Fierce Leadership: A Bold Alternative to the Worst “Best” Practices of Today by Susan Scott (the same author of Fierce Conversations) is a management book written to educate readers on becoming great (or fierce) leaders in the workforce. This is done while breaking the habits of the old “best” practices and leaving them behind with suffering businesses. In the beginning of the book Scott introduces the term “squid eye” and uses the term as the idea of being able to identify key issues of “bad” business practices. Squid eye is used through out the book in each different chapter, which are labeled as Fierce Practices. Each Fierce Practice touches on different situations that a leader does or would face in the business realm (or even at home). Some of these Fierce Practices include: Fierce Practices #1: From 360-Degree Anonymous Feedback to “365” Face-to-Face Feedback, Fierce Practices #3: From Holding People Accountable to Modeling Accountability and Holding People Able and Fierce Practices #4: From Employee Engagement Programs to Actually Engaging Employees.
The above Fierce Practices were just few of my favorites and easy to relate towards my current managers. However there are many more great practices in the book that educate the reader to be able to pick-out the “tells” of a bad leader (AKA the Squid Eye) and ways to improve through action plans. The interesting and useful qualities about this book are the sections where Scott provides the reader areas to practice improvements as she teaches different leadership topics. For example from Fierce Practices #1 on page 48, Scott provides the reader a work page to prepare a 60 second opening statement in preparation for a face-to-face conversation with an employee who has had a problem arise about them. This preparation area is provided to the leader as a practice template so they do not get sucked into many common errors. Errors such as beginning the difficult conversation with “So, how’s it going?” when we know how it’s going or that the leader places too many “pillows” in the conversation, otherwise softening the blow by placing cushions around the real topic. These work pages can be found in each Fierce Practice section in the book, it is a great resource and helps the leader practice the topics currently being discussed.
A great resource for leaders preparing to interview and hire for their company is Fierce Practices #2: From Hiring for Smarts to Hiring for Smart + Heart. The idea of this section is hiring to gain emotional capital and not only hire for the GPA or IQ scores. Scott mentions “each of us accumulates or loses emotional capital – building relationships we enjoy or endure with colleagues, bosses, customers and other partners – one conversation at a time” and that we are “engaged in emotional enterprises”. What she recommends to the leader is that sometimes smarts are not the only thing to hire for, she leave a section in the book to write down attributes that are essential to the success of the company in the job they are seeking to fill. Also being able to recognize hiring traps that include personal biases, personal insecurities, resume “puppy love” and many more errors that can lead a leader into hiring the wrong person and losing the emotional capital in the company.
Susan Scott has provided many real life situations in her book, situations from large unnamed companies who are failing to gain customers, to the successful practices of Google as well as her very own company’s confessions. Having these examples in the story not only made the topic more clear but also increased the creditability of Fierce Practices. How are these practices helping the suffering multi-billion dollar companies? How are these practices keeping successful companies successful and are these practices so effective that even the author has to remind herself to use them within her company?
Although sometimes I did feel that Susan Scott rambled on and on without any point during some portions of the book, however the rambling did eventually turn around into a point that was very useful and worth practicing as a leader. The book is an easy read, full of humor and very well organized. In the preface Scott mentions that the book is setup as being able to read cover to cover or being able to look in the table of contents and jump around from one Fierce Practice to another making it a great resource to keep by your side. A review from Amazon.com on Fierce Leadership by Matt G. Sharrers reads, “Fierce Leadership is an absolute must read. As a reader of leadership books by the dozen, this one truly stands out. Why? Because it has a point of view, supported by tangible examples and forces the leader in each of us to truly analyze how we "lead".”
I would recommend reading this book if you are a CEO of a multi-billion dollar corporation, a student at a university, an entrepreneur or even a leader in the household. The information will make you analyze yourself and your practices and test your leadership skills and ability to create and maintain lasting professional and personal relationship in and out of the office.
Sources:
Scott, S. (2009). Fierce leadership: A bold alternative to the worst "best" practices. New York: Broadway Business.
Sharrers, M. G. (2009). Challenge your mental model. Retrieved October 13, 2009, from Amazon website: http://www.amazon.com/Fierce-Leadership-Alternative-Practices- Business/product-reviews/0385529007/ref=cm_cr_pr_hist_5? ie=UTF8&showViewpoints=0&filterBy=addFiveStar
This review was very interesting. I like how the book has sections to write particular things down. My book was similar in that sense and it really makes for an interactive read for a manager and makes things simpler and straight forward if they are looking to make things better for their company. Also, as you mentioned, I like the way the chapters are set up because managers are very busy people so they might not have enough time to sit down and read through the whole book. But, if they specifically know what they need to improve on, they can easily find the chapter(s) they should focus on. Your review was well organized and it appears that you touched on the important aspects of the book. Additionally, I like your personal input about the book because you were honest about Scott sometimes rambling on, but you also said some positives things about it as well.
ReplyDeleteThis sounds really interesting. I like that she gives you suggestions and exercises to apply during the readings. You have intrigued me into wanting to know more.
ReplyDeleteMikala Edwards
I enjoyed reading your review. I liked that your book incorporated real life situations on the positive things companies were doing and the negative things they were doing as well. My book also had personal company experiences in it and it definitely made it a better read!
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