In the turbulent twenty-first century, we need enlightened leadership more than ever before. In board rooms and in command centers, from the White House to each state house, we need leaders who are focused on getting the job done. In Taking Charge, Charles Ray offers some principles and techniques of effective leadership based on his twenty years of military service and over twenty years as a civilian government official, combined with the commonsense, practical philosophy of his rural east Texas upbringing, as previously described in his book, Things I Learned from My Grandmother About Leadership and Life. This is not theory; it is a description of what works—has worked—illustrated with real-life examples of what truly effective leadership really is.