The authors suggest that an effective leaders is one who successfully and consistently shares a central story to a sympathetic audience. Using a case study format, they describe transformational leaders who create new stories and tell of effective leaders who name a dormant theme and offer a new ending or twist to an old story. The book can help a pastor and congregations see how their faith story is shaped by both the work of the pulpit and the work of leadership.

From Amazon.com website:

Leading Minds addresses a crucial and often ignored component of leadership -- the mind. What distinguishes the mind of an effective leader, and what is the mentality of his or her followers? Gardner links the study of creativity with the study of leadership to demonstrate the many similarities between traditional creators (artists and scientists) and leaders in business, politics and the military. He argues that the key to leadership is the creation of an arresting story -- one that grabs the followers' attention and inspires them to greater efforts. In portraits of a wide range of leaders -- from Oppenheimer to Gandhi -- Gardner re-creates each of their stories, shows where each fits in the matrix of "leader archetypes", and reveals the ways in which they ultimately succeed or fail.