Good Authority - How to Become the Leader Your Team Is Waiting For - Jonathan RaymondI became aware of Jonathan Raymond through a Leadx webinar entitled, “How to Be a Great People Manager.” As he was introduced, “Mr. Raymond is the author of Good Authority and CEO at Refound, a leadership training company that helps leaders and managers to start and manage meaningful conversations with their colleagues.”

 

I enjoyed the webinar and decided to read Good Authority: How to Become the Leader Your Team Is Waiting For. As a result, I’ve noted it as a top pick in my 2017 Reading List. Below are the highlights along with my favorite quotes from the book.

 

 

Highlights of Good Authority

We’ve read all of the studies that tell us that a majority of our employees are either not engaged or actively disengaged. Mr. Raymond challenges managers to understand their role as a change agent, to stop trying to engage their employees and instead focus on becoming more engaged with them, and to realize that professional and personal growth are inseparable.1

 

After dispelling common employee engagement myths, he encourages us to become more self-aware of our strengths and weaknesses as well as those of our direct reports, coworkers, and leaders so that we can identify where we are likely to complement or conflict.  Most interestingly, we learn that sometimes our greatest strengths can also be our greatest weakness.

 

To grow requires tension and risk. We are all on the hook for being the best version of ourselves and expecting the same of others. Talking about behaviors isn’t enough, we must connect those behaviors to their impacts so that people see them in context.2 To help us in that journey is the Accountability Dial where we are guided through the 5 steps of holding people accountable: The Mention, The Invitation, The Conversation, The Boundary, and The Limit.3

 

“More Yoda, Less Superman4” is a good way to sum up the last part of the book. Our goal should be to help people discover things for themselves versus us pointing them out. Understanding the difference between being an authority and having an authority figure When is also necessary. When we are being an authority our leadership style falls into one of three categories: Fixer, Fighter, or Friend.5 The Five Employee Archetypes (The Pragmatist, The Provocateur, The Protector, The Peacemaker, and The Performer)6 are about how you relate to having an authority.7

 

 

Favorite Quotes from Good Authority

“I learned that a manager can foster the personal growth of each person on their team by giving direct and granular feedback about the way they relate to their work, and by giving them the choice to act – or not act – on that feedback in their own way.”8

 

“Personal growth doesn’t mean changing ourselves, though that’s a part of it. It means letting the people in our lives change us, to help and hold us accountable for pushing aside  the ways we’ve learned to cope, so that we can rediscover the version of ourselves that we know is there but is hard to reach.”9

 

“Learning to see accountability as a tool to help people own their strengths, rather than point out their weaknesses, is the essence of Good Authority.”10

 

 

 

What are your thoughts on accountability in the workplace?  What other books would you recommend?

 

 

You can find other top picks in The Reading List tab of the Agent In Engagement website.

Want to read this book? Let me exhort the benefits of using your local public library. This free and accessible public service is paid for, in part, by your tax dollars and offers a wealth of interesting and informative selections. If, by chance, the book you wish to read is not available through the library, please be environmentally responsible and purchase a used or electronic version.

 

 

1 Raymond, Jonathan. Good authority: how to become the leader your team is waiting for. United States, Ideapress Publishing, 2016., pg. 3.
2 Ibid., pg. 46
3 Ibid., pgs 99-114
4 Ibid., pg. 135
5 Ibid., pg. 166
6 Ibid., pgs. 168-180
7 Ibid., p. 166
8 Ibid., p. xxi
9 Ibid., p. 71
10 Ibid., p. 93

 

 

 

Let’s Engage! 

I’m Agent in Engagement Simpson…Gregory F Simpson.

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