POSITIONAL AUTHORITY AIN'T LEADERSHIP

Gavoni proposes a behavioral approach to revamping and improving organizational leadership in this nonfiction guide.

Everyone, according to the author, has the potential for leadership; the difference between effective and ineffective leaders comes down to the skills they have learned. Per Gavoni, managers who are always learning and changing their patterns can make real differences, whereas “lazy managers will never become leaders.” Leadership, according to the author, is dynamic and multifaceted; the picture changes, as when zooming in and out with a camera lens. The author outlines a playbook he calls the Four-Term Contingency to develop fundamental leadership principles, organized into the categories of Motivating Operation (“environmental variables that affect the value of a reinforcer or punisher and alter the frequency of behaviors that have been reinforced or punished by those stimuli in the past,” as Gavoni puts it); Antecedent (stage-setting for future plans); Behavior (all of a person’s responses to their environment); and, finally, Consequence (the results that flow from behavior). The pages are well-illustrated with graphs and charts to help readers visualize both the various types of time-wasting clowns they might find in any workplace and the ways that switching between various leadership “hats” can help address such problems. Gavoni’s thoughts on all of these issues are presented in great detail and expressed with an appealing confidence. He’s always thought-provoking when discussing the thinking that underlies different workplace problems, though his prose can sometimes be overly stiff and fussy. “If an employee works overtime to avoid criticism from a manager, the overtime work is negatively reinforced by the removal of the potential negative feedback,” he writes. “In such environments, employees tend to operate with a mindset geared toward avoiding aversive outcomes rather than striving for positive results.” The underlying content is meaty, but readers will often have to wade through excess verbiage to reach it.

Valuable fact-based (if occasionally verbose) insights on the dynamics of leadership.