The Leadership Skills Handbook

The introduction notes that most leadership books try to answer the question «what does good leadership look like?»; this book begins with the question «how can you learn to lead?» According to research with thousands of managers the answer is clear: leaders learn not from courses but from experience, their bosses, their peers and role models. This learning is random; the book gives it a system. The author sets out the «leadership conundrum»: trying to be someone else is a dead end, and so is waiting for someone to spot the brilliance in us; the answer is to be «the best version of yourself».

The author Jo Owen stresses that the book does not propose a single formula for success: you do not have to be Mandela, Genghis Khan or Mother Teresa; the book helps you to create your own «leadership DNA». Like Olympic gold medallists, leaders must develop not in everything but in their strengths and find their own environment. The fifth edition says that the nature of leadership has changed in the twenty-first century: leaders are losing their coercive power over followers and have to learn influence, persuasion and politics.

Part 1 «Mindset» consists of ten skills. In «Positive Leadership» the author writes that in the research there was no successful leader who was pessimistic about their job, their organisation or themselves; the positive leader focuses on the future and action, sees opportunities and creates choices instead of accepting the situation («what can I do now?» rather than «where did it go wrong?»). Example: when a school building burned down, the head saw it as an opportunity to rebuild the school the way he wanted.

In the skill «Responsibility» the author points to three things: you are responsible for your career, for what happens to you (even bad things) and for your own feelings. The person who accepts bad things with «someone else did it» is a victim; the one who takes responsibility takes control. The section «High Aims» shows that «good enough» is the slogan of losers and that more than 90% of employees rate themselves above average; to make aims real Owen gives questions asking where you will be in five or ten years. In «Be Brave» it is explained with the firefighter example that courage can be learned: start with small steps and check how far outside your comfort zone you have pushed yourself in the last three months.

• Each skill is a short chapter and ends with a thesis, one or two examples and a list of self-questions
• The author gives examples from his own experience (the story of being defrauded) and from other people's stories
• Tables compare the «leader mindset» and the «follower mindset» at the level of questions
• The book is built as a self-learning system: the reader is expected to observe and take notes