A guide offers advice to business executives who incorporate social justice into their leadership.

In this follow-up to The Servant Leader’s Manifesto (2020), Harris details the qualities of corporate leaders who make social justice, equity, diversity, and inclusion—the book’s title acronym—the keystones of their management philosophies. With occasional but not overdone Star Wars series references, the author calls for an end to the traditional “boss” role. He encourages an egalitarian form of leadership driven by humility that values the contributions of all employees and responds to their needs appropriately, leading to the creation of an equitable, anti-racist, inclusive—and profitable—corporate environment. Harris presents several mnemonic devices for “J.E.D.I.” leaders, the “6A’s” (awareness, acceptance, appreciation, alignment, activation, advocacy) and “3P’s” (people, products, processes), among them. The author delivers strategies for community engagement, sustainable business practices, and staff development. Harris has a talent for pithy phrasing that skillfully summarizes his arguments (“Necessity is the mother of invention, and this moment calls for a reinvention of expectations for business leadership”), which combines with a well-organized narrative and a visually appealing structure to make the text easy to follow. The book makes a solid case for the ethical and operational value of a management structure driven more by concern for employees and the wider world than by personal advancement and ego. This stance is strengthened by Harris’ recounting of his own experiences as a Black leader who found few allies throughout his career in upper management. The call for social justice in a corporate context (“This requires a painful period of deconstruction where every policy, guideline, and procedure is revisited and rebuilt from an antiracist foundation”) is a challenging one, though the manual offers plenty of guidance to readers interested in adopting the process. While the core argument will appeal to many, Harris is unlikely to persuade two groups: social justice skeptics who object to the anti-racist approach as a whole, and progressives who contend that the capitalist system the author supports is fundamentally inequitable. But for those who embrace socially responsible capitalism, this work is a solid application of its concepts to the practice of management.

An effective, mission-driven approach to managing employees without bossing them.

A compact treatise advances the notion of servant leadership.

Harris, a former pharmaceutical executive and the author of Leader Board (2019), believes it’s time for “a new revolution” that revolves around something he calls “servant leadership.” Drawing on the writings of numerous leadership experts, including Jim Collins, Stephen R. Covey, and Patrick Lencioni, Harris weaves together their thinking with his own beliefs to make a case for servant leaders—those who listen intently, promote teamwork, and generously share credit for success. The book moves from defining servant leadership and identifying its principles to implementing the concept. This involves building personal leadership effectiveness, learning how to use influence and “positive psychology,” developing a strong team, defining the right mission, and becoming a model leader. Each of the first seven chapters is brief but packed with insightful advice and examples. Chapter 8 reviews the key points covered and relates them to other sources. This is as much a motivational work as it is instructional. Harris frequently encourages readers to embrace servant leadership as the best way forward: “You will gain more energy, enthusiasm, positivity, proactivity, intensity, and resilience to take on greater challenges and reap the rewards of doing so.” Given the plethora of books on leadership, it is no easy task to break the mold, and many of the maxims in this volume will no doubt be recognizable to readers. Still, the author’s enthusiasm for the subject is infectious, and some of his observations are noteworthy, such as “Exceptional leaders…know where they are going, and what it will take to get there.” In addition to strongly promoting the development of effective teams, Harris correctly suggests that leaders and their companies should be laser-focused on serving customers: “Creating customer value is the key to sustainable, long-term performance.…Remember: the people who serve the customer are precious.” In an age where some may view leadership as increasingly autocratic, if not dictatorial, the humanistic view expressed by the author is reassuring.

Carefully researched, tightly written, and timely leadership advice.

A managerial self-help manual provides a comprehensive plan for success—from hiring a team to eliciting a cohesive performance.

At the outset of this book, pharmaceutical executive Harris (From Authors to Entrepreneurs, 2015, etc.) announces an ambitious goal: Based on his study of the most successful businessmen of the last two decades, he aims to articulate a synoptic strategy for managerial achievement. Drawing on a 1965 article by psychologist Bruce Tuckman, the author parses the evolution of a team’s growth into four chief stages. “Forming” is the group’s embryonic stage, in which its members develop an initial sense of their mission and of the roles that each will assume in order to accomplish it. Inevitably, the author says, members will jockey with each other for power—a tumultuous phase that’s aptly named “storming.” If the group survives this phase, they move on to “norming,” in which the members come to accept their positions within the group and achieve a measure of harmony. Finally, the team reaches a state of unity during the fourth stage, “performing,” which allows them to transform themselves into a single “problem-solving instrument.” Harris furnishes a system for stewarding a team through these stages called “Team Performance Acceleration Principles,” which accessibly provides the author’s promised “actionable wisdom.” Harris splits his book into two parts, one instructional and one fictional, and the latter follows the plight of a character named Sam Lombardi, a marketing executive at a troubled pharmaceutical company who’s compelled to launch a new brand with breakneck speed. Sam helpfully illustrates the book’s principles while drawing generously from such business-oriented self-help manuals as John C. Maxwell’s The 17 Essential Qualities of a Team Player. The depth of Harris’ knowledge and expertise is unquestionable, and his counsel is consistently sensible and clear. His book is fairly brimming with charts and tools; for example, he breaks down job interviews, which he characterizes as a kind of dynamic “audition,” into 32 thoughtful questions. Although the advice flirts with banality at times—there’s a lot of emphasis on positive attitudes, for instance—the book will still serve as a valuable resource for new managers. However, Harris does have a tedious tendency to christen his strategies with acronyms, initialisms, or odd names that contribute little additional clarity. For example, “INNERviewing” is a means of capturing the personality profile of each team member and ensuring that they’re all properly aligned with the group’s mission. The tool is useful, and it’s grounded in a defensible insight, but its name makes it seem like a grade-school exercise. Indeed, at some points, the book seems to address the reader as if he or she were a child: “No Donkey-Konging! Just as in the classic arcade game, you must decide whether you will direct your new team from the top as the ‘boss’ (aka Donkey Kong), or as a collective Mario with the team goal of defeating Donkey Kong.” For adult executives who take themselves seriously, this tendency may become infuriating.

A thoughtful collection of managerial guidance hampered by patronizing prose.