A multi-award-winning executive shares how her coaching model helps executives be agile.
A smart, systematic approach to enlightened leadership. (Kirkus Reviews)
A compelling business advice book that encourages balance and adaptation (Foreword Clarion Reviews)
The world is ever-changing in unpredictable ways. Leaders, therefore, need to constantly re-examine their assumptions of what it means to be a “great” leader as old models of leadership quickly fade into irrelevance.
In short, leaders need an agile mindset.
But how can leaders become agile?
We need to update and disrupt past definitions of leadership. To challenge ourselves and test our relevance often. We need to recognize challenges swiftly and respond decisively, especially when our environment is volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous.
8 Paradoxes of Leadership Agility shows the way by describing how leaders met challenging conundrums with agility and emerged stronger, using the Re4 Coaching Model developed by Chuen Chuen.
This book addresses the gap between theory and practice through stories of leaders distilled into eight representational paradoxes that can occur in any culture, contexts, levels of seniority or industries.
The Re4 Coaching Model, clearly illustrated in this book, helps leaders see their world with objective clarity, understand what has to be done and why. Through this coaching model, leaders gain the resolve and confidence to overcome challenges with authenticity. Through it, they integrate theoretical learning with practical steps and learn to thrive.
Now you too can benefit from the Re4 Coaching Model as this book contains exercises with guiding questions you can use to navigate your paradoxes.
It’s time to grow and thrive.
8 Paradoxes of Leadership Agility is a compelling business advice book that encourages adaptation and balance.
Yeo Chuen Chuen’s engaging personal development book 8 Paradoxes of Leadership Agility contains useful advice for navigating contemporary leadership challenges.
This well-organized text begins by defining Chuen’s four-step coaching method through difficulties like resistance to particular visions for the future or difficult bosses. This method includes strategies such as reconstructing a map, wherein leaders subject themselves to a reality check: owning up to their own failings and mistakes; weeding out biases; and shifting to new identities. The intriguing shifts in identity involve personalized anchoring metaphors, a masterful and creative stroke that forces the audience to derive meaning from their own experiences.
The text then presents eight paradoxes, such as weighing enforcing changes against empowering employees; it introduces Yeo Chuen Chuen’s own clients as case studies. Each client confronts a particular problem, and the book shares the work that was done to overcome them. The text closes with a workbook to help leaders identify where they struggle and steps to take to fix issues. This approach is logical and is supported by attractive infographics and highlighted themes to help with understanding each paradox.
A claim is made that each of the book’s paradoxes are applicable across a broad range of situations, “irrespective of differences in nationalities, cultures, ages, genders, academic and industry backgrounds.” In service of this notion, a range of personal stories are shared, their challenges reflective of a diverse cross section of businesspeople. Willingness to adapt tactics and strategies to meet real world challenges is encouraged, bolstered by a story about a woman working to change a large institution, but who was forced to admit the limits of her own power. Such examples point to the intersection of theory with concrete actions and mix elements of interviews, observations, and narratives.
From this perspective, effective leaders have to master agility and adjust to changes as they come. A strong argument is made that leaders negotiate a host of competing priorities, with corresponding examples. But the book asserts that it is possible to both face change and to stay true to oneself: an anecdote about a woman choosing when to remain “principled,” and when to adapt to move forward in her career, reinforces this. Fresh insights arise, and the book has a balanced approach to achieving personal career goals.
8 Paradoxes of Leadership Agility is a compelling business advice book that encourages adaptation and balance.
A smart, systematic approach to enlightened leadership.
An international coach shares her four-step approach to becoming an agile leader.Agile leadership is a style that features the ability to be flexible and adapt to change. In this second edition, Yeo updates her guide to agile leadership. It is centered on “Re4,” a coaching model the author developed while working with large organizations, including Fortune 500 companies and the United Nations. Re4 consists of four steps: Reconstruct the Map, Refresh the Lens, Renew the Identity, and Rebuild the Capabilities. Instead of merely explaining the Re4 concept, Yeo deftly demonstrates its application by citing examples of how several of her clients employed it to improve their leadership approaches. In addition, she relates these cases to eight paradoxes that leaders generally face. Each of these is explained in a chapter that defines the paradox and shows how one of her clients applied Re4 to address the situation. For example, in the third paradox, “Self vs. System,” Yeo’s client Amy found it challenging to manage the conflict between her job and her family and used Re4 to solve the problem. The sixth paradox, “Executing vs. Inspiring,” depicts how the author’s client Prakash employed Re4 to learn how to facilitate team brainstorming and decision-making rather than taking on sole responsibility. The business book is organized in a useful way: After a general discussion of leadership agility (Part I), Yeo outlines the paradoxes (Part II). Then, in Part III, the author offers an in-depth examination of each client’s motivations and experiences with Re4 as well as posing questions for readers to answer. This is a very effective approach because it identifies a leadership challenge, depicts the implementation of a solution by an actual client, and encourages readers to immerse themselves in and reflect on the Re4 methodology. Yeo concludes that leaders who understand their “authentic” selves find that “the right answer” for their contexts can help them lead with “greater agility.” Well-constructed, clearly written, and replete with appropriate examples, this guide is a distinguished and welcome addition to an already burgeoning business book category.
A smart, systematic approach to enlightened leadership.
Renowned leadership coach Yeo Chuen Chuen's 8 Paradoxes of Leadership Agility: How to Lead and Inspire in the Real World is the perfect book for those getting into or struggling with leadership in today's ever-changing business world and society in general, including the non-profit sector. Yeo promotes the Re4 Coaching Model, which helps leaders see their problems in new ways, and helps them learn to resolve these using a practical, individualized approach. Old forms are tossed out in favor of new ways to lead. Instead of relying on outdated leadership paradigms, each would-be leader, or struggling leader, should take a look at themselves, discover their own strengths and style, and implement change this way. In clear-cut, real-life examples, Yeo shows how to navigate the waters between two paradoxes. The answers are there, and this book will help you find and understand them.
The author writes in a way that makes complex ideas easy to understand, regardless of what your leadership skills are or have been. It's not about how you used to do things. It's how you can do them from this point forward. Change isn't always easy, but the author gives examples to show how possible and easy it is. Leadership has been a one-size-fits-all concept, but it shouldn't be. Each leader, company, and organization has unique needs. The questionnaires and worksheet questions help you think about what has been working for you, and what hasn't, and how you can incorporate Re4 into your day-to-day leadership tasks. I recommend 8 Paradoxes of Leadership Agility to anyone searching for new ways to solve problems in today's world, and to rethink the way they've been going about their business.
TAMMY RUGGLES, READERS' FAVORITE
