The Mind Of The Leader: How To Lead Yourself, Your People And Your Organization For Extraordinary Results - Book Review

For this assignment choose a Trade/Professional business book on leadership (not a textbook). 

Part A (30%) - Review the book and provide a summary of the important points the author makes about the subject.

Part B (25%) - Address each category

Part C – (30%) – Identify the most interesting thing(s) you learned about the book’s subject.  How can you use what you’ve learned at work and in your business career  Why (or why not) would recommend this book to others

Format – (15%) - This paper should be between 6 and 8 pages long and be written as a professional report. Apply APA referencing and formatting.

Purpose of the Book

The new book, The Mind of the Leader: How to Lead Yourself, Your People and Your Organization for Extraordinary Results by Rasmus Hougaard and Jacqueline Carter underlines that the extent of the differences between the employees and of leader’s perspectives is due to the negligence of the leaders. The leaders are failing to be compassionate towards its employees. In the present books there is an analysis of 52,000 managers of different is been conducted, where it has been found out that approximately 82 percent of the leaders are “fundamentally uninspiring” towards their employees.

As per the authors they believe that the businesses cannot succeed until and unless the people of the company are engaged truly in their operations with happiness. The organizations should commit to its people to give a better environment with proper values and leadership that would give ultimate working satisfaction (Kim & Mauborgne, 2017). The book raises a question that after spending huge amounts on leadership developments by the companies, are they being able to prospect in engaging themselves in full filling the workforce needs and satisfaction?

The present book that is to be reviewed, Mind of the Leader, by Rasmus Hougaard & Jacqueline Carter has pointed out few elements that an ideal leader must possess in order to be the most effective and get the maximum output from their workers. The elements includes:

Mindfulness

As per the book the quality of Leadership refers to a behavior of human in the rise in the unrealistic performance expectations and technology at present. The ideal process of leadership is is to treat the human capital with ads much importance and objectivity as it is given to the asset of the company (Swanson & Frederick, 2016). However this has produced an environment in business where there are disengaged employees who are not given importance as long as the financial targets of the company are met by them (Shin et al., 2015).

The authors argues in order to change this, the leaders  of the company must be primarily trained to become more understanding towards their employees, so that there is complete knowledge of their movements and  there is ultimate support the people who are involved in the operations and are fully responsible for the success of the organization (Xu, Loi  & Ngo, 2016). The challenge in this context lies in staying completely focused on the leadership commitments and ensure utmost understanding of the employee needs.

Objectivity

Selflessness

It is expected in general that the leaders of the company need to meet the only performance targets if they want development in the organization. In this context the authors Hougaard and Carter argues that this may restrict the development of both the employees and the leaders of the organization (Mabey & Mayrhofer, 2015). With the process of getting things done by the people in the own way, the leaders of the company keep their egos intact. There is no develop the humility in the leadership practice.

The authors says that there should be less importance to the personal ego of the leaders and focus should be more on the needs and wants of the employees who are the asset of the company.

Compassionateness

The two authors of the book has recognize the element compassionateness in the leadership quality in the organizations. However, the book argues that it does ot mean that the leaders being compassionate towards its employees are soft and sentimental (Lawton & Páez, 2015). The author advices the leaders to be practical as it is all about doing the right thing to the people who deals with the company clients.

A compassionate leader has enough knowledge to identify the problem that the employee are facing and must be completely committed to help that workers in times of issues.

Part B

Purpose of the Book

The Mind of the Leader underlines a crisis in traditional top-down leadership practices. Disengaged employees are a sign of poor leadership and a terrible waste of potential for any company. Hougaard and Carter offer a clear and direct path to becoming a truly engaged and productive organization

Objectivity

The present book that is to be reviewed, Mind of the Leader, by Rasmus Hougaard & Jacqueline Carter highlights the issue that the leaders of the organizations are not being able to meet the basic human needs of the employees. It includes finding of purpose, meaning, happiness and connection in the workplace (Hougaard & Carter, 2018). The both the authors in the book offers a solution to the issues faced in the organizations. According to them, the organizations must concentrate and focus on the human capital. The people should be at the center of the organizational strategy. The employers of the organizations must need to focus in developing various executives and managers who would lead the workers with three core mental qualities that includes selflessness mindfulness along with compassion.

Currency

Currency

The book includes the finding of purpose, meaning, happiness and connection in the workplace. The both the authors in the book offers a solution to the issues faced in the organizations (Eisenbeiß  & Brodbeck, 2014). Therefore, it is applicable for all the organizations at present, hence it can be said to be current and accurate.

Coverage

As per the authors, they believe that the businesses cannot succeed until and unless the people of the company are engaged truly in their operations with happiness. The organizations should commit to its people to give a better environment with proper values and leadership that would give ultimate working satisfaction. In addition to this the “People first” strategy should be the culture of leadership of the organizations (Demirtas & Akdogan, 2015).

The leaders of the business organizations must act, interact and lead its people in such a way that they are fully heard, seen and given value. The mind of the leader provides a clear path for giving a priority to the people of the organization in order to achieve a better success. Since people are the assets of an organizations this would develop qualities that would enable fulfillment, engagement and meaning to their occupation (Wu et al., 2015).

Part C

The most interesting part of the book is the element of compassion in the leadership quality of the employers in the organizations. As per the book, the authors have elaborated that the leaders must need to be selfless when it comes to taking of big business operations they must focus on cultures of growth and learning of the employees rather than fulfilling the egoistic needs. However, the book argues that it does not mean that the leaders being compassionate towards its employees are soft and sentimental (Babalola,   Stouten & Euwema, 2016). The author advices the leaders to be practical as it is all about doing the right thing to the people who deals with the company clients.

The leaders of the business organizations must act, interact and lead its people in such a way that they are fully heard, seen and given value. The mind of the leader provides a clear path for giving a priority to the people of the organization in order to achieve a better success. There exists a popular saying in the business environment that if the people of the business are taken proper care of, the customers of the business will be satisfied properly, and the business would run successfully. In this context the new book, The Mind of the Leader: How to Lead Yourself, Your People and Your Organization for Extraordinary Results by Rasmus Hougaard and Jacqueline Carter proposes that should focus on this (Swanson & Frederick, 2016).

This would require that the organization leaders are needed to be more selfless, mindful and compassionate while tackling with the employees. However in the traditional leadership practices all these elements were not applicable. Therefore it can be said after reading the book that this book is highly informative and a lot of knowledge can be obtained in the context of leadership in the business (Voss, 2018). This book is highly recommended for the enterprises and the employees who can be able to have sustainable working environment with the help this prospective of leadership as pointed out by the authors. 

References

Babalola, M. T., Stouten, J., & Euwema, M. (2016). Frequent change and turnover intention: The moderating role of ethical leadership. Journal of Business Ethics, 134(2), 311-322.

Demirtas, O., & Akdogan, A. A. (2015). The effect of ethical leadership behavior on ethical climate, turnover intention, and affective commitment. Journal of Business Ethics, 130(1), 59-67.

Eisenbeiß, S. A., & Brodbeck, F. (2014). Ethical and unethical leadership: A cross-cultural and cross-sectoral analysis. Journal of Business Ethics, 122(2), 343-359.

Hougaard, R., & Carter, J. (2018). The Mind of the Leader: How to Lead Yourself, Your People, and Your Organization for Extraordinary Results. Harvard Business Press.

Kim, W. C., & Mauborgne, R. A. (2017). Blue Ocean Leadership (Harvard Business Review Classics). Harvard Business Review Press.

Lawton, A., & Páez, I. (2015). Developing a framework for ethical leadership. Journal of Business Ethics, 130(3), 639-649.

Mabey, C., & Mayrhofer, W. (Eds.). (2015). Developing leadership: questions business schools don't ask. Sage.

Shin, Y., Sung, S. Y., Choi, J. N., & Kim, M. S. (2015). Top management ethical leadership and firm performance: Mediating role of ethical and procedural justice climate. Journal of Business Ethics, 129(1), 43-57.

Swanson, D. L., & Frederick, W. C. (2016). Denial and leadership in business ethics education. Business ethics: New challenges for business schools and corporate leaders, 222-240.

Voss, C. (2018, July). Conscious Leaders Practicing Conscious Capitalism: Developing Conscious Leadership in Business. In Academy of Management Proceedings (Vol. 2018, No. 1, p. 12886). Briarcliff Manor, NY 10510: Academy of Management.

Wu, L. Z., Kwan, H. K., Yim, F. H. K., Chiu, R. K., & He, X. (2015). CEO ethical leadership and corporate social responsibility: A moderated mediation model. Journal of Business Ethics, 130(4), 819-831.

Xu, A. J., Loi, R., & Ngo, H. Y. (2016). Ethical leadership behavior and employee justice perceptions: The mediating role of trust in organization. Journal of Business Ethics, 134(3), 493-504.