REVIEW: Joel Schwartzberg — The Language of Leadership (BOOK)
Joel Schwartzberg’s new book is notable not only for what it does, but also for what it doesn’t do. For instance, it doesn’t present anything in exclusionary language, or attempt to over-showcase Schwartzberg’s own, professional trajectory. Often leadership advice books can come across as semi-duplicitous to the reader, seemingly more interested in the promotion of their authorship profiles than in making the concepts they claim one can master as understandable as humanly possible.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR: https://www.joelschwartzberg.net/
With Schwartzberg, however, he’s got too much humility — and too much style — to let that happen. There’s a distinctive sense he truly just wants to set the ground rules, so you — the hypothetical professional, or burgeoning aspirer — can be the one to spread your innovative wings and fly. This is reflected in passages where Schwartzberg highlights a true leader is even more evidenced not just by their ability to lead a corporate effort to its planned success points, but also by maintaining a healthy sense of the element of surprise. Both within a decidedly positive, and regrettably negative set of contexts.
“Your team puts its trust in you, so certainly educate yourself about the crisis, but don’t feel you need to supplement or replace your communications with communications from other sources of news and information,” writes Schwartzberg, specifically in this vein. He elaborates, “In the early stages of the event, it’s critical for a leader to provide timely information (especially about staff safety and operational changes), to encourage calm, and to inspire resilience and realistic optimism.”
Schwartzberg goes on to provide the antithesis to the aforementioned scenario, writing, “Organizational milestones represent the accomplishment of an objective, but they also typically represent significant advancement toward an even larger goal. (The very definition of a milestone indicates there’s still further to go).”
AMAZON: https://www.amazon.com/dp/1523092408/ref=cm_sw_r_tw_dp_BCBPBZ2JS8SSHVBXK7WB
He goes on to elaborate, “So, although it’s certainly appropriate to treat a milestone as an occasion for celebration and recognition, a wise leader also uses the moment to articulate the implications of that achievement and how it connects to the organization’s vision. For example, did it catalyze new opportunities? Does it serve as a proof of concept for increasing a project’s scope? Can the work that went into the accomplishment serve as a positive model for future work?” By unpacking these concepts so beautifully, Schwartzberg makes the potentially insurmountable seem like the totally achievable.
There’s never a sense of the workload ahead with the way he writes about the book’s topical focuses. Rather, it’s a case of overcoming certain adversities before they happen. This adds a relief factor that is severely lacking from decidedly post-modernist leadership advice guides. Leadership advice authors often can get lost tonally within the specificity of the challenges, not within the specificity of the techniques. But Schwartzberg pays a balanced tribute to both, and that’s what makes The Language of Leadership work.
It’s fast-paced, it’s utterly clear, and all-in-all an enjoyable, even somewhat entertaining foray into the exponential expansion of the business mindset. All in all, a solid achievement.
Colin Jordan
