Book Description Review “Dave McKeown is a rising voice in the world of leadership. In The Self-Evolved Leader, he brings a fresh approach that is sorely needed in our organizations.” – Marshall Goldsmith, Thinkers 50 #1 Executive Coach for 10 years.“It’s both embarrassing and frustrating when you discover your well-meaning attempts at heroic leadership have kept you and your team stuck in a cycle of mediocrity. You’re exhausted, they’re frustrated, and everyone’s underperforming. Dave McKeown draws on wisdom and experience to give you the insights to break the cycle, and a plan to actually change the way you lead.” – Michael Bungay Stanier, Bestselling author of The Coaching Habit.You might assume that The Self-Evolved Leader is just another self-help business tome. You’d be wrong. Five minutes into Dave McKeown’s easy-going pages, you’ll find yourself nodding along with his observations about how most leaders really behave. By the end of the book, you’ll be convinced enough of Dave’s wisdom to repeat his self-evolved leader’s mantra daily (sorry, you have to read the book to find out). This is a warm, acute and persuasive work: If you lead a team of any size, The Self-Evolved Leader can help you and your team together do the best work of your lives. – Eric Schurenberg, CEO, Fast Company and Inc.“Evolving yourself as a leader is mandatory in these complex, challenging times. Dave McKeown provides easy to implement, simple to maintain techniques and strategies to modernize your leadership and ensure your team is ready for what’s next.” – Cy Wakeman, Author of No Ego.“Equal parts poignant and practical, The Self-Evolved Leader serves as a rallying cry for better leadership. Unlike other business books that leave you hanging, it also gives you a precise roadmap to get there. It’s time very well spent.” – Nancy Duarte, CEO and Bestselling Author Read more From the Inside Flap In a world where everything is urgent, our leaders are being drawn into a dangerous cycle of saving the day and pulling victory from the jaws of defeat. Although valiant on the surface, this ends in burnout for them and learned helplessness in their people. In this timely and easy-to-read book, leadership consultant and speaker, Dave McKeown, draws on his experience of working with thousands of leaders in fast-growing organizations and lays out a compelling argument for stopping this cycle of mediocrity. In its place, McKeown implores readers to reset their understanding of where their value comes from. Namely that instead of knowing the answers and solving their teams’ emergencies, they should elevate their focus to the medium- and long-term direction of their team and development of their people.Written for leaders from the front line to the C-Suite, The Self-Evolved Leader will show you how to:* Stop working in the weeds and think more strategically* Find more time to focus on the important work* Build empowerment deep in your team* Free up your headspace to be more creative* Deliver lasting results for your team and organizationWith a deep understanding of today’s hyper-busy world, McKeown lays out the key challenges facing leaders in fast-moving organizations and the need to move away from prevalent yet outdated and often detrimental models and methods.In place of these destructive patterns, McKeown identifies a three-step approach that leaders can use to navigate their team to success: create a shared vision, build an implementation rhythm, and develop the key leadership disciplines. The book concludes with a comprehensive 15-week program to help the reader implement the practices in the book within their own team and more broadly in their organization.The book balances the need for new leadership philosophies with practical steps to becoming a better leader. It leaves the reader with a renewed picture of leadership excellence, a desire to become the best leader they can be, and a detailed roadmap to get there. Read more About the Author Dave McKeown helps individuals, teams, and organizations achieve excellence by doing the ordinary things extraordinarily well. He is the CEO of Outfield Leadership and author of TheSelf-Evolved Leader – Elevate Your Focus and Develop YourPeople in a World That Refuses to Slow Down (Greenleaf Book Group). He has a wealth of experience in connecting individual and team performance to improved business results with a particular focus on fast-growing, complex organizations. Dave started his career as a Consultant at Accenture, quickly moving to become the COO and then President of PredictableSuccess, a boutique consultancy focussed on helping complex businesses achieve scalability. Whilst at Predictable Success he also ran Inc. Consulting, a joint venture with Inc. Media which helped companies on, or aspiring to be on, the Inc. 5000. achieve consistent, scalable growth. As Founder and CEO of Outfield Leadership, Dave now speaks, coaches and trains on moving from execution to excellence.His goal is to help organizations build a culture of real, authentic but ultimately results-driven leadership. He has shared his leadership strategies at the Inc. 500 and Growco conferences, Bank of America, for the BritishGovernment, Entrepreneur’s Organization, Bamboo HR and countless others. And has worked with leaders at SpectrumHealth, Renewal by Andersen, Akamai, NYSE and many smaller, fast-growing organizations. Dave is the host of the podcast ‘Lead Like you Give a Damn’ and writes a weekly column for Inc.Com. Originally from Northern Ireland, Dave now lives in SouthernCalifornia with his wonderful wife, Paris and awesome Staffie, Maggie. Read more Customers Review: The Self-evolved Leader is full of synthesized information on how to become a better leader (and human). I love that there are sections called “What to Remember” and “What to try” at the end of each chapter, making it easy to create action steps and move forward.The structure of the book is so logical that it seems fool-proof, if you’re willing to put in the work, this book will definitely be on my list of recommended reads for anyone who wants to develop and evolve as a leader with the benefit of creating and elevating great teams in the process.
Listen up as Dave shares practical advice every leader can apply to be more productive and accountable.He provides practical advice models, templates, assessments, and weekly action plans so you can use this resource like a workbook. To help you focus he has also provided a summary in each chapter of what to remember and what to try.If you want to be able to focus, be present and pay attention, this book will help you with your attention management as a leader.Neen James – Keynote Speaker, and author of Attention Pays.
Brené Brown. Stephen Covey. Jim Loehr. Cal Newport. Carol Dweck. Simon Sinek. Michael Hyatt. Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi. Henry Cloud. Whether they have opened your eyes to view vulnerability as courage, motivated you to find your why, or advocated for you to set clear boundaries with others, each of these best-selling authors and speakers has shifted the way leaders think about and approach leadership.Imagine if there were ONE book where themes of vulnerability, authenticity, mindset, purpose, clarity, communication, and boundaries all came together to paint a complete portrait of an effective and influential twenty-first century leader. Would you be interested?Enter The Self-Evolved Leader: Elevate Your Focus and Develop Your People in a World That Refuses to Slow Down by Dave McKeown. In this single volume, the principles taught by each of the aforementioned authors has been distilled and synthesized into a coherent and comprehensive model for personal leadership development and team management.The Self-Evolved Leader is a “How to Lead” manual for managers and directors in charge of teams (size doesn’t matter).It is a GPS for people on a mission to develop their own leadership abilities whether they are leading a team or aspire to do so. Maybe they are lifelong learners like me and can’t get enough of leadership theory, or maybe they are suddenly thrust into a leadership position and feel unequal to the task ahead of them, or maybe they were never taught healthy leadership principles from their senior staff.McKeown takes readers through a step-by-step process to discover “their authentic leadership calling, create a vision for a better world, and build the framework and structure needed to chart the course (p. 2).” And the framework and structure are legit.The book includes an actual 90-day plan to begin implementing what you’ve learned. He literally tells you what to do each day so that by the time you’re done with the 90-days, you will have set in place a roadmap for yourself and your team that you repeat each quarter.McKeown rejects the industrial era model of teamwork (“a cog in a well-oiled machine”) and instead posits that teams in the twenty-first century function more like cells in organisms.The interactions are more amorphous, the nature of work is more prone to change, and the individuals are connected by more than the mere interlinking teeth of a cog or spoke. There’s a stronger degree of interdependence of connection and of symbiosis. Each person is uniquely individual and at the same time part of the whole. Each person is connected by more than pursuit of a common goal; they are connected by a sense of shared humanity.(p. 37)The author’s description of a “self-evolved” leader really resonates with me because it’s exactly who I strive to be. This type of person is someone who accepts responsibility for their own growth. They demonstrate vulnerability and regularly practice empathy which strengthens their connection with the team. This leader is clear on boundaries and daily chooses to stay in their own lane.According to McKeown, when a person adopts the Self-Evolved Leadership approach, they will focus their activities, decisions, and interactions on helping team members achieve their goals and become the best version of themselves.The author lays out three essential elements which increase the self-evolved leader’s impact on the team: (1) creating a shared vision; (2) establishing a “pulse” and a variety of vantage points from which to assess progress; and (3) key disciplines to adopt in order to have long-lasting impact. He does this by not only suggesting what the elements are, but also by detailing HOW to implement each one. It’s like a road map for how to lead your team over the course of the next year. Literally.McKeown has identified eleven“key disciplines” (six micro disciplines and five core disciplines) essential for every self-evolved leader. He lays out a 90-day plan to help the reader practice what they are learning and hone their leadership skills.The author takes a methodological approach to explaining the five core disciplines. He describes the importance of the discipline, shares the benefits of it, and then answers the question “why is it so hard?” He then offers a proven “how to” strategy to spur you towards growth in that area.The book is packed with helpful tips, strategies, and methodologies for implementation based on the latest research and best practices in leadership accepted across sectors. I highly recommend it for anyone currently leading a team and anyone interested in moving into leadership at their organization.———————Disclosure of Material Connection: I received one or more of the products or services mentioned above for free in the hope that I would mention it on my blog. Some of the links in the post above are “affiliate links.” This means if you click on the link and purchase the item, I will receive an affiliate commission. Regardless, I only recommend products or services I use personally and believe will be good for my readers. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255: “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.”
In this age of increasing narcissism and toxicity in leadership and work places, Dave McKeown of Outfield Leadership contributes a much needed voice to the current leadership literature with his new book from Greenleaf Publishing, The Self-Evolved Leader: Elevate Your Focus and Develop Your People in a World That Refuses to Slow Down.McKeown first asks leaders to foster what the essential trait of effective leaders – self-awareness. But it’s self-awareness aimed toward building better relationships that in turn grow business. Especially invaluable are chapters on reclaiming your attention, mentoring those whom you delegate tasks to, and having symbiotic relationships.
I was given this book to review by the publisher. To be completely honest, I don’t think I’m the target audience for this book since I am not presently in a leadership position. However, I still got some great takeaways from the book, and I think it would really be beneficial for my friends and family who are in leadership roles. This will definitely be a book that I recommend!One of the great points that McKeown makes in this book is about how leadership is not an inherent skill, a “soft” skill, that it can be developed like any kind of skill that requires practice and training. And this book reads like a workout regimen to develop or hone leadership skills.Each chapter builds on the next one. He describes the benefits, the why, of each step, acknowledges the obstacles, and gives points of action before moving on to the next step. Each chapter includes a summary, things to try, and a link to a video summary of the chapter which is helpful to further understand the process. Toward the end of the book is a workbook that engages the reader to spend 15 weeks developing, step by step, everything learned in the book.It talks about putting habits and rituals into your own life that help you remain engaged in a healthy way. And even though I don’t lead a team, I definitely learned a few things on how to strengthen interpersonal relationships and my own individual development.But it wasn’t just about the individual. It was about how to develop a team-thinking mentality, how to create an environment that encourages accountability, provides direction and helps teammates see each other as people to uplift and support.Honestly, it made me want to start a team. It was inspiring and motivating and engaging. So no matter how long you have been leading a team, this book is a great resource, something that can be used over and over again. |
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