For educators, administrators and businessfolk, this is an A-Z of straightforward lessons on becoming - and remaining - a truly great boss. Its brief, catchy lessons and anecdotes should help potential leaders tap into their natural gifts and harness those gifts to lead seemingly by instinct.

In 1991, Dr. Lorraine Monroe founded the Frederick Douglass Academy, a public school in Harlem, in the belief that caring instructors, a disciplined but creative environment, and a refusal to accept mediocrity could transform the lives of inner-city kids. Her experiment was a huge success. Today the Academy is one of the finest schools in the country, sending graduates to Ivy League colleges and registering the third highest SAT scores in New York City. The key to its success: a unique leadership method Monroe calls the "Monroe Doctrine," which she developed through decades as a teacher and...