John Mattone – Intelligent Leadership: What You Need to Know to Unlock Your Full Potential (Amacom)

What makes a great leader? A simple question to ask, a complex set of variables; some intangible many critical, to actually answer. In a day and age when there is a critical dearth of great leaders, John Mattone, a veteran, global leadership consultant tapped into his years of experience advising, consulting, and coaching Fortune 500 leaders to help them achieve next level success has set out to draw a road map that answers the question. The result is his new book, Intelligent Leadership: What You Need to Know to Unlock Your Full Potential.

 

Mattone tackles the problem from many perspectives using a multi-faceted, layered approach. Others have used charts, graphs and pyramids to approach the answer; Mattone takes a swing with The Wheel of Intelligent Leadership. The layers come in the form of inner and outer core principles that drive leaders.

The outer core competencies consist of:

1.       Critical thinking

2.       Decision making

3.       Strategic thinking

4.       Emotional leadership

5.       Communications skills

6.       Talent leadership

7.       Team Leadership

8.       Change leadership

9.       Drive for results

Mattone contends that the hidden inner core is critical to drive the outer core because people don’t observe the inner core values of self-image, beliefs and values.

The critical advantage that Mattone uncovers comes when he lays out the road map of the nine types of leaders and puts your leadership skills to a self-test. It is my belief that truly great leaders have the ability to distinguish themselves by being able to adapt and maximize the impact they have by being able to play well in most if not all of the nine leadership types. Mattone identifies them as:

1.       Perfectionists

2.       Helpers

3.       Entertainers

4.       Artists

5.       Thinkers

6.       Disciples

7.       Activists

8.       Drivers

9.       Arbitrators

While I will leave the details of Mattone’s definitions of those broad categories, if you are a leader, think about your day-to-day duties and just how many of those roles you may be cast in a varying times and situations. Truly great leaders have the ability to wear all of those hats when called for by a given situation. With Intelligent Leadership, John Mattone gives you the tools needed to maximize and make seamless, your ability to not only do it yourself, but to help bring it out in your leadership team.