Just Ask Leadership Gary Cohen

Just Ask Leadership by Gary B. Cohen

Preliminary Book Review

I have been sent a free review copy of "Just Ask Leadership: Why Great Managers Always Ask The Right Questions" by Gary Cohen and this is my preliminary review.

The book is written on the premise that leaders are much more successful if they ask their team questions to focus attention and action rather than if they issue commands on the basis of "I'm the boss. I know best and you must do what I say."

Perhaps in your early career you have suffered at the hands of a command and control leader and you can remember how the style destroys ownership, initiative and motivation.

Just Ask Leadership is based on interviews with nearly 100 highly effective leaders as Gary Cohen's own knowledge and experience. The author was president and co-founder of ACT Telecentrics, Inc which grew to 2,200 employees and he is now founder of CO2 Partners, LLC, an executive coaching firm.

This is a very easy to read book based around chapter themes and a series of questions and answers.

It's an interesting format.

I found that as I read the questions, my mind was automatically forming an answer and I therefore had my view - albeit hastily formed - to compare to Gary's.

The Chapters are:

1. Improve vision - gaining insight from all levels of the organisation
    
   
2. Ensure accountability - increasing team and organisation wide performance
    
   
3. Build unity and cooperation - creating a culture of trust
    
   
4. Create better decisions - getting the right answers by asking the right questions
    
   
5. Motivate to action - asking for success

This is a broad look at the main themes of leadership and to give you an example of the questions Gary asks and answers, let's take a look at accountability as I see that as an issue for many small businesses.

The questions include:

• How do I get my coworkers to stop repeating the same mistakes?
   
  
• Why do my coworkers ask me questions that they should (and often do) know the answers to?
   
  
• Why are my direct reports coming to me with problems that are not my responsibility?
   
  
• How can I reduce a coworker's fear of failure?

As you can see, these are real questions and not pie in the sky concepts from academia.

Just Ask Leadership looks a good book to dip into when you come up against a new management problem or where you become so frustrated that you decide you really must take action and fix the root cause.

I will be updating my review when I have finished reading the book but my preliminary rating is around the 4 to 4.5 star level which is a recommendation to read and buy.

Just Ask Leadership is available from Amazon.com and Amazon.co.uk (affiliate links). Out of the 13 reviews at Amazon.com, 10 of them are at the five star level.

Here is a video of Gary Cohen talking about the ideas behind Just Ask Leadership.

 

Comments

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Thank you so much for the wonderful review of the book. I have been overwhelmed by the positive response the book has gotten. I only take credit for the idea of seeing the obvious and putting it together in a book. The richness of the book to me is the stories that came from some really remarkable leaders. Everyone wants to talk about leadership in a heroic form and not what it means to lead a few people to many 100's of people. What I found from the research on this topic is: Asking Questions works regardless of the size organization, team, department, school you are leading. Let's talk less of our past iconic leaders and talk more about those of us who show up everyday not risking our lives and yet still responsible for those we do lead.

Thank you again for the review and I would be happy if any of your readers have answers I would be thrilled to ask them the questions. Gary