Review of Optimized Leadership

[Justin Christensen]

[Following is an official OnlineBookClub.org review of "Optimized Leadership" by Dan Roberts.]

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5 out of 5 stars

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Optimize Your Leadership: An Impactful and Healthy Way to Lead in the New Age by Dan Roberts is exactly what I’ve been looking for. I’ve been working in middle management for about five years now, and at no point in that time have I really felt confident in my leadership skills. At first, I could tell myself that I was new and still learning. But at a certain point, I started to feel like maybe I just don’t have what it takes to be effective at leading or managing other people. I always feel like I’m just putting out fires, and trying to actually plan or implement a vision for my team’s growth is a daunting task I have never made headway on. That is what drew me to this book, and I knew I was in the right place when I was reading the introduction.

Roberts breaks his strategy up into two main parts: optimizing yourself and optimizing your team. Unsurprisingly, the section on optimizing yourself comes first. The section on optimizing yourself focuses on strategies to help leaders become more intentional in how they act, how they communicate, and how they spend their time. There is a strong and recurring focus on avoiding reactionary behavior, as well as a focus on emotional intelligence (or EQ). The section on optimizing your team continues to flesh out the concept, and importance, of EQ and uses that as the foundation for the subsequent chapters on culture, teambuilding, and engagement.

Most of the concepts Roberts presents are not groundbreaking, and some (like the ten cultural tenets from Zappos) will be extremely familiar to anyone who has worked a white-collar job in the last decade. Where this book really shines is in the structure and the quality of the writing itself. Each chapter is prefaced by a relevant quote from a well-known figure, which ties in to the content of the chapter. Each chapter ends in a “Key Insights” section that neatly summarizes the information you just read, and many of the chapters are further broken out into subsections including more granular details and instructions for implementing the strategies being discussed. I am not the type that can just sit down and read some good ideas and then put them into practice, so this structure was a big deal for me.

The book was exceptionally well edited and genuinely engaging enough that once I picked it up, it was hard to put down. Ironically, I think the first chapter about Evolving Beyond Your Now is what I need to implement the most, so I will be starting on that and working my way from the top down here. I have to rate this book a 5 out of 5—if you are in a leadership or management role, you should absolutely add this to your list.

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Optimized Leadership
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[Naimah Agboluaje]

This review of "Optimize Your Leadership: An Impactful and Healthy Way to Lead in the New Age" by Dan Roberts suggests that the book is a valuable resource for individuals in leadership or management roles. The reviewer appreciates the book's structure and high-quality writing, as well as the practical strategies presented for optimizing oneself and one's team. They also highlight the engaging nature of the book, making it difficult to put down once started. The reviewer rates the book 5 out of 5, indicating that it is an excellent read for leaders seeking to improve their skills. Atmospheric setting, felt like another character in the story.

[Joe Alex 2]

The focus on emotional intelligence (EQ) and intentional leadership in this book seems particularly valuable for someone in a middle management role. The structured approach with clear takeaways and actionable strategies sounds like it would make the ideas easier to implement. Given the emphasis on self-improvement and team-building, I think I’d be interested in reading it to enhance my own leadership skills.