A solid handbook for managers in government and public service.
An executive coach guides managers in public service roles through leadership training.
Lybarger uses the structure of a coaching dialogue with a fictional client to explore areas of leadership and achievement applicable to government and other public service careers. Each chapter opens with a dialogue between the coach and the client followed by Lybarger’s more detailed exploration of the chapter’s themes (trust, accountability, strategic thinking) and ending with a list of recommended reading and tools for different types of assessments (including self-, team, and 360-degree assessments). The combination of fictional dialogue and theoretical discussion allows Lybarger to give concrete examples (for instance, the client struggles with leadership conflicts that result from his own insecurities) while also placing concepts in a broader context. The coaching advice includes both guidance on actions such as having a productive talk with an unmotivated employee as well as more internally focused tips, such as advice on practicing mindfulness. Lybarger, the co-author of Leading Forward (2014), is a thoughtful and patient guide, and his book covers a substantial amount of material on a wide variety of leadership topics in a relatively concise format. With its frequent references to other books and research, it is also a valuable tool for readers looking to expand their knowledge of coaching and leadership literature. The prose is sometimes laden with jargon from the business and counseling worlds: “We master aligned accountability by first fostering actionable trust—extending, strengthening, and rebuilding trust as necessary in all our relationships.” On the whole, however, the book is highly readable, and even mindfulness skeptics will find plenty of practical takeaways. The client’s evolution over the course of the text offers a plausible example of the benefits of improved understanding of oneself and others in a professional context. Appendices provide further resources and templates, including a list of the U.S. Office of Personnel Management’s 22 “leadership competencies” referred to throughout the text as well as coaching documents from the International Coach Federation.
A solid handbook for managers in government and public service.Pub Date: Sept. 30, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-5320-8000-5
Page Count: 210
Publisher: iUniverse
Review Posted Online: March 19, 2020
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
These platitudes need perspective; better to buy the books they came from.
A lightweight collection of self-help snippets from the bestselling author.
What makes a quote a quote? Does it have to be quoted by someone other than the original author? Apparently not, if we take Strayed’s collection of truisms as an example. The well-known memoirist (Wild), novelist (Torch), and radio-show host (“Dear Sugar”) pulls lines from her previous pages and delivers them one at a time in this small, gift-sized book. No excerpt exceeds one page in length, and some are only one line long. Strayed doesn’t reference the books she’s drawing from, so the quotes stand without context and are strung together without apparent attention to structure or narrative flow. Thus, we move back and forth from first-person tales from the Pacific Crest Trail to conversational tidbits to meditations on grief. Some are astoundingly simple, such as Strayed’s declaration that “Love is the feeling we have for those we care deeply about and hold in high regard.” Others call on the author’s unique observations—people who regret what they haven’t done, she writes, end up “mingy, addled, shrink-wrapped versions” of themselves—and offer a reward for wading through obvious advice like “Trust your gut.” Other quotes sound familiar—not necessarily because you’ve read Strayed’s other work, but likely due to the influence of other authors on her writing. When she writes about blooming into your own authenticity, for instance, one is immediately reminded of Anaïs Nin: "And the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom.” Strayed’s true blossoming happens in her longer works; while this collection might brighten someone’s day—and is sure to sell plenty of copies during the holidays—it’s no substitute for the real thing.
These platitudes need perspective; better to buy the books they came from.Pub Date: Nov. 1, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-101-946909
Page Count: 160
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: Aug. 15, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2015
Readers unfamiliar with the anecdotal material Greene presents may find interesting avenues to pursue, but they should...
Greene (The 33 Strategies of War, 2007, etc.) believes that genius can be learned if we pay attention and reject social conformity.
The author suggests that our emergence as a species with stereoscopic, frontal vision and sophisticated hand-eye coordination gave us an advantage over earlier humans and primates because it allowed us to contemplate a situation and ponder alternatives for action. This, along with the advantages conferred by mirror neurons, which allow us to intuit what others may be thinking, contributed to our ability to learn, pass on inventions to future generations and improve our problem-solving ability. Throughout most of human history, we were hunter-gatherers, and our brains are engineered accordingly. The author has a jaundiced view of our modern technological society, which, he writes, encourages quick, rash judgments. We fail to spend the time needed to develop thorough mastery of a subject. Greene writes that every human is “born unique,” with specific potential that we can develop if we listen to our inner voice. He offers many interesting but tendentious examples to illustrate his theory, including Einstein, Darwin, Mozart and Temple Grandin. In the case of Darwin, Greene ignores the formative intellectual influences that shaped his thought, including the discovery of geological evolution with which he was familiar before his famous voyage. The author uses Grandin's struggle to overcome autistic social handicaps as a model for the necessity for everyone to create a deceptive social mask.
Readers unfamiliar with the anecdotal material Greene presents may find interesting avenues to pursue, but they should beware of the author's quirky, sometimes misleading brush-stroke characterizations.Pub Date: Nov. 13, 2012
ISBN: 978-0-670-02496-4
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: Sept. 12, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2012
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