David Traversi's The Source of Leadership is like a travelogue of one person's discovery of interesting places and practices in the leadership landscape. Any one of the many techniques he introduces you to can improve your performance.
How this book is different
This is not a scientific treatise or a study of effective management. It's more like a travelogue of one person's discovery of interesting places and practices in the leadership landscape.
Strengths
Eclectic. There are lots here that you won't get from the standard leadership book.
Personal. This is a collection of things that have worked for one person. They may work for you.
Warnings
Personal. This is a collection of things that have worked for one person. They may not work for you.
New Age jargon may put you off.
The research is skimpy. If you want research support this is not the book for you.
The overall system is shaky. If you're looking for tightly connected reasoning, this is not the book for you.
Bottom Line
Any one of the many techniques Traversi introduces you to can have a big impact.
Here are the details.
Unlike most books, this one really begins with the Acknowledgements. There, the author tells you:
"I am a strong believer in the oneness of our existence, that we are all connected to each other and every other element in our existence by a single energy. Nothing occurs in isolation."
This is not John Donne and "no man is an island." It's more like what would happen if Shirley MacLaine co-authored a business book. There are some real insights, but there is also some serious weirdness. Consider Traversi's definition of leadership, taken from the Introduction.
"Leadership is the process of transforming deep personal energies—internal drivers—into extraordinary interpersonal results. The person who recognizes, assesses, and develops those drivers will first be wholly empowered and fulfilled on the personal level and then, and only then, profoundly effective as a leader of people in today's high velocity, highly complex, and interconnected world."
If that appeals to you read on. I'll tell you what the book is about and how it may be a book you should read. Otherwise, move on to something else.
Still with me? OK. Here's the outline.
In the Introduction, titled "I went Searching," David Traversi tells us that "On average, I believe leaders misfire on most cylinders and achieve effectiveness of less than 50 percent."
This would be a more powerful statement if he gave us the vaguest hint of how that measurement was derived. We don't know what either 100 percent looks like or what 0 looks like. We don't know how he came up with his judgment.
This is also where Traversi introduces his "Leadership Dashboard." Like his statement about effectiveness, the Dashboard would be more helpful to you if you knew how to rate yourself or your peers on each dimension.
The next eight chapters lay out the drivers. Here are the drivers, in order of appearance.
Presence
Openness
Clarity
Intention
Personal Responsibility
Intuition
Creativity
Connected Communication
In each chapter you'll find a bit of New Age jargon, unsupported statements, and interesting ideas. It's the interesting ideas that make this book valuable.
There are lots of exercises in here. You're certain to find something that appeals to you and something you haven't tried before. If you pick up one new practice or new way of considering your leadership role, the book will pay for itself many times over.
Finally, comes the chapter on "Becoming a High Impact Leader." This is where it's all supposed to come together.
After 200 pages of working with the Dashboard, Traversi finally comes up with a measurement/assessment system with his "Source of Leadership Assessment Survey." It's not real clear how all of it works, but it doesn't matter.
Years ago, a grizzled Army Master Sergeant introduced me to meditation. That experience taught me that powerful tools can be found in unexpected places. The Source of Leadership is one of those places.
Dip into The Source of Leadership to find things to try. Some won't make sense. Some won't work. But others can transform your work and give you an edge.
The author has a blog supporting this book: The Source of Leadership Blog.
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