Book Review: Embracing senior leadership: Three critical factors needed to reach the C-suite and thrive by James W. Browning

• Published date: 01 October 2023
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1177/0095327X221147959
• Author: Sandra Harley Carey
• Date: 01 October 2023
• Subject Matter: Book Reviews

Armed Forces & Society

2023, Vol. 49(4) 1065 –1068

© The Author(s) 2022

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Book Review

Book Review

James W. Browning. (2022). Embracing senior leadership: Three critical factors needed

to reach the C-suite and thrive. Irvine, CA: Universal Publishers. 251 pp. $34.95 (paperback).

ISBN 978-1-62734-379-4.

Reviewed by: Sandra Harley Carey, Texas State University, San Marcos, TX, USA

DOI: 10.1177/0095327X221147959

Embracing Senior Leadership is a great leadership book. If you want to lead a leader-

ship seminar or teach a course, use it as a syllabus and lecture guide. Indeed, the

Army War College and The Defense Academy of the United Kingdom bought the

book for their faculty. The Air War College selected the book as its primary text for

the class of ’22. So, there are some “heavy hitters” who agree.

It is an essential book because, although leadership is a vast field of study, the

C-suite or the senior level is rarely explored in depth. In addition, the book also pro-

vides information that is thought-provoking and important even for readers who

aspire to something other than senior positions. And, who knows what opportunities

may open for you? Lincoln started as a rail splitter, Truman as a haberdasher, and

Reagan as a lifeguard.

Dr. James W. Browning, CAPT, USN (ret), is uniquely qualified to give senior

leadership guidance and advice. In the forward, he notes that he was “fortunate to be

in the rare position to write this book [having] been in the leadership development

businesses for three decades” (p. xx). In senior leadership positions, he has served as

Chairman of the Department of Strategic Leadership and consultant at the Eisenhower

School in Washington, D.C.; Director of the U.S. Navy’s worldwide leader develop-

ment programs; Chief of the Library of Congress Corporate University; and CEO of

a leadership training and consulting firm. He has also done his research. Browning

interviewed 200 senior leaders in business, industry, and the military and numerous

U.S. and Canadian corporate university program directors and other leadership

scholars. He also conducted more than 300 one-on-one executive coaching

sessions.

Browning is an excellent writer, and the book is beautifully organized and out-

lined like a professor’s lesson plan and lectures. There is an excellent flow from

section to section and chapter to chapter as the big picture develops.

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