Two things about this page were wrong and have been fixed. It was filed under Family and reviewed as a “Christian parenting book” about leading your household. It is not a parenting book. The Spirit of Leadership: Cultivating the Attributes That Influence Human Action is a general leadership book, and Munroe writes it for anyone who holds influence over other people: at work, in a church, in a community, in a home. The family framing was invented, along with a review team that does not exist.
The second thing: the listing this page links to is the audiobook, narrated by BZ Cullins, about six and three quarter hours. The print edition from Whitaker House runs 304 pages. Check which one you are ordering.
A note on the author
Myles Munroe died in a plane crash in the Bahamas in November 2014. The editions on sale now are posthumous reissues of a book first published by Whitaker House in 2005, so nothing here has been updated by him since. That matters mainly for the examples, which are of their time.
Munroe sits in a charismatic stream whose wider teaching on potential, purpose and prosperity is contested, and CalledToBetter does not carry books that teach prosperity doctrine. This is not one of them. It is a leadership book and it is judged here on that basis. You should still know the wider body of work it belongs to before you go looking for more of his titles.
The argument
Munroe’s distinction is between leadership as a position and leadership as a spirit, meaning a disposition you carry whether or not anyone has given you a title. His claim is that most leadership training works on technique when the real constraint is what a person believes about himself.
From there he works through the attitudes he says every effective leader shares: a settled sense of purpose, a willingness to be responsible for outcomes, self discipline, and a refusal to be governed by other people’s opinion of you. He spends a good deal of the book on what blocks these, and he is direct that the main obstacle is usually a man’s own view of what he is permitted to become.
His central conviction, which runs through everything he wrote, is that leadership is latent in everyone rather than reserved for a few. Whether you find that liberating or overstated will largely decide how you feel about the book.
Where to read carefully
The potential language is the thing to watch. Munroe is close to the boundary between biblical teaching and motivational writing, and in places he crosses it. Statements about what you can become sometimes rest on assertion rather than on a text, and a reader looking for careful exposition will not find much of it here.
That is worth naming plainly rather than pretending the book is something it is not. Take it as a work of exhortation. It is trying to move you, not to argue you into a position, and it is better at the first than the second.
Style and readability
Munroe preaches on the page. Short declarative sentences, a lot of repetition for emphasis, and plenty of lines that would work on a wall. It reads quickly and it is easy to pull discussion points out of, which is why the book does well in groups.
The audiobook suits the material, since this was always closer to spoken address than to written argument.
Who it suits
A man who has been handed responsibility and does not feel entitled to it. Anyone leading volunteers, a team, or a ministry without a formal title. Small groups that want something quotable to argue about.
Less useful if you want research, case studies, or a worked theology of authority. There are better books for that.
Bottom line
A confident, quotable book about the inner disposition behind leadership, light on evidence and heavy on conviction. Worth reading for the challenge, not for the argument.
Find The Spirit of Leadership on Amazon.