The Architecture of Leadership is a simple but effective toolkit for leaders, whose main theme is "preparation = performance." Using the elements of architecture, they begin with a foundation of character and values, move to a floor representing a drive to achieve combined with the capacity to care, and continue with the framework of innate traits and acquired skills to the ceiling and roof of opportunity and performance, respectively. Supporting it all are the pillars of honesty, integrity, courage, respect, commitment, trust, ethics, and hard work.

Donald T. Phillips is the author of the bestsellers Lincoln on Leadership and Martin Luther King Jr. on Leadership and has appeared on leading television and radio programs. Adm. James M. Loy is the former Commandant of the U.S. Coast Guard. They coauthored Character in Action.