I’m writing a book
Readtime: 3 minutes
(A slightly different newsletter this week, I hope that’s ok!)
I’m writing a book about leadership, which will be published in May next year.
It's called Outsized Leadership, and I’d love your advice.
What’s the book about?
Most of the leaders I work with are doing more of what used to work, but it isn't working anywhere near as well as it used to.
The environment has changed underneath them. Five generations in the workforce, teams spread across countries and cultures, AI shifting what people expect from a leader and how quickly they expect it, working from home still not fully resolved, etc.
However we learned to lead, we learned it when the job was simpler.
So the usual response is to push harder, because effort is the one lever we all know how to pull.
But at senior levels, more effort has largely stopped converting into greater impact.
Which leaves the question of what does.
What actually works
What seems to separate the leaders having an outsized impact is that they're distinctive.
They know their own combination of four things: Signature Traits, what they’re great at, the work they gravitate towards (and why), and where they’re going.
And they've built how they lead around those things rather than a generic version of what a ‘good leader’ looks like.
This also enables them to decide faster and be far more confident in their decisions.
Why a book
I keep watching good leaders exhaust themselves, and they lose the parts of the work they're best at.
Their work is still good, it's just nowhere near what they're really capable of. Their teams and their companies never get to find out what that would look like.
But nothing changes, because everything is ‘good enough’.
This comes at a big personal cost to the leader and their team, and a financial cost for the company.
I've been running versions of this with coaching clients and in workshops for years. It works, so I wanted to bring it to a bigger audience.
There are five rules, which work in sequence:
Know Who You Are – find out what makes you distinctive
Define Your Ambition – make sure you’re heading in the right direction
Shape Your Work – spend more of your time where you deliver the most value
Lead Through Your Decisions – decide faster, and better, from a personal strategy
Build Your Character – develop the qualities that will distinguish you over time
Where you come in
I've set up a separate Inner Circle email list for the book.
If you want in, click the link here and enter your email.
You'll be the first to hear how I'm really finding writing it, plus pre-orders, launch events, and probably a whole lot more I haven't realised I need to do yet.
And there are a few things I'd love your advice on. Draft chapters, and whether they're working. Cover designs. The subtitle, which I'm struggling with more than I expected. No obligation, but I'll be asking the Inner Circle what they think.
I’d love for you to be part of it.
Thank you, as always, for your encouragement and support.
Mostyn
P.S. Here’s that link again to sign-up for the Inner Circle. Normal newsletter service resumes next week, by which time I’ll hopefully have nailed down the book subtitle.