Leading the Unleadable

September 5, 2016
How can business managers deal with difficult employees and difficult teams? Largely by listening and coaching, explains Willett, president of the consulting firm Oxseeker, in this thin, familiar guide. According to him, leaders need to approach people problems proactively and without fear—exactly what most of them don’t do. Citing a track record that includes work with hundreds of leaders, Willett takes a highly communication-based approach, walking readers through various issues. These include the difficulties of leading, “accept the call of exceptional leadership,” cultivating the right mindset, identifying trouble (and troublemakers), keeping employees performing, fixing problems before they arise, nurturing talent, and answering the toughest question of all: can these trouble employees be helped, or is it better to simply give up and let them go? The breakdown of different kinds of troubled teams—incompetent, reactive, divided, etc.—may be helpful to readers trying to diagnose a problem. However, the tips for how to sense trouble in the first place (e.g., “talk to people”) and set performance expectations (“do things right from the beginning”) are too obvious, and too clunkily presented, to be the salvation of the floundering business leader. Agent: John T. Willig, Literary Services.

November 15, 2016
One of the hallmarks of great leadership is mind-setor, quite simply, the ability to power through problems and issues and work with them as opportunities. Consultant Willett teaches us how as he first defines what constitutes excellent leadership and then goes through to provide diagnoses, actions, and follow-ups to remedy people problems, all with an eye to improvement and success. It's a logical organizational design and learning approach, supported by a few realistic case studies and some very practical advice. A few examples: start with the belief that everyone has good intentions. Accept reality, but do not let it define you. Treat trouble as information-rich data. Every chapter concludes with reflection points, a summary of key concepts for readers with time constraints. And charts scattered throughout aid in decision making, especially for issue-prone questions like firing/retaining an employee. Positive, and appropriate enough for new and seasoned managers to use as a guide to the divas around us.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2016, American Library Association.)