Good Authority: How to Become the Leader Your Team is Waiting For: By Jonathan Raymond 
One conversation at a time is how this author is committed to making work a great place to be. It’s about turning the belief that managers tell those that work for them what to do upside down. Those who work for the manager say what is needed. Managers must learn to be engaging and take ownership of employee engagement. I work with top-performing middle managers, and so much of what he is saying rings true. (I hear his five fallacies of employee engagement every week.) The manager’s job is to set boundaries and keep everyone accountable while listening to the cultural conversations and creating behaviors that make it a great place to be.
Raymond says: “The health of a culture is equal to the ability of the people who work in it to feel the impacts of their actions on others.” He also talks about both listening to and seeing culture. I am going to use his levels of accountability — The Mention, The Invitation, The Conversation, The Boundary, and The Limit. It’s obvious terminology and Raymond employs great examples to illustrate them.
What do I find excellent about this book? It’s a model with real stories to illustrate recommended actions and examples of application. The last several chapters are about the five employee archetypes and three leadership archetypes. Identifying these types is a way to start a conversation, suggest a growth path, and organize an approach to improving the workplace. This book illustrates how to have the conversation no matter how uncomfortable and how to plan for it in advance. It’s well written, concise, and specific. I am giving this practical and interesting book five stars not just because I agree with it, but because it’s also well done.
