Reviews by Paul Robinson

Unleashed: The unapologetic leader’s guide to empowering everyone around you

By Frances Frei and Anne Morriss (Harvard Business Review Press), also an ebook

There’s no shortage of advice on how to be a great leader. Identify and develop your natural strengths. Dig deeper, try harder, iron out any faults and eventually you’ll “own the room”. Except, say Harvard Business School professor Frances Frei and leadership coach Anne Morriss, leadership isn’t about that at all.

They argue that “leadership isn’t about you” but how effectively you empower other people. Using examples from Ancient Rome to Silicon Valley, they assert that the essence of great leadership is not your own status and advancement, but an “unrelenting focus on other people’s potential”. They write that the most effective leaders combine trust and inclusion to create an environment in which others excel.

Frei and Morriss also provide practical tools for leaders. Lessons include that you’re not the most important person in the room; that trust is the bedrock of leadership; and that setting high standards works, so long as you’re clear about your expectations and people feel you’re backing them to achieve those goals.

Leaders should also champion diversity, as a team is strengthened by the expanded access to information.

The authors outline the four stages of inclusion – make your team feel safe, welcome, celebrated and valued, and you’ll reap the advantages of diversity. And don’t apologise.

Glimpses of Utopia: Real ideas for a fairer world

By Jess Scully (Pantera Press), also an ebook and audiobook

Since the 1930s, we’ve measured a nation’s success by its GDP – things that are bought and sold. But GDP doesn’t differentiate between harmful and beneficial activity – chopping down trees and aged care, for example. Nor does it measure the unpaid work that holds society together.

Jess Scully – curator, author and Deputy Lord Mayor of Sydney – believes “we’re running a 21st-century world with 19th-century institutions and rules”. She says our creaking institutions aren’t coping as technology erodes traditional ways of work and the spectres of climate change and food and water scarcity loom. But it doesn’t have to be this way.

In Glimpses of Utopia, Scully examines organisations and people that are testing the alternatives. She introduces us to bankers who are funding new payment systems in Italy and the Philippines to keep money circulating in local communities. We meet accountants modifying taxation systems to reward creative solutions and cut pollution. Planners reinvent slums in Kenya and Bangladesh to provide sanctuaries for their poorest citizens. These are people embracing new ideas rather than patching tired systems no longer fit for purpose. Inspiring.

Sex, Lies and Question Time: Why the successes and struggles of women in Australia’s parliament matter to us all

By Kate Ellis (Hardie Grant), also an ebook and audiobook

A 2017 survey showed zero per cent of young Australian women would consider a career in politics. A read of <itals> Sex, Lies and Question Time <end itals> by former Australian federal Labor MP Kate Ellis reveals why that may be.

Over the decades, female politicians in Australia have faced forensic media and public scrutiny of their appearance, sex lives, parenting and portfolios in a way few of their male colleagues have. Then there’s the undeniably toxic parliamentary workplace culture which sits somewhere between Neanderthal and the infamous six o’clock swill.

As well as sharing her own experiences during 15 years in Canberra, Ellis speaks to Australian politicians including Julia Gillard, Julie Bishop, Linda Burney, Penny Wong, Sarah Hanson-Young and Pauline Hanson, all of whom have tales to tell of “the kind of run-of-the-mill sleaze and innuendo which is so common it is almost unremarkable in the culture of federal politics”. This book is yet another call for greater diversity at the top of the tree and a fairer Australia.

The Six New Rules of Business

By Judy Samuelson (Berrett-Koehler), ebook

How can companies rise to the challenges of the new business landscape? Judy Samuelson, founder of the Aspen Business and Society Program, investigates intangibles such as reputation, trust and loyalty and warns that organisations that focus predominantly on shareholder value will lose traction in both business and society.

People Stuff – Beyond Personality Problems: An advanced handbook for leadership

By Zoe Routh (Inner Compass), ebook

Winner of Book of the Year in the 2020 Smart WFM Australian Business Book Awards, People Stuff  offers five archetypes – elder, pioneer, guardian, warrior and diplomat – to help leaders rise to the people challenges they face. It explains how to identify the symptoms and causes of tough people problems and implement solutions.

New Zealand and Australian Master Tax Guides 2021

CCH New Zealand and Australia, ebooks

The CA Library’s most popular ebooks offer members ready access to the latest tax legislation and provide practical and succinct coverage of all tax issues for the current year.

The Fast Forward MBA in Project Management: The comprehensive, easy-to-read handbook for beginners and pros

By Eric Verzuh (Wiley), ebook

This popular title teaches practical strategies and solutions to enable successful project management. The sixth edition covers a lot of ground, including new chapters on project leadership, agile practices, change management and project quality.

Watch

The Innovations We Need To Avoid a Climate Disaster

By Bill Gates (TED Talks)

Run time: 49 minutes

Philanthropist and technologist Bill Gates discusses the breakthroughs and investments essential to reducing the cost of clean tech, such as artificial meat and electric cars, and decarbonising the economy.

Read more:

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