Leading the Unleadable: How to Manage Mavericks, Cynics, Divas, and Other Difficult People

Leading the Unleadable is one of the most insightful and creative books on leadership, I have ever read. Alan’s theme – his three-fold personal mental model, if you will – is a must for every leader, no matter their station in their given organization. He asserts and rightfully so, to treat yourself as a business of one person who is choosing to provide services to your employer in exchange for the company’s choice to pay you. In running this business of “me”, he offers three significant mindset shifts. 1. Provide great return on investment to my employer. For me to be successful, my employer must be successful. Instead of simply “get stuff done” I must instead “have great positive impact on the business.” 2. Improve me. Any business must be focused on the now and on the future. My new mindset changed to think of every investment in time I made as having to be beneficial to my employer but also to myself. 3. Seek opportunities to dramatically improve your business. With the mindset shift, you will be thinking about the overall business and where you can provide the most impact. You will be pitching new ideas and initiatives that further the business of you, and the business that you own or are employed by. Having coached over 500 CEOs and senior executives, I can tell you this mindset is pure gold. The entire book is a gem. Every page is loaded with unusual but pertinent insights. Read it, and then read it again. You will not be sorry.

This is my first book on leadership, so I didn't know what to expect from it. Furthermore, what I was looking for were actually practical examples of how to deal with difficult people, and not as much about leadership. The book had that, but the focus seemed to be more on "leading" then on "the unleadable". I however don't feel like punishing the book with a lower score because of the slight mismatch between the title and the content. It was a good book, I din't want to get pedantic about it. Just be careful about your expectations. Bonus! I received an extra chapter from "Talking to crazy" at the end. That book really seems like it's about handling difficult people, so I might check that out. I don't have too much to say about this book, even though I took maybe hundreds of notes (on kindle). It's all just reasonable good advice...stuff you'd probably find in a lot of places. I found the BS level to be quite low, so the author seems to really talk from experience, and not after imagining how straw-people work and drawing on flipcharts. It's a short read, I recommend it for people who chose to/ended up leading others, people who have bosses and want to understand what pressures their bosses face, and people who are easily annoyed by others :p Also further recommendation on how to deal with difficult people or people who don't know how to express themselves: "How to argue: powerfully, persuasively, politely" (...or something like thst). That helps in ending arguments very fast and very constructively.

I first became familiar with this book when working with one of my friends who manages a small team. She gets frustrated with her staff often and I initially bought "Leading the Unleadable" as a joke based on the title. The explanation is, I'm more of an optimist and too often setup myself for failure when working with others and their current competencies, and she is a classic pessimist. I ended up buying a copy for myself and we both read the book together. We both learned a lot, and while I can't say we're not still dealing with the same issues, I can say our perspectives have continued to evolve and we have found new strategies around leadership and even self-management. The most helpful aspects of the book for me were the interesting anecdotes and tie-ins to project management. The title might indicate a harsh perspective, but Alan really turns it around and reveals the importance of one's own perspective and effectiveness.

I have a volunteer job where I work for an organization that is entirely volunteer run. So managing difficult personalities effectively is essentially the order of the day. This book impressed me by getting straight to the 'meat' so to speak of strategies and principles, rather than spending entire chapters trying to convince me that the book holds valuable information (which to me is usually a sign that it doesn't). It takes a bit of flexibility for me to apply the enclosed strategies and principles to a purely volunteer organization, but I can immediately see their value even so. I'd probably have given a 5 star review here... except that I decided to purchase a quantity of copies, and then recommend the book to others in my organization... and it seems that when I purchased 20 copies, the author then went and canceled the promotional price of $2.99 on the book so that even a few minutes later when I decided 25 would be a better number, I was unable to purchase additional copies at that price. This makes me less enthusiastic in my recommendation.

A must-read for any leader serious about growing their impact. I reference it often in conversation and frequently recommend it to other managers. It’s especially valuable for anyone dealing with strong personalities, high-performers, or challenging team dynamics. I look forward to reading the second addition.

I recommend Leading the Unleadable to anyone looking to become an exceptional leader. Alan provides practical methodologies for dealing with trouble, taking accountability, setting expectations of excellence, hitting your sweet spot, prioritizing the work that matters, and improving your ability to improve. I believe every business should make this book required reading.

This book is helping me understand the nuances of managing the unmanageable. I was able to implement the learning at ease. I liked the examples used.

The title is rather misleading - the book.doesn't speak about leading difficult people. Very generic text, not really "usable" in the real world.

Worthwhile read

I've had the pleasure of working with Alan, and eagerly looked forward to reading this book. The first thing I would say is that I didn't think this book was aimed at me and that perhaps you might think the same. But this book isn't just about leading: it's an insight into what it means to be a leader. Despite their being general cultural differences in how companies are run, Alan has taken his own advice to heart and what you will find in here is advice that works for everyone; you won't find yourself thinking "sounds great for the US, but wouldn't work here." Instead you will find practical, useful examples of the kind of problems I am sure you come across every day in business - whatever you do and wherever you sit in the structure. Beyond that, it exposes the philosophy that will help you implement the solutions to those problems. Reading it has helped me in two ways: 1) as someone with influence but not power, it has helped me understand those around me better, and 2) it extends the toolbox of advice I can offer to both the leaders and other team members that I work with. That being said, having led in the past I wish I'd had this book handy; and if I lead again, this will be in my top drawer.

Good book, good read and good ideas. I think something is missing.

Good book for building Leaders in the team!