply it to me, to my situation now in a practical, down-to-earth way?? What was startling to me was how similar these views were at every level of every organization. You would expect young, ambitious supervisors to openly ask for help as they developed their leadership potential but mid- and senior-level executives were seeking the same pragmatic support and insight about the actions they should take, the behaviour they needed to develop and the things they should focus on. What they did not want was more theory or more lessons from the lives of the gifted ?Great Leaders? like those mentioned above, whose very greatness made them both remote and impossible to emulate.