As I picked up the book to read, I expected nothing more than any other typical popular leadership literature — ones which give a few tricks and tips on how to improve your leadership potential. Two surprises awaited me. First, Tribes is nothing like the others on the bookshelf currently, in terms of the presentation and in terms of the content. To start with, it does not have a contents page, or an introduction, in fact not even chapters. It jumps right in and keeps swimming till we reach home. The book is written in an absolute jargon free, simple language and flows like a new age empowering blog.
Second, the book could not have come to me at a more appropriate time; when I am trying to bring together a tribe of likeminded people who can focus on developing their leadership potential. And that explains the basic premise of the book; that if you have a passion for what you want to do and the drive to make this happen, there is a tribe just waiting for you to connect to them and lead them where they want to go.
With tribes everywhere, inside and outside of organisations, in public and private, in non-profits, in classroom, across the planet, yearning for leadership and connection, author Seth Godin suggests that the times we are living in could not have offered a better opportunity for us to discover our leadership skills. And with all those tools like Facebook and Twitter helping us to coordinate and connect groups of people, the question is no longer 'Is it possible for me to do that?' but 'Will I choose to do it?'
Godin rests his empowerment and urgency arguments on four hypotheses: First, with tribes flourishing everywhere, there is a vast shortage of leaders and, hence, for the first time ever, everyone in an organisation — not just the boss — is expected to lead. Second, the very structure of today's workplace means that it is easier than ever to change things. Third, market place itself is rewarding those individuals who change things and most importantly, fourth the process itself is deeply engaging, profitable thrilling and loads of fun.
FACT BOX
Name: Seth Godin Date of Birth: 10 July 1960 Education: Graduated from Tufts University in 1982 with a degree in computer science and philosophy. Earned his MBA in marketing from Stanford Business School.
Achievements:
Founder and CEO of Yoyodyne launched in 1995
Sold Yoyodyne to Yahoo! for $30 million
Godin launched Squidooin March 2006, a community website
Author of 10 books that have been translated into 20 languages worldwide
Other books written by Godin
MeatBall Sundaes (2007)
The Dip (2007
Small Is the New Big (2006)
The Big Moo (2005)
All Marketers Are Liars (2005)
Free Prize Inside! (2004)
Purple Cow (2003)
Unleashing the Ideavirus (2001)
Survival Is Not Enough (2002)
Permission Marketing (1999)
Rather than taking examples of behemoth Fortune 500 companies or larger than life leaders, whom we can hardly relate to, Godin through small happenings in smaller spheres of life, strives to empower his readers towards the urgency of embracing the leadership mantle. Stories of people like Joel Spolsky, who helps others run their small firms, or Gary Vaynerchuk who runs his tribe of wine enthusiasts, or Pema Chodron, a Buddhist nun working in a monastery in Nova Scotia are refreshingly different and liberating.
The message from the book could not have been louder and clearer, considering that we are traversing through one of the worst economic scenarios. It should liberate at least some of those who are simply waiting out there to get fired, to do the things that they have always dreamt of doing. It should also liberate us from the cosiness of our homes, cocoons and comfort zones to tackle some our nation's worst challenges, than blaming it on our politicians and leaders.
I would consider Godin to be considerably successful in selling his point that leadership is not difficult and every average Joe has the necessary skills to make a huge difference to our world, despite the years of indoctrination that leadership is reserved for a select few. At the same time, the book has its drawbacks too. The blog style presentation makes it difficult to find out where a specific content is. Also, since the book does not follow any specific pattern in the content presentation, different themes seems to be scattered all over, with little logic, making it difficult for the reader to sift through.
However, the fact remains that Tribes is an enormously empowering book, which helps in opening our eyes to those tribes of fellow employees or customers or investors or believers or hobbyists or readers, who are just waiting for us to connect them to one another and lead them where they want to go. At least it had that effect on me.
Sangeeth Varghese is a leadership thinker from the LSE and the author of the best seller Decide to Lead published by Businessworld Books. He can be contacted at sangeethv@leadcap.org
Book Reviews 
As I picked up the book to read, I expected nothing more than any other typical popular leadership literature — ones which give a few tricks and tips on how to improve your leadership potential. Two surprises awaited me. First, Tribes is nothing like the others on the bookshelf currently, in terms of the presentation and in terms of the content. To start with, it does not have a contents page, or an introduction, in fact not even chapters. It jumps right in and keeps swimming till we reach home. The book is written in an absolute jargon free, simple language and flows like a new age empowering blog. 
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