Book of the Month, September 2024 The Journey Into Leadership by Maor, Kass, Strovnik and Srinivasan

The latest research is by any standard, a must read for any student of leadership of large institutions at the C suite level.? It is sort of an Encyclopedia of EQ Leadership.? It is well researched, covers a wide range of enterprises and leadership types and cover the wide range- and makes you realize how wide the range is of EQ related skills it takes to both keep on top of yourself- as well as lead a whole organization. However, in some ways, I had mixed feelings reading this book.

On the one hand it is comprehensive in its coverage and its main themes of the book-“Lead yourself to enable you to lead your organization” is outstanding.? More specifically the book encourages us to “Understand yourself fully and have command of your own emotional state and use that to lead your organization from “the inside out” using your internal EQ to develop an organization that has a high EQ as an organization resulting in a motivated and high performing group.” It is a really thoughtful approach to the whole topic of EQ leadership and its role in the multitudes of elements of the CEO role.

Its other main theme, that leaders need to balance the extremes and be flexible (e.g. – sometimes you need to seek broad input, sometimes you need to make a decision – knowing when to do each is the key) is filled with common sense and appeals to the Aristotelians in the crowd going back to his work in Nichomachean Ethics on his golden mean philosophy that virtuous behavior trends toward the mean. However, it goes further by also building on this old philosophical cornerstone it by saying that virtue is a trending toward the mean over time- but in practice, this may mean deploying the extremes from time to time to get the balance right in the long-term-this is a good insight.? And in fact, the central skill is not so much be able to execute in these areas of execution (of which there many)- but in having the foresight to know when to use which technique and to what depth.

And finally, they have put together in the Appendix a series of Micro Practices to use that they have picked up over time that executives have used to Lead themselves and lead their organization.? This section is a gift- and represents the best in McKinsey’s ability to structure thought and for the alums out there- it is also a great example of a MECE piece of work- one of the best I can think of.

The book has 12 chapters and each have one or two keystone case studies-and case studies ar so useful.? My favorite chapter was the last about Instilling Empathy and featured Bob Chapman, the CEO of the Barry-Wehmiller company.? Barry-Wehmiller is $3.5 million manufacturing and consulting operation based out of St Louis.? It is a multi-generation private family company.? The chapter tells the story of Bob’s journey of leadership in taking over the company from his father and what he learned from living through some of tough downturns in the economy.? This led him to the development his Truly Human Leadership Model in the Company.? When asked what his company does, he says, We Build Great People and we have an economic model of manufacturing and consulting that lets us do that- how cool is that?? And the company has been very successful over time and has performed well for its private shareholders including many employees.? This chapter is worth reading twice.? The best part of this chapter is that I am super excited about what I am reading not only because it is outstanding stuff that I totally buy into – but also because my daughter works for the Company!!? I had always felt like she worked in a really good place from what she had shared with me- and now I have further insight into and confirmation of what a terrific place it is to work!!

However, two things about this book struck me in a negative way.? The first is how basic some of this is- I mean- do we really need to tell our CEOs that they need to spend time with their employees, get to know their people & what motivates them, listen to them when they speak and recognize them when they have successes?? Or that leaders should be themselves and be authentic- and share what they are thinking with their people. This is maybe less a comment on the book than our society and my feeling that in the post- electronic social media age we have lost our way- or it could also be something that happens over time to people who spend time in really large companies - or both. Some of this book reminded me of the book from years ago titled “Everything I needed to know I learned in Kindergarten.” , some of this is pretty basic how to be good people and I don’t know if I feel good or bad about that - however, I also have to admit, that there is no harm in repeating these things so maybe I am just being a bit cranky on this point.

The second negative elements were that this book seemed to be a non-stop infomercial for the Bower Forum- a leadership institute run by McKinsey.? It sounds like a great program and honoring Marvin Bower by naming it after him seems very, very appropriate.? However, the program must have been mentioned over 100 times in the book- you can find it on almost every page.? As an alum partner of McKinsey, it just felt so commercial, so non-Marvin Bower…..? I think it would have been more impactful if they just did a one pager at the beginning or end of the program and did not feel the need to mention over and over again.

However, with those two caveats, this is really a must read for any serious student of leadership.? There is just a lot of great stuff here and this is a book that you can read fast, read slowly- or both- once fast and then a section at a time.? There is a lot of wisdom embedded in the work here.? My only general warning is that there are more good ideas in here than 6 humans could accomplish, so definitely go in with? menu mindset instead of a workplan to accomplish all that is in here mindset.

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Enjoy!

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