Review: The Five Temptations of a CEO: A Leadership Fable

The Five Temptations of a CEO: A Leadership Fable by Patrick Lencioni
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

The title of this book limits you realising the benefit to every leadership role.

Once again Patrick Lencioni delivers a brilliant book about leadership. The brilliance of Patrick is not just in the way he delivers his great books as a fable; but the way he is willing to use words that at first glance appear challenging and even somewhat controversial.

In this great book Patrick explores the 5 areas, or temptations, that impact every role who is a leader. Essentially covering,
- "status over results"
- "popularity over accountability"
- "certainty over clarity"
- "harmony over conflict"
- "invulnerability over trust"

This resonates with me significantly. For quite some time I have used the following "statements" to push me to grow as a leader, which little did I know relate to these 5 temptations. Those that know me will recognise some or all of these statements.

"Be good rather than look good" = "Status over results"
"Not about being liked, but being respected" & "take ownership" = "popularity over accountability"
"Be inquisitive, listen to all views" = "certainty over clarity"
"Respectful challenge, ask questions" = "harmony over conflict"
"Be vulnerable, call out your own mistakes" = "invulnerability over trust"

Patrick's organisation, The Table Group provides a great summary of this short but brilliant leadership book (https://www.tablegroup.com/imo/media/...).

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Review: There's No Such Thing as "Business" Ethics: There's Only One Rule for Making Decisions

There's No Such Thing as "Business" Ethics: There's Only One Rule for Making Decisions by John C. Maxwell
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

John Maxwell once again delivers a clear and great book for us all.

Ethics is not something different when we enter an organisation, it is the same ethics we have in all our lives. This book provides techniques and guides to staying true to an ethical life, and in essence "do the right thing".

Having listened to this as an audiobook, I cannot provide direct quotes; but the most important "quote" I took from this great book is this, "stay true to living a life that brings love, value and support to those around you".

The critical aspect to this is to not "compete" to be the best, but to be your best.

I recently watched an AFL game and saw 2 players competing and one earning a free kick/pass; the ball dropping to the feet of the other player (the opposition). The opposition bent down to pick the ball up but he did not. He did it again. The other player stood waiting to receive the ball. Finally, on the third drop down the opposition player just smiled. The player awarded the free had to go and get the ball.

Is that how people want to win? Is that the role model for our children? When did we get like this?

The book describes a story of a Winter Olympic games bobsled event where the Italian's, not expected to win gold, performed a brilliant run down the track. They were placed first at that time with 2 competitors to go. The next competitor were the English, who were the favourites. Unfortunately in the run down the track prior, the English bobsled had lost its bolt. This meant they could not do their next and final run.

Hearing this, the Italian's down the end of the track immediately went to their bobsled and removed their bolt. They asked for it to be rushed up to the English. The English were able to get the bolt installed and complete their run. The Italians ended up third.

The Italian bobsledder commented having been asked why he did this, that "I would rather win knowing I had competed fairly against the best and won".

Valuable lesson we should all heed. Ask yourself, would you do this?

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