Leadership and Self Deception: Getting Out of the Box Review

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(More customer reviews)This is a most unusual book on leadership. The premise here is not about leadership approaches, methodologies for managing employees in the workplace, or other business strategy, but is instead a close and powerful look at how we view others and how that view impacts our ability to lead them.
The first unusual aspect of this book is the manner in which it is written. It is basically a novel. It starts with contextual story written in first person, of a man who has recently joined a successful company as an executive and is called in to meet personally with the Company senior leader. From the first few pages I was anticipating and wanting to know what would happen next. It is within this method that the leadership principles are revealed. This is an extremely important way to deliver a message. I know a few people who do not read novels, but stick to non-fiction types of books. This is a tremendous loss, as truth is most eloquently and powerfully conveyed within the context of a story. In the New Testament for example, Jesus taught most powerfully in parables, weaving truth into a common story people could relate to. In that manner this book weaves some powerful messages about leadership into a modern day parable of a business executive.
The concept presented in this book of what leadership is, is also a more unusual one in that the focus is not on "what" we do behaviorally to others, our outward leadership style, as most leadership books focus on, but rather our inward view of these individuals as people. The foundational question is whether we are "in the box" or not. "In the box" refers generally to viewing others as objects through our own biased lens, which often without our knowledge inflates our self-importance while diminishing theirs. When reading this story I couldn't help but draw parallels to companies I have worked for, like GE, where the culture of leadership was in place, but despite all the tools most managers were not effective delivering them. This book will give one explanation on why.
This book is personally challenging, in that the focus is not on how we act in that compartment of our lives called work, but rather who we are in relation to others in our family, our workplace, and strangers in our society. I think that the message here should be experienced, so I will not lay out all the components of the book, but rather encourage you to read to be likewise challenged about your own leadership and approach to others.
One other review here I noticed was titled "could be life changing". I agree. While the basic concept is not new, the packaging of this idea is so eloquently and powerfully done, that I would guess you may also experience some awareness bursts as I did while reading it. I found myself re-examining many aspects of how I lead my team at work, how I interact with peers and co-workers, and how I related to my wife. Simply put, a great book on leadership that would benefit anyone who reads it. Well done.

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Leadership and Self-Deception: Getting out of the Box Review

Average Reviews:

(More customer reviews)I bought Leadership and Self-Deception: Getting out of the Box and The Anatomy of Peace: Resolving the Heart of Conflict because I'll be starting a program in conflict resolution in a few months and I wanted to become more familiar with some of the basic concepts before I started. So far, I've only read Leadership and Self-Deception. I bought the two books because they are popular and were reviewed by a lot of people, and the majority of reviews were very positive. I have to admit I was in a bit of a rush, so I just read a couple of the very positive reviews as well as a couple of the very negative reviews befor I made my order.
When I received the books I was surprised to find they were written in narrative form. Because the books were written by an "institution" and not a specific author, I wrongly believed the style of the writing would be more scholarly or at a minimum journalistic. That's what I was looking for.
Because it was written as a narrative, I feel it's only fair to briefly review this aspect of the book. I found all of it very contrived, and I felt like I was being pushed along from point to point to point. All fictional narrative is about manipulating the thoughts and feelings of the reader (movie goer) and that's fine because it's a part of the contract between the narrative creator and the viewer. In the case of narrative in Leadership and Self-Deception: Getting out of the Box I felt manipulation because the message (themes) were meant to be so clear. I think with fictional or journalist narratives the themes aren't supposed to be so on the nose or in the case of journalistic writing it's often just descriptive or factual. There is some room for interpretation. Anyway, for me, the narrative structure wasn't effective because I felt manipulated.
At the end of the book, there is a section on how the book changed people's lives but the lack of details about the individuals bothered me. For example, an unnamed police department in an unnamed major city uses the book. An unnamed CEO fired himself but not before hiring his unnamed replacement. For me, the lack of detail undermines the credibility of the message. I would have much preferred a research based approach with analysis of actual events. Generic anecdotes don't do it for me.
As for the message of the book, I thought many of anecdotes were interesting and universally true. I think there is value in becoming aware of how we deceive ourselves at times. And of course, we should see others has people and not as objects. I think if we made an attempt to treat others more genuinely the world would be a better place. Unfortunately, having an intellectual understanding of the concepts isn't enough to put them into practice. I believe this to be true and the authors of the book do mention this in the book. To do that, we'll need to pay for courses provided by the Arbinger Institute (or other organization). I think that's fine. From what I read about the institute, they do seem to have their hearts in the right place and they do seem to want to make people's lives and the world a better place and I don't see any reason why they shouldn't make some money from their efforts.
The bottom line for me was the book cost about $12.00, I read it in an afternoon, I learned a few things, and thought about myself a little bit more deeply. I'll try and keep the concepts in mind when dealing with others. I'll pass the book on to my wife to see what she thinks. It will give us something share (which is good), but I think I'll need to find some other books to read on the subject that better meet my needs. Any suggestions?


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