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Review for TPM - the language of leadership

#1 · January 3, 2022, 11:18 am

Quote from Transitioned on January 3, 2022, 11:18 am
Hi @lucio
Here's the bones of the review. If it looks promising, let me know and I'll keep pecking away when I can.
The language of leadership is a self-help book by Joel Schwartzberg focused on teaching leaders how to engage and inspire their teams. Schwartzberg wraps it up nicely: ”… only leaders have the official job of inspiring a team through clear and succinct expressions of hope, vision, context, purpose, drive, appreciation, impact, aspiration, empathy, and the why.”
A friend loaned me his copy on audio and the first two chapters were good enough that in fairness to the author I purchased the Kindle edition. His other book ‘Get to the point’ seems to have solid Amazon reviews.
Schwartzberg comes from a strong communications and broadcasting background. He’s also a seasoned and awarded public speaker. I was also interested in his work with major NGOs. Having worked in the non-profit sector myself I know the premium they put on the right message at the right time to the right audience.
Bullet Summary
Effective speakers tap into purpose and power
Purpose is the reason an idea has value it gives teams something to align with and a reason to commit
Power is the leader’s perceived strength of commitment. It engages a team because it grabs and holds their attention.
Effective leaders make real points to sell their message to their audience.
Focus on impact on people not things.
Communications should balance realism and idealism. Realism builds trust. Idealism inspires.
Hope is the strongest theme because hope is the articulation of your team’s professional desires, goals, and expectations.
Leaders need to communicate a vision of what lies ahead because it gives the team’s work purpose
Teams want confident realistically optimistic leaders they can believe in. Confidence can be sub-communicated through decisiveness and faith in people and processes.
Leaders have to feel in tune with their teams. Empathy can be felt by the team by acknowledging, caring and acting or comforting.
Teams want authentic leaders who are respectful and human. Using your own words, saying what you believe, telling stories and acknowledging mistakes are ways to communicate authenticity.
Save personal opinions and the impact problems have had on you for your outside of work friends.
Don’t forecast or give probabilities for future bad news, which will only increase fear, uncertainty, doubt (FUD).
Learn to write specific and thoughtful Thank You messages (public is even better)
The word ‘I’ can be powerful. It can be used to communicate authenticity (talking about personal experience) and commitment.
Leaders should always actively listen to their teams with plenty of open-ended questions as this often uncovers significant information about the work the leader was unaware of.
Pros
There are many books on leadership that tell you what you should be doing as a leader but not many that teach the how. This book was extremely practically oriented with tips that could be applied at your next meeting or corridor chat.
One of the issues I have with self-help books is too much filler aka low information density. You often feel like they could have been a pamphlet. As you’d hope from the Author of ‘Get to the point’ Schwartzberg cuts straight to the chase and writes in a punchy, concise style. He also manages to breath life into pretty standard topics. If you skim over 3 pages you’ve probably missed some nugget.
Includes a large number of executive phrases in context which you could immediately leverage or channel IF and ONLY IF they fit your style. Otherwise translate them into your ‘weekend words’.
Effective and targeted use of real examples to illustrate points. The ‘bad’ examples are astonishing. High level executives penned these ‘whole of org’ messages that put themselves above the team and completely ignored social exchange.

Cons
There are many references to Executives. Probably because that’s the cream of the coaching market.
To me leadership language can be utilised in any role to increase influence. Not to say that it should be. It’s another tool. And then Schwartzberg goes on to promote growing leadership from the grass roots. That message would have been stronger with some material from team leads in different organisational cultures.
There didn’t seem to be any science backing up many of the assertions. This doesn’t mean they are wrong. It just means that you are relying on Joel Schwartzberg’s experience and knowledge of the field. Probably a safe bet given his pedigree, however it would have been nice to see some external validation.
Schwartzberg recommends growing leadership at every level in your team.   That seems to be going along with the perfect team, perfect world scenario you see in books like ‘Radical Candor’. Seems a somewhat unrealistic or perhaps self-interested view for a seasoned PR adviser. Even agile teams have roles and responsibilities and discuss as a team when to step outside those roles.
Apply
This book is full of actionable material. Too much to cover.   A couple of points I hadn’t seen in other leadership books which probably leverage the author’s years in screen writing and comms strategy:
Remove ‘Ands’
Don’t use too many descriptive words in a sentence – instead show with an example
Correct your statements – don’t make an apology. An apology is equivalent to begging for forgiveness – never beg.
Use attention magnets such as:
“This is what you need to remember . . .”
As these phrases force you to make a precise point

Summary
This is a thoughtful and insightful book which covers all the bases to talking strongly and effectively to teams.   The material is rich in worked scenarios, short examples and tips n tricks.
The author covers some familiar and necessary topics but manages to bring new ideas and enablers into the mix.
It mainly seems to have a twin focus – at the strategic leader and team lead levels. As you would expect from the Author’s background it is a communications focused work. It doesn’t consider the power dynamics of managing up and across and how that would affect communications in and outside the team. For that we could recommend Power University or….@Lucio please mention some of the other good books.

Hi @lucio

Here's the bones of the review. If it looks promising, let me know and I'll keep pecking away when I can.

The language of leadership is a self-help book by Joel Schwartzberg focused on teaching leaders how to engage and inspire their teams. Schwartzberg wraps it up nicely: ”… only leaders have the official job of inspiring a team through clear and succinct expressions of hope, vision, context, purpose, drive, appreciation, impact, aspiration, empathy, and the why.”

A friend loaned me his copy on audio and the first two chapters were good enough that in fairness to the author I purchased the Kindle edition. His other book ‘Get to the point’ seems to have solid Amazon reviews.

Schwartzberg comes from a strong communications and broadcasting background. He’s also a seasoned and awarded public speaker. I was also interested in his work with major NGOs. Having worked in the non-profit sector myself I know the premium they put on the right message at the right time to the right audience.

Bullet Summary

Effective speakers tap into purpose and power
- Purpose is the reason an idea has value it gives teams something to align with and a reason to commit
- Power is the leader’s perceived strength of commitment. It engages a team because it grabs and holds their attention.
Effective leaders make real points to sell their message to their audience.
Focus on impact on people not things.
Communications should balance realism and idealism. Realism builds trust. Idealism inspires.
Hope is the strongest theme because hope is the articulation of your team’s professional desires, goals, and expectations.
Leaders need to communicate a vision of what lies ahead because it gives the team’s work purpose
Teams want confident realistically optimistic leaders they can believe in. Confidence can be sub-communicated through decisiveness and faith in people and processes.
Leaders have to feel in tune with their teams. Empathy can be felt by the team by acknowledging, caring and acting or comforting.
Teams want authentic leaders who are respectful and human. Using your own words, saying what you believe, telling stories and acknowledging mistakes are ways to communicate authenticity.
Save personal opinions and the impact problems have had on you for your outside of work friends.
Don’t forecast or give probabilities for future bad news, which will only increase fear, uncertainty, doubt (FUD).
Learn to write specific and thoughtful Thank You messages (public is even better)
The word ‘I’ can be powerful. It can be used to communicate authenticity (talking about personal experience) and commitment.
Leaders should always actively listen to their teams with plenty of open-ended questions as this often uncovers significant information about the work the leader was unaware of.

Pros

There are many books on leadership that tell you what you should be doing as a leader but not many that teach the how. This book was extremely practically oriented with tips that could be applied at your next meeting or corridor chat.

One of the issues I have with self-help books is too much filler aka low information density. You often feel like they could have been a pamphlet. As you’d hope from the Author of ‘Get to the point’ Schwartzberg cuts straight to the chase and writes in a punchy, concise style. He also manages to breath life into pretty standard topics. If you skim over 3 pages you’ve probably missed some nugget.

Includes a large number of executive phrases in context which you could immediately leverage or channel IF and ONLY IF they fit your style. Otherwise translate them into your ‘weekend words’.

Effective and targeted use of real examples to illustrate points. The ‘bad’ examples are astonishing. High level executives penned these ‘whole of org’ messages that put themselves above the team and completely ignored social exchange.

Cons

There are many references to Executives. Probably because that’s the cream of the coaching market.

To me leadership language can be utilised in any role to increase influence. Not to say that it should be. It’s another tool. And then Schwartzberg goes on to promote growing leadership from the grass roots. That message would have been stronger with some material from team leads in different organisational cultures.

There didn’t seem to be any science backing up many of the assertions. This doesn’t mean they are wrong. It just means that you are relying on Joel Schwartzberg’s experience and knowledge of the field. Probably a safe bet given his pedigree, however it would have been nice to see some external validation.

Schwartzberg recommends growing leadership at every level in your team. That seems to be going along with the perfect team, perfect world scenario you see in books like ‘Radical Candor’. Seems a somewhat unrealistic or perhaps self-interested view for a seasoned PR adviser. Even agile teams have roles and responsibilities and discuss as a team when to step outside those roles.

Apply

This book is full of actionable material. Too much to cover. A couple of points I hadn’t seen in other leadership books which probably leverage the author’s years in screen writing and comms strategy:

Remove ‘Ands’
Don’t use too many descriptive words in a sentence – instead show with an example
Correct your statements – don’t make an apology. An apology is equivalent to begging for forgiveness – never beg.
Use attention magnets such as:

“This is what you need to remember . . .”

As these phrases force you to make a precise point

Summary

This is a thoughtful and insightful book which covers all the bases to talking strongly and effectively to teams. The material is rich in worked scenarios, short examples and tips n tricks.

The author covers some familiar and necessary topics but manages to bring new ideas and enablers into the mix.

It mainly seems to have a twin focus – at the strategic leader and team lead levels. As you would expect from the Author’s background it is a communications focused work. It doesn’t consider the power dynamics of managing up and across and how that would affect communications in and outside the team. For that we could recommend Power University or….@Lucio please mention some of the other good books.

Lucio Buffalmano, Matthew Whitewood and ZenDancer have reacted to this post.

#2 · January 4, 2022, 4:30 am

@lucio my first review so bit new to the process. How does this normally work?

Matthew Whitewood has reacted to this post.

#3 · January 4, 2022, 10:07 am

Thank you Kevin!

So now my question would be:

Do you think the book is good enough to make it worth a post / article?

Generally speaking, to consider if a book/course is good for its own article, it should:

Be above a "7"
Either introduce new information / approaches / views, OR
Do a great job at summing up and presenting information that is already largely available

If that is the case and if you're interested, then we can format it better and publish it.
And we can do so with your name / nickname, whichever you prefer.

Otherwise, if you think it's good but "not yet for a standalone article", then give it a rating and I'll add it to the "reviews" page with your rating and snippet from your review.

Matthew Whitewood, Transitioned and ZenDancer have reacted to this post.

Community, new content and Confidence University now available here.

#4 · January 6, 2022, 12:13 am

Reviews page sounds good to me.

The highest rated book in this category on Amazon seems to be language is leadership. I think until I read this one so I have some basis for comparison I can't say it's worthy of best.

Lucio Buffalmano has reacted to this post.

#5 · January 6, 2022, 4:51 am

Quote from Transitioned on January 6, 2022, 12:13 am
Reviews page sounds good to me.
The highest rated book in this category on Amazon seems to be language is leadership. I think until I read this one so I have some basis for comparison I can't say it's worthy of best.

Alright, cool, so let's keep it open and when you'll have an element for comparison we'll add both with one go.

Matthew Whitewood and Transitioned have reacted to this post.

Community, new content and Confidence University now available here.

#6 · December 13, 2022, 6:24 am

Hello @transitioned

Replying here from this other thread as it's more relevant to this one here (my bad for starting the off-topic there):

Quote from Transitioned on December 13, 2022, 1:01 am
I d be happy to help the TPM cause with first draft of an article on the PU way of job interviewing.
I submitted a book review last year after floating the topic. it didn't seem to go anywhere. Maybe articles generate more traffic or maybe it was far below standard and people were just kindly ignoring. . I would want to make sure my effort was really going to be useful this time. And ideally a co-author to help contrast with PU principles and align with other articles because TBH I cherry pick from PU and my knowledge of the whole content is patchy.

Fair enough, should have been more clear back then.

The issue back then was that:

The book was not very popular, which is not an issue, if the book is good (it's an issue if it's unknown and poor, since that would bring down TPM's quality with lots of posts on average books)
I mistakenly thought it was OK but "not that great", don't even remember how I got that idea TBH, re-reading your review it seems like you give it a high rating instead.

About the review itself:

Bullet summary should be 3-5 bullets of the most important points

All the rest you can put under "full summary".

I now created a draft for the review under your username and with the tycal "TPM review structure template".
You can simply copy-paste the above review there and we can publish it.

For future reference, you can also take a look at:

Mat's first review and feedback, especially useful in case you wanna publish some more in the future, so you learn how to be totally independent with the drafting/editing.

Transitioned has reacted to this post.

Community, new content and Confidence University now available here.

#7 · December 13, 2022, 11:20 am

Ah ok I see my mistake. I was thinking it was a topic that had not been reviewed so rounding out the site offering. But PU is the main game the reviews are lead magnets and the chocolate sauce for traffic is popularity on Amazon ratings. So inside of that niche topic I should have gone with the book that had the most reviews.

@Lucio as always capacity is a bit limited. I m thinking what can I kick in over the hols. Would drafting the interviewing article be more useful right now or finishing this review?

Lucio Buffalmano has reacted to this post.

#8 · December 13, 2022, 3:04 pm

Yeah, popularity matters if it's an average or "just OK" book.

But if it's great, then it doesn't matter -actually, it's even better to champion and spread hidden gems-.

As for "highest prio", the interviewing article would most likely be more popular and read -and I'm guessing more useful to the readers as well-.

However, I haven't read the book, so ultimately up to you to make that call (and yes, the interview article at this point would also probably take more of your time).

Community, new content and Confidence University now available here.

#9 · December 13, 2022, 11:02 pm

Ok first draft of article it is. Probably a days work. I will have a nice beach to look at while I organise my thoughts.

Lucio Buffalmano has reacted to this post.

#10 · December 20, 2022, 6:27 am

Quote from Transitioned on December 20, 2022, 6:27 am
Here's my initial thinking on the bones of the article - intro, topic headings and the summary section to give idea on where I'm going. Let's prioritise the draft of the article and then Lucio can decide if he just wants to drop it in as is or refine it more and integrate with the other articles (or trailer PU).
Between this, the tips I posted before and my other notes should be able to get a draft out this hols. But my take on this subject is very coloured by my industry, I would love some feedback on the skeleton to make it useful for a wide audience.

Job Interviewing for fun and profit
Most people regard going to a Job interview about as much fun as a visit to the Dentist.
And the reality is that unless you are independently wealthy or a serial entrepreneur most people will need to win at interview multiple times in their career.
Everyone has walked out of an interview thinking they nailed it and then the phone doesn’t ring.
The good news is that with a strong grasp of the realities of the market, strong mindsets and the same techniques you learn here for navigating power dynamics you can be an interview star. And even when things don’t bounce your way you can learn how to systematically use the experience to become stronger and smash the next one.
Job Hunting overall is its own world and many great books and courses cover the basics. To give you simple actionable tips this article focuses on what is going to make you strong once you’ve landed the interview. It also looks at the interview as an interaction where some common power dynamics may play out.

The realities of the Recruitment Process
Strong Mindsets for Job Hunting
Interview Day(s)
General Do’s and Don’ts
The phone screen
The remote interview
The panel interview
What’s really going on?
Post-interview
Summary
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Summary
The job market is always changing and is in reality a collection of job markets.
You are only one variable in the hiring process. Often why you do or do not get the job is not about you at all. Every interview is a chance to practice your communications skills and gather valuable information.
Strong mindsets help you to manage your interviews, perform and keep growing. Such as:
Prioritising and Time-boxing
Fake it to make it
Learner mindset
Self-amusement and love of the game
Whatever the interview format, the goal is to make it a back and fourth conversation and have the interview imaging them working alongside you.
Different formats of interview have their own constraints and need you to adjust. For example you may need extra warmth and vocal variation on a phone screen to make up for the lack of visual cues.
On the day you want the interview to become a free flowing conversation where you learn more about the role and frame yourself as already one of their teammates.
Key tools that will help you to be warm and interesting without rambling are indirect questioning, circling back, summarising with catchphrases, collaborative re-framing and power protecting.
The interviewer likely will have agendas beyond the interview process such as:
I need the guy to solve this PROBLEM
Not quite sure who I need in this role - let's see who's out there
I have no idea about this piece of work – let’s ask around and get a bit of free consulting
I want somebody who won’t rock the boat
I need somebody calm who will steady the team under fire
I don’t want anyone too strong who might be a threat
Your job is to sniff out those agendas and play to them.
After the interview there are two schools of thought based on whether you’re using a shotgun or targeted approach. Some treat it as foot traffic, foot traffic, forget and move onto the next one. The main advantage of this is you aren’t over investing and can’t come across as needy. Other people target a particular role or industry and go all out. E.g. write thank you emails re-staring their pitch. Share their thinking on how problems could be solved. The main advantage of this approach is you are stepping into their world which grows that ‘one of us’ vibe.
Interviewing is very subjective from both sides of the process and types of interview and how best to win will vary by job and industry. People hire people. This article has focused on the human side of interviews as human nature applies everywhere.
Follow the tips here and you will be ahead of the pack and well on your way to that dream job.

Here's my initial thinking on the bones of the article - intro, topic headings and the summary section to give idea on where I'm going. Let's prioritise the draft of the article and then Lucio can decide if he just wants to drop it in as is or refine it more and integrate with the other articles (or trailer PU).

Between this, the tips I posted before and my other notes should be able to get a draft out this hols. But my take on this subject is very coloured by my industry, I would love some feedback on the skeleton to make it useful for a wide audience.

Job Interviewing for fun and profit

Most people regard going to a Job interview about as much fun as a visit to the Dentist.

And the reality is that unless you are independently wealthy or a serial entrepreneur most people will need to win at interview multiple times in their career.

Everyone has walked out of an interview thinking they nailed it and then the phone doesn’t ring.

The good news is that with a strong grasp of the realities of the market, strong mindsets and the same techniques you learn here for navigating power dynamics you can be an interview star. And even when things don’t bounce your way you can learn how to systematically use the experience to become stronger and smash the next one.

Job Hunting overall is its own world and many great books and courses cover the basics. To give you simple actionable tips this article focuses on what is going to make you strong once you’ve landed the interview. It also looks at the interview as an interaction where some common power dynamics may play out.

The realities of the Recruitment Process

Strong Mindsets for Job Hunting

Interview Day(s)

General Do’s and Don’ts

The phone screen

The remote interview

The panel interview

What’s really going on?

Post-interview

Summary

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Summary

The job market is always changing and is in reality a collection of job markets.

You are only one variable in the hiring process. Often why you do or do not get the job is not about you at all. Every interview is a chance to practice your communications skills and gather valuable information.

Strong mindsets help you to manage your interviews, perform and keep growing. Such as:

Prioritising and Time-boxing
Fake it to make it
Learner mindset
Self-amusement and love of the game

Whatever the interview format, the goal is to make it a back and fourth conversation and have the interview imaging them working alongside you.

Different formats of interview have their own constraints and need you to adjust. For example you may need extra warmth and vocal variation on a phone screen to make up for the lack of visual cues.

On the day you want the interview to become a free flowing conversation where you learn more about the role and frame yourself as already one of their teammates.

Key tools that will help you to be warm and interesting without rambling are indirect questioning, circling back, summarising with catchphrases, collaborative re-framing and power protecting.

The interviewer likely will have agendas beyond the interview process such as:

I need the guy to solve this PROBLEM

Not quite sure who I need in this role - let's see who's out there

I have no idea about this piece of work – let’s ask around and get a bit of free consulting

I want somebody who won’t rock the boat

I need somebody calm who will steady the team under fire

I don’t want anyone too strong who might be a threat

Your job is to sniff out those agendas and play to them.

After the interview there are two schools of thought based on whether you’re using a shotgun or targeted approach. Some treat it as foot traffic, foot traffic, forget and move onto the next one. The main advantage of this is you aren’t over investing and can’t come across as needy. Other people target a particular role or industry and go all out. E.g. write thank you emails re-staring their pitch. Share their thinking on how problems could be solved. The main advantage of this approach is you are stepping into their world which grows that ‘one of us’ vibe.

Interviewing is very subjective from both sides of the process and types of interview and how best to win will vary by job and industry. People hire people. This article has focused on the human side of interviews as human nature applies everywhere.

Follow the tips here and you will be ahead of the pack and well on your way to that dream job.

B has reacted to this post.