Robert L. Dilenschneider. The Ultimate Guide to Power and Influence. Matt Holt, 2023.

The Ultimate Guide to Power and Influence provides a handbook for people in a position of leadership or influence. It is direct, clear, and based on the author’s own experience as a consultant for large corporations and his wide reading and research.

The author’s basic thesis is simple:

The goal is to give you ideas and to help you think about how to make your life better. Why? Because if your life is better, then everyone you come into contact with will be better. And that is an achievement. (21)

Beginning with the Socratic idea that the unexamined life is not worth living, the reader is encouraged, even exhorted, to examine his or her own life. And the overarching theme is that if you make the lives of those around you better, you have succeeded. Dilenschneider does quote a number of philosophers, but also he quotes many successful people in business and even a few from politics.

A recurring theme is integrity. A good leader must lead with integrity. People must trust the leader. There are practical chapters on networking, helping others, communicating, using social media, reacting to crises. All these things can contribute to one’s ability to lead. It is not so much cleverness as honesty and character.

One repeated idea is that good leaders listen. He gives numbers of examples of successful corporate leaders who in different ways received input from the people working for them. In some cases it was a matter of going through an entire plant and talking with all the workers. In other cases, it might be having meetings with no specific agenda, just to hear how things were going and if anyone had any good ideas.

Dilenschneider repeatedly tells us the importance of communicating by telling stories. And that is what much of the book is—stories about people in leadership positions. In some cases, it is how they got there; in some cases, how they stayed there; and in some, how they lost their positions. There is chapter on learning from mistakes. After all, anyone who takes a chance to lead something is bound to make some mistakes.

Two stories he tells illustrate a difference. Back in the early 1980s there were about half a dozen incidents of people receiving poisoned Tylenol. The capsules were apparently all poisoned while on store shelves, but Johnson & Johnson initiated a huge recall and handed out many refunds—and started using tamper-proof packaging. While sales fell at first, the quick response and willingness to take responsibility for something they did not initiate brought good will, and the sales revived quickly.

More recently, about ten years ago, news reports surfaced that Volkswagen was fudging some of its emissions measurements. At first they denied it, and then began making weak excuses. Many people at the car company ended up losing their jobs, though a final explanation continued to be vague. Sales declined and have never really recovered.

Both instances involve power, leadership, and issues of integrity. Perhaps some of the actions were perceptions not based on all the facts, but the handling of the two crises produced what many would say were predictable results in either case.

There are many stories and examples like these that make The Ultimate Guide to Power and Influence memorable and worth reading.

OK. So how does it compare to the granddaddy of such books: Dale Carnegie’s How to Win Friends and Influence People? I would not be surprised to hear that Mr. Dilenschneider took a Dale Carnegie course at one time.

When I was quite young, my father took a Dale Carnegie course. Being a preschooler and living in Pittsburgh, I think I got Dale and Andrew a little confused, but my father at the time was in both sales and politics. I know the classes helped him get elected and give effective speeches. I also recall much later when my father retired. At that point he was an officer of a well known insurance company. At his retirement party, his boss said that my father was always a man of integrity. That not only made me proud as his son, but also reminds us that, as Thoreau said, “truth alone wears well.”

Both books spend a lot of time about how we relate to others. Leaders need people. Good leaders do not exploit people. The commanding officer of the Coast Guard group I worked for had the rank of commander. He had worked his way up from the enlisted ranks to that position. He knew his stuff. But he said that he could not have become a commander if he did not have good people working for him.

Dilenschneider says something similar. If you want to be the best leader, bring out the best in those around you. This book shows you how in a surprisingly easy to digest form. And, of course, it includes things like emailing and social media and other things that did not exist when Mr. Carnegie was flourishing. If Dilenschneider were not so busy consulting and writing, perhaps he could start his own course.