Leadership Style Book Review: Summary of Book

Leadership Style Book Review: Summary of Book

"Blessed are the flexible, for they shall not be broken," reads the quotation on the title page of 17 Essential Qualities of a Team Leader: Becoming the Kind of Person Every Team Wants, by management guru John C. Maxwell. The word 'leadership' on its own often brings to mind rather stultifying and outdated modalities of leading by command, much like a general, or cliches about being true to one's values. Besides, few readers will be put in charge of a military unit, or hold the title of CEO -- but virtually every individual who participates in the business world will one day either lead or be part of a team designated to work on a particular product or target area of interest for the company.

To suit the needs of today's marketplace and corporate structure, thus John C. Maxwell offers a different concept and ideal of leadership that is uniquely profitable for the downsized corporate structures of the 21st century, and the individuals who will lead the core teams that make up such corporate structures. Rather than stressing conventional leadership from the top down, or talking about leaders such as Lincoln or Henry Ford, Maxwell brings up intriguing examples to embody his seventeen principles of team leadership, such as Quincy Jones. Often these leaders have manifested idiosyncratic, what he calls in the case of Jones 'bebop' or highly flexible and improvisational riffs upon different leadership styles. In the case of Jones, by creating relationships with others in his industry, rather than dominating others, he was able to become highly successful. (2)

Jones is an example of how "hunger to learn" and "obsessive curiosity" are just as important qualities in team leaders as they are to the artists Jones represents. Learning is kept to embodying the principle of adaptability, the first quality of team leadership delineated in the text. (1) Adaptability, or bending but not being broken by the needs and ideas of others is important to being able to bounce off the creative ideas and ideals of musicians, Jones' example suggests.

Jones initially worked as a musician, thus he knew the industry well, socially and technically, as well as had a good artistic ear for talent when he began his work. But he always had an eye out for something new, something fresh. This leadership profile of a successful musical entrepreneur is not simply particular to the artistic industry, however, Maxwell suggests, but to all industries where one desires to succeed in collaboration, rather than conflict with others. To stretch himself for the needs of others, Jones states, "is not a big deal," not simply because of the checkered and multifaceted nature of his own history in the industry, but the simple fact that as part of the business, he has learned that it is more important, and yields more money and creative dividends, to listen to others and adapt to the needs of the talent, rather than imposing Jones' own creative control uniformly as a template upon the evolving will of an evolving musical talent.

Thus, to be a true team player, one must be adaptable, collaborative, committed, communicative, competent, dependent, disciplined, enlarging, and enthusiastic, intentional, mission conscious, prepared, relational, self-improving, selfless, solution oriented, and tenacious -- all at once. This is not as contradictory or difficult as one might initially believe, because all of these qualities are interrelated. Communication generates enthusiasm, intention and mission and a relational and healthy dependency between leader and team members creates a sense of collaboration. And a true team leader draws forth his or her energy and these qualities from his or her team, rather than is self-propelled and self-focused, upon his or her own energies, ideas, and personal and career needs.

Final Analysis

It is interesting to consider that perhaps the most compelling pop culture manifestation of leadership, "The Apprentice" on television depicts aspiring leaders not simply leading by their own steam and might, but of engaging in teams that must, despite inevitable conflicts and differences in a cutthroat environment, still must work together to create a profit and a product. Even Donald Trump who stands as kind of a corporate parody of the dominating executive, barking that his employees are fired here and there, demands that his prospective company leaders know how to work in a team format. Maxwell offers even more compelling real world examples of the fact that the greatest leaders today are those who know how to function and lead collaboratively as part of a team, and use team ideas to fuel their own creative juices.

One of the most engaging aspects of Maxwell's book, that makes it even more entertaining than the aforementioned derivative reality television, however, is that rather than making being a team player seem boring, he makes being part of a team seem more exciting than working alone. The idea of a company man or woman is often used as a synonym for a drone or follower. But really, it takes more leadership and personal relationship skills to balance the core competencies of a team and to fuse a variety of collaborative creative and competency efforts into one, to engage in a kind of creative dependency that deploys strengths rather than weaknesses, rather than to go it alone at the helm, ignoring the input of the team.

"How can I be a team leader yet still be a team player,' employees often ask when they are forced to be part of a team -- Maxwell's book provides a persuasive answer. One must not eschew a focus upon the self -- self-improving is one of the core principles of the text. However, merely because one wishes to improve one's self does not mean that one puts one's solutions before the team's collective solution, nor that one lacks the ability to put the ego aside and listen to others. (116)