A smart, systematic approach to enlightened leadership.
An international coach shares her four-step approach to becoming an agile leader.
Agile leadership is a style that features the ability to be flexible and adapt to change. In this second edition, Yeo updates her guide to agile leadership. It is centered on “Re4,” a coaching model the author developed while working with large organizations, including Fortune 500 companies and the United Nations. Re4 consists of four steps: “Reconstruct the Map,” “Refresh the Lens,” “Renew the Identity,” and “Rebuild the Capabilities.” Instead of merely explaining the Re4 concept, Yeo deftly demonstrates its application by citing examples of how several of her clients employed it to improve their leadership approaches. In addition, she relates these cases to eight paradoxes that leaders generally face. Each of these is explained in a chapter that defines the paradox and shows how one of her clients applied Re4 to address the situation. For example, in the third paradox, “Self vs. System,” Yeo’s client Amy found it challenging to manage the conflict between her job and her family and used Re4 to solve the problem. The sixth paradox, “Executing vs. Inspiring,” depicts how the author’s client Prakash employed Re4 to learn how to facilitate team brainstorming and decision-making rather than taking on sole responsibility. The business book is organized in a useful way: After a general discussion of leadership agility (Part I), Yeo outlines the paradoxes (Part II). Then, in Part III, the author offers an in-depth examination of each client’s motivations and experiences with Re4 as well as posing questions for readers to answer. This is a very effective approach because it identifies a leadership challenge, depicts the implementation of a solution by an actual client, and encourages readers to immerse themselves in and reflect on the Re4 methodology. Yeo concludes that leaders who understand their “authentic” selves find that “the right answer” for their contexts can help them lead with “greater agility.” Well-constructed, clearly written, and replete with appropriate examples, this guide is a distinguished and welcome addition to an already burgeoning business book category.
A smart, systematic approach to enlightened leadership.Pub Date: May 31, 2020
ISBN: 978-981-14-5846-0
Page Count: 194
Publisher: Acesence
Review Posted Online: June 19, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2020
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
Sedaris at his darkest—and his best.
In which the veteran humorist enters middle age with fine snark but some trepidation as well.
Mortality is weighing on Sedaris (Theft by Finding: Diaries 1977-2002, 2017, etc.), much of it his own, professional narcissist that he is. Watching an elderly man have a bowel accident on a plane, he dreaded the day when he would be the target of teenagers’ jokes “as they raise their phones to take my picture from behind.” A skin tumor troubled him, but so did the doctor who told him he couldn’t keep it once it was removed. “But it’s my tumor,” he insisted. “I made it.” (Eventually, he found a semitrained doctor to remove and give him the lipoma, which he proceeded to feed to a turtle.) The deaths of others are much on the author’s mind as well: He contemplates the suicide of his sister Tiffany, his alcoholic mother’s death, and his cantankerous father’s erratic behavior. His contemplation of his mother’s drinking—and his family’s denial of it—makes for some of the most poignant writing in the book: The sound of her putting ice in a rocks glass increasingly sounded “like a trigger being cocked.” Despite the gloom, however, frivolity still abides in the Sedaris clan. His summer home on the Carolina coast, which he dubbed the Sea Section, overspills with irreverent bantering between him and his siblings as his long-suffering partner, Hugh, looks on. Sedaris hasn’t lost his capacity for bemused observations of the people he encounters. For example, cashiers who say “have a blessed day” make him feel “like you’ve been sprayed against your will with God cologne.” But bad news has sharpened the author’s humor, and this book is defined by a persistent, engaging bafflement over how seriously or unseriously to take life when it’s increasingly filled with Trump and funerals.
Sedaris at his darkest—and his best.Pub Date: May 29, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-316-39238-9
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: Feb. 19, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2018
PROFILES
Gibbins combines historical knowledge with a sense of adventure, making this book a highly enjoyable package.
A popular novelist turns his hand to historical writing, focusing on what shipwrecks can tell us.
There’s something inherently romantic about shipwrecks: the mystery, the drama of disaster, the prospect of lost treasure. Gibbins, who’s found acclaim as an author of historical fiction, has long been fascinated with them, and his expertise in both archaeology and diving provides a tone of solid authority to his latest book. The author has personally dived on more than half the wrecks discussed in the book; for the other cases, he draws on historical records and accounts. “Wrecks offer special access to history at all…levels,” he writes. “Unlike many archaeological sites, a wreck represents a single event in which most of the objects were in use at that time and can often be closely dated. What might seem hazy in other evidence can be sharply defined, pointing the way to fresh insights.” Gibbins covers a wide variety of cases, including wrecks dating from classical times; a ship torpedoed during World War II; a Viking longship; a ship of Arab origin that foundered in Indonesian waters in the ninth century; the Mary Rose, the flagship of the navy of Henry VIII; and an Arctic exploring vessel, the Terror (for more on that ship, read Paul Watson’s Ice Ghost). Underwater excavation often produces valuable artifacts, but Gibbins is equally interested in the material that reveals the society of the time. He does an excellent job of placing each wreck within a broader context, as well as examining the human elements of the story. The result is a book that will appeal to readers with an interest in maritime history and who would enjoy a different, and enlightening, perspective.
Gibbins combines historical knowledge with a sense of adventure, making this book a highly enjoyable package.Pub Date: April 2, 2024
ISBN: 9781250325372
Page Count: 304
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: Nov. 28, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2024
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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