EVERYDAY LEADERSHIP

A concise handbook of leadership principles.

Management consultant Blankenship poses some simple questions to readers who may be new to leadership roles: What happens now? What’s actually changed? As he points out, people in such positions will almost certainly be expected to take on leadership responsibilities before they actually feel like leaders. Per the author, the disorientation increases because the nature of work itself changes when a person moves into a leadership position: “When you start working, you’re typically focused on yourself, what you can do and what you need to accomplish to be successful,” he writes. “Leading requires taking other people into account.” In a series of short, fast-paced chapters including enumerated “Key Questions and Takeaways” and end notes, Blankenship goes over the basic concepts of leadership, mostly centered around the deceptively simple idea that when a person is in a leadership role, they have a direct impact on other people. He elaborates on different ways of thinking about leadership, including engaging theories that link effective leadership to play, which ideally is self-chosen, self-directed, intrinsically motivated, structured by mental rules, and creative. Blankenship writes with clarity and energy, and despite his text’s relative brevity, the author manages to discuss quite a few deep, thought-provoking ideas, including the problematic nature of organizational leadership in general, which tends to incentivize people who are more interested in their own advancement than in providing good leadership. But Blankenship’s strongest point is his friendly reminder that most people are not fully ready when they step up to lead—at first, they’re just continuing to do whatever it is that got them there in the first place. Readers in this situation will find a good deal of encouragement, and some good advice, in these pages.

A quick, informative, and compelling overview of the nature of leadership.