LEADERS PEOPLE LOVE

A guide focuses on cultivating leadership skills.

According to Yeo, agility is vital to workplace success. Without a deep understanding of this quality, leaders will find the path to victory unclear. The author offers a manual on agile leadership that empowers readers with research, real-world examples, and pointed questions, enabling them to create managerial maps that reflect their personal goals and values. To help leaders understand the shifting landscape of the modern workforce, Yeo draws on astute research regarding staff satisfaction and workplace perceptions, including generational outlooks, employees’ desires for increased flexibility, the prioritization of wellness, and the fostering of trust in leaders. The author also debunks business myths that can sabotage the success of growing companies, such as the beliefs that staffers can be easily replaced and that salary alone drives employee happiness. But the wisdom of great leaders doesn’t arise from research alone. Instead, it is cultivated through active listening, broad collaboration, and self-awareness (“If you don’t know what you are made of, then the best version of you cannot be born”). Yeo encourages managers to heed the “Five Inner Voices of Agile Leadership”—“The Captain,” “The Developer,” “The Strategist,” “The Visionary,” and “The Agilist”—each one enhancing the culture and relationships that forge workplace success. To add further depth to these principles, the author cites examples of effective leaders she’s worked with, each of whom initially struggled with confidence, openness to feedback, and other managerial behaviors. A motivational theme in these engrossing stories is the belief that through humility, a commitment to understand and embrace agility, and the wise use of patience, leaders at all levels can achieve their full potentials while building the happy and inclusive cultures that result in thriving workplaces. Overall, this manual makes learning about leadership fun. Characterized by an inviting and accessible writing style, the worthwhile book delivers a flexibility that the audience will appreciate. The guide can be perused sequentially or thematically, with readers prioritizing the topics of greatest relevance to them. Through self-examination exercises and supplemental materials, this highly personalized framework will help readers navigate an evolving workplace, building self-awareness and adaptable leadership styles that their teams will love.

An engaging and valuable manual for contemporary leaders.