Unleashed: The Unapologetic Leader's Guide to Empowering Everyone Around You

by Frances Frei, Anne Morriss

"Unleashed is worth an afternoon of your time, whether or not you are already a leader. It is sparkily written and personal, drawing on the experiences of co-authors (and spouses) Frei and Morriss."— Financial Times

Leadership isn't easy. It takes grit, courage, and vision, among other things, that can be hard to come by on your toughest days. When leaders and aspiring leaders seek out advice, they're often told to try harder. Dig deeper. Look in the mirror and own your natural-born strengths and fix any real or perceived career-limiting deficiencies.

Frances Frei and Anne Morriss offer a different worldview. They argue that this popular leadership advice glosses over the most important thing you do as a build others up. Leadership isn't about you. It's about how effective you are at empowering other people—and making sure this impact endures even in your absence. As Frei and Morriss show through inspiring stories from ancient Rome to present-day Silicon Valley, the origins of great leadership are found, paradoxically, not in worrying about your own status and advancement, but in the unrelenting focus on other people's potential.

Unleashed provides radical advice for the practice of leadership today. Showing how the boldest, most effective leaders use a special combination of trust, love, and belonging to create an environment in which other people can excel, Frei and Morriss offer practical, battle-tested tools—based on their work with companies such as Uber, Riot Games, WeWork, and others—along with interviews and stories from their own personal experience, to make these ideas come alive. This book is your indispensable guide for unleashing greatness in other people . . . and, ultimately, in yourself.

To learn more, please visit theleadersguide.com.

Genres: Leadership, Business, Nonfiction, Management, Buisness, Professional Development, Psychology

240 pages, Kindle Edition

Published June 2, 2020

Reviews

[Henk]

Just heard the TED Interview during my evening commute and really look forward to read this!

[Greg Hawod · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book resonates the important message of empowering people in organizations and how to do it right. It presents a straight to the point discussion on what it means when you empower everyone to be at his/her best.

While many leadership books talk about the development of the leader, this one pushes the envelop by discussing how does a leader make a long lasting impact even on his/her absence.

I really like that the book narrates really well and has the fluidity of a normal conversation. Every chapter ends with “gut check” which serves as a good point to reflect on the leadership realities of the reader in light of the insights just provided.

[Annarella · Rating 5 out of 5]

I found it interesting and full of food for thought. I loved how it is written and organised and I loved the idea of empowering the people around the leader.
One of the best leadership book I read in a long time.
Highly recommended.
Many thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for this ARC, all opinions are mine.

[Nienke · Rating 3 out of 5]

But of a mixed bag this book.

The premise is very interesting, by not focusing on the leader but on how they impact the organization from several sides is sheds an interesting light on some already well described topics.

However it also felt a bit all over the place, there was diversity, inclusion, culture, strategy, leadership. Some good nuggets I will take, so happy I read it, but also sometimes bit confused as to what the authors really wanted to convey.

And the raving stories about Uber and Kalanick left me puzzled, especially in a book that writes about treating employees fairly. Something Uber has been very far from.

[Dan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Really enjoyed reading this, particularly the chapters on Belonging and Culture. Reading it I almost felt as though I wasn't the intended audience, and that this is really aimed at founders, CEOs and senior leaders of much larger organisations. That said, there's still plenty to take away from this and lots of interesting case studies told from the first hand experiences of the authors.

[Lindy Sherman · Rating 3 out of 5]

The premise of this book was more interesting in theory than execution. I didn’t enjoy the writing and how some of the terms were chosen/graphical representations were presented. The callout sections were the most impactful and provided practical advice for working with your team, particularly insightful was the critique of anonymous 360 multirater reviews.

[Liz · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 stars

[Maggie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Information is nothing new, however, just because we know these things, it doesn't mean we know how to articulate and put into practice. I love the practicalness and down to earth explanations

[Miguel Buddle · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book took me a while to get through because so much of it made me stop and think about how I lead and what I value. Read it. Make people around you read it. I think the title and subtitle are a bit misleading so I'd summarize it this way: The measure of a leader is in how well they help their team grow and develop and excel, even in, especially in, their absence.

[Nadya Ichinomiya · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of the best reads on creating a more inclusive culture (or changing an existing one.) Filled with case studies and examples of how other companies have accomplished their journey, this book is inspiring and practical, as well as a bold call to action.

[Megan · Rating 5 out of 5]

In Physics the holy grail is the search for a Unified Theory of Everything. This book is damn close to the holy grail of leadership – a unified practice that draws on proven leadership theory combined with the decades of boots on the ground experience of the authors.

You may not have heard of Frances Frei or Anne Morriss, but I’m sure you’ve heard of the culture turnaround at Uber, WeWork, Harvard Business School and Riot Games. This is who they called.

If you have a challenging culture it is these two that you need on speed dial.

Frances and Anne are direct. Leadership is not about you. They drill in that leadership is:

“…about empowering other people as a result of your presence – and making sure that impact continues into your ABSENCE”

Deceptively simple, direct and sometimes folksy this short book is full of examples of the work Frances and Anne have done to turnaround challenging company cultures, this is a practical book backed up by extraordinary academic rigour from a star Harvard Business School professor and a star leadership coach.

[Anne · Rating 3 out of 5]

There are many things to like about this book. Yes, as other reviewers have mentioned, there's not a ton of new information, but the organization of ideas and singular focus on building up employees as you scale up an organization is unique to me and delivers the value.

And yet. I got whiplash from reading one paragraph about the importance of treating employees well, then the next paragraph holding up employers like Uber and Amazon as models. Excuse me? Uber, Amazon, FedEx, even Ellen Degeneres have been exposed over and over as employers that mistreat, abuse and underpay employees. They do whatever they can to undermine workers rights, both internally and trying to change public policy. They are not exemplars of good employers by any stretch. Truly bizarre that Frei and Morriss choose to ignore their atrocious behavior.

But the tiny violin playing for Travis Kalanick was the most amazing. If he were anything other than another rich white guy, he would be in jail for the number of laws Uber intentionally broke.

[YJ Carla · Rating 5 out of 5]

Skeptical initially but loved the book after skimming turned into reading and getting some very useful tips. A few summarized below in loose notes for later reference.

Definition of leadership - it’s not about you
“Leadership is about empowering other people as a result of your presence—and making sure that impact continues into your absence.1 Your job as a leader is to create the conditions for the people around you to become increasingly effective, to help them fully realize their own capacity and power. And not only when you’re in the trenches with them, but also when you’re not around, and even (this is the cleanest test) after you’ve permanently moved on from the team.”

Presence
1- Trust
Trust triangle is built on 3 elements: 1) Authenticity ( I experience the real you); 2) Logic (I know you are competent and make sense); 3) Empathy (I believe you care about me and my success). We all have a driver that’s rock solid that rarely lets us down, and one that tends to wobble and contribute to most breakdown in trust. My rock solid one is Logic and my wobble is authenticity.
- Fix for empathy wobble: change objective from I get what I need to making sure everyone gets what they need & real presence and listening.
- Fix for logic wobble : applying the pyramid principle to communications - start with headline and then offer reinforcing evidence
- Fix for authenticity wobble - pay less attention to what you think people want to hear and more attention to what you think they need to hear. Bridge the gap between persona around friends and family vs at work. Find my authenticity triggers and bring them into spaces where I might otherwise feel the need to be inauthentic. Find moments to drop the logic and script and keep it real, starting in low stakes / intimate settings. Sharing with ppl your “why” and what motivates you. Learn in public and demonstrate the courage to evolve / update point of view based on new info (and to admit when you are wrong). Focusing on unleashing other ppl vs you and your shortcomings.
- Fixing Trust with others often start with fixing trust wobbles in your relationship with yourself

2 - Love - the two dimensions of leadership according to the Roman scholar Valerius Maximus: authority (Ie standards that you uphold) and duty (Ie empathy and loyalty to your people). There are quadrants where we tend to operate with different stakeholders in our work life - worth thinking about how to shift them into the high standards and high empathy quadrant “justice”. I do tend to fluctuate between the “severity” quadrant and “fidelity” quadrant, with more time spent in the fidelity one. The TLDR is similar to Radical Candor - be deeply empathetic but also make the performance standards and expectations clear
- highest performing teams have a feedback ratio of 5 positive to 1 negative. Give specific positive feedback that promotes the behavior you’d like to see more of

3 - Belonging
This past is making the case for D&I effort and how to convince your colleagues about it. Not so relevant to big tech where it’s heavily bought into already.

Absence
4- Strategy - a nice succinct summary of what strategy is wrt customer, suppliers and employees. I like that the authors didn’t just consider customers. They also espouse a value-based strategy where you are trying to expand the pie for customers, suppliers and your own margin vs expanding one at the expense of others (can be idealistic but love the challenge to come up with something that expands all slices). Some good tech strategy stories esp TaskRabbit

Communicating the strategy in simple terms that would then guide discretionary behavior in your absence is important. Understand your strategy deeply so that you could describe it simply and without jargon. Change narrative that honors the past, articulates the change mandate and provide an optimistic way forward, in the most absorbable way for the ppl you are trying to influence everyday decisioning for. “There is no such thing as oversimplified” - Carlzon who used a simplified comic book to communicate the strategy m. Model the change you envision in every interaction.


5- Culture
How to change culture?

former MIT professor Edgar H. Schein’s iconic framework, which loosely divides organizational culture into artifacts, behaviors, and shared basic assumptions. To get ppl to behave reliably in the way you want, you need to get them to reliably think in the way you want

Solid and practical advice and playbook for how to execute cultural change - area of expertise of the authors.

[Alexandra · Rating 3 out of 5]

I read it like a week ago and I cannot remember any of it. Which is a pity because I feel like the quotes I marked are really getting somewhere. I may just not be in a state to absorb it? I'll reread and rerate.


"It's electrifying to be seen not only as we are, rare enough in its own right, but also as the people we might become."

"That's the irony of many of the tactics we use to protect ourselves as leaders. They can backfire and undermine the perceptions we're working so hard to cultivate. In order to look like leaders we end up behaving like smaller two-dimensional versions of ourselves. We obscure the parts of ourselves that real leadership demands."

"We also tend to have less time for recovery. Which leads us to seek moments of micro-recovery throughout our day, sometimes smack in the middle of conversations with the very people we're working to empower and lead."

Wobbles happen in the core drivers of trust: Empathy, Logic, Authenticity

"Who has a prized place in your life but pays a low price for maintaining that position?...One clue to this segment is whether you regularly protect someone from hard truths, such as how others experience them."

Fidelity, Severity, Neglect, Justice

"Get yourself into a frame of mind where you're willing to challenge the rules you've written for yourself about the stark lines and limits of your identity... identity if often more pliable than we think."

"Strategy is rarely articulated well enough to influence most employees... Culture gets to flamboyantly declare its intentions... meanwhile strategy often gets stuck inside the minds of a top few lieutenants or buried inside a strategic plan that gets revisited once a year."

"Organizations that resist and try to be great at everything usually end up in a state of exhausted mediocrity."

"What if super you showed up when it mattered most to them, but it meant that average you, or even bummer you, showed up when it mattered least? How would your relationship change as a result? What about your effectiveness or mental health?"

"Culture establishes the rules of engagement after leadership leaves the room."

"While an unexpected, well-placed 'too soon?' can be comedy gold, if it becomes a go-to phrase then you may be getting too comfortable with other people's discomfort."

"We've done a fair amount of pedagogical sanding at this point. Hopefully, prepping your minds for a fresh new coat of insight."

[Megan Dayton · Rating 3 out of 5]

As someone always eager to learn more about effective leadership, I recently picked up "Unleashed: The Unapologetic Leader's Guide to Empowering Everyone Around You" by Frances Frei and Anne Morriss. The book offers a fresh perspective on leadership, focusing on empowering others rather than on one's strengths and weaknesses. While I found the message necessary, I had reservations about certain aspects of the book.

For instance, early in the book, the authors use Larry Bird as an example of exemplary leadership. They explain that Bird only takes shots in basketball that he can make, highlighting his practice and understanding of his skills. Although I can appreciate the point they were trying to make about self-awareness and trusting one's abilities, I found this example to be a poor representation of leadership. Leadership, in my opinion, involves more than just knowing when to take a shot; it's about inspiring, guiding, and empowering others to reach their full potential.

The book's conversational tone made it an easy read, but at times it felt too colloquial and lacking in depth. The authors share some interesting anecdotes and examples from their personal lives and historical and contemporary leaders. However, I felt that the writing could have delved deeper into the complexities of leadership to provide a more comprehensive understanding of the subject.

I also noticed that the case studies presented in the book primarily revolved around the tech industry, which may not be relatable or applicable to readers from other sectors. More diverse examples would have helped illustrate the authors' ideas more effectively.

Despite these reservations, I appreciate the authors' emphasis on trust, love, and belonging as key components of effective leadership. They offer practical tools and advice based on their work with companies like Uber, Riot Games, and WeWork. Yet, I couldn't help but feel that their approach was oversimplified and repetitive.

While "Unleashed" offers an interesting and important message about the value of empowering others in leadership, it falls short in certain areas. I would rate this book 2.5/5 stars. It's worth a read if you're looking for a quick and easy exploration of leadership, but don't expect groundbreaking insights or profound depth.

[Neil Pasricha · Rating 3 out of 5]

I sat in Frances Frei’s office at Harvard Business School fifteen years ago telling her about the person I was in love with. She returned the favor telling me about Anne Morriss. She then pulled a sleeve of Starbucks cups off her bookshelf and handed me one with a quote from Anne that Starbucks deemed worthy of mass printing. I still think about that quote often. Here it is: “The irony of commitment is that it is deeply liberating - in work, in play, in love. The act frees you from the tyranny of your internal critic, from the fear that likes to dress itself up and parade around as rational hesitation. To commit is to remove your head as the barrier to your life.” My love didn’t last but Frances’s did. She and Anne now have two sons and are an ambitious, trailblazing force on the world stage in the field of modern, empathetic leadership. Frances has parachuted into Uber, Riot Games, and WeWork to address leadership, gender, and culture issues. She’s given an extremely popular TED Talk on building trust. This book comes with that same insightful, growing pain, stomachy tingly feeling I got sitting in her classroom. There’s a wonderful activist twang here and the book will force you to confront the darker and harder to mould sides of your leadership profile. Is it perfect? No, but of course, hardly any books are. I feel the book misses the forest for the trees in a few places - missing the larger picture - and I admit I found the tone a bit swaggering. There's nothing wrong with confidence! But this book gave me the feeling of saying 'this is the right way to do it!' over and over without allowing for the layers of gray and complexity I believe come with true leadership. A great book.

[Dave Reads · Rating 3 out of 5]

While managers know there are many things that they need to do to be true leaders, authors Frances Frei and Anne Morris focus on making those around us better. In their book, Unleashed, they suggest emotional intelligence is just as important as any other skill.

They believe that leadership is about "creating the conditions for the people around you to become increasingly effective, to help them fully realize their full capacity and power," and "making sure the impact continues in your absence."

Using theories backed by examples, they focus on how we need to begin by leading with love, compassion, trust, and authenticity.

Unleashed tells the story of how empowering leaders live up to this definition by navigating aspects of leadership. The paradox of empowering others starts with empowering yourself by being honest with yourself, operating with love and compassion, and building trust through authenticity.

Among their other key points:

• Leaders let those around them have the opportunity to utilize their full potential.
• Leaders set high standards.
• Establishing the right culture in an organization will lead to success.

[Eduardo Xavier · Rating 5 out of 5]

Professor Frances Frei and coach Anne Morriss works on Unleashed to one main quest: empower someone else. Starting to draw out attention that leadership is not about you. As we need to put energy outward and focus on other people excellence and success. Here comes the time to face that workspace has to be a place for humanity, focused on people potential.

To build inclusive teams (meaning inclusion, queer, lgbt+, woman (black and mothers) people of color) is not about only get people together. This should be carefully taken by company’s core and drive to evolve.

They also discuss about equalities, attracting and hiring processes, development and promoting of people in context.

This is a revolutionary and important reading. Lots of learnings in it. You may finish it feeling flame through your arms.

[Ellie Malloy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Being a good leader actually isn’t about you, it’s about empowering those around you so THEY can come to life. To do that, you need to build trust, create a feeling of true belonging and a culture that supports all of it. This is how.
… 🥃🥃🥃🥃…
Five out of five of my book club buddies said they would recommend this book to others and that has never happened before… especially for a non-fiction read. #Unleashed is educational without being boringly data-driven and provides real-life examples of how to create a culture and a team that feels empowered, not trapped. It will help you figure out where you “wobble”, how to fix it and also serve up some lessons on how others experience you. A quick and fulfilling book, this one should be on the #mustread list for managers, leaders and whoever is in charge of the next big thing.

[Alice · Rating 1 out of 5]

Written by a professor at Harvard Business School and a leadership coach, this book read like a textbook, with matrices and anecdotes, that really don't reflect the majority of the population.

We can learn from modern examples like Uber or HP, however, the entire book is based off of abstract concepts that really don't do much guiding to empower everyone.

Leaders are most effective in empowering other people when they create a context we describe as high standards and deep devotions.

You lost half of me already.

Culture changes the people it touches, and culture change transform them.

I'm completely lost.

A very narrow view of the workforce with the assumption that everyone can easily make an astounding difference at any company.

[Christina · Rating 3 out of 5]

There are some very good guidelines in this book. Basically, treat everyone with respect as human beings, lead by example, teach your team to use the authority they have at their discretion wisely and fairly while ensuring that you are building a culture of inclusion. Deeply understand your strategy and ensure that it can be simply communicated so that everyone can understand it and support it.

I recommend this book if you or your organization leads by telling people what to do rather than teaching them to lead.

[Tim Belonax · Rating 4 out of 5]

Accessibly written with approachable and intelligent insights, this book feels like the leadership book of the moment. It may very well be one of the stepping stones we look back on in the future as forming contemporary leadership practices.

Bravo Frances and Anne!

My only gripe is that not all sidebars integrate well into the flow of each chapter, causing an awkward reading experience at times.

[Christian · Rating 4 out of 5]

One of the better leadership books of the last ten years. The book is best when the two authors inject junior and personal experience into the lessons they convey from working with some well-known brands.

It’s a thin book which could have probably been even thinner by trimming down their discussion on developing strategy. That seems outside the realm of this book. Their ideas on how to enable your team with strategy, on the other hand, was really useful.

[Katie Burke · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really liked this book and in particularly how Anne and Frances used so many more examples in the book of women and BIPOC leaders, it was truly impressive. Also has some really helpful, actionable steps for leaders to take in building trust, many of which I'll be trying out over the next several months. Definitely worth a read for any leader trying to up their game and increase trust with their team.

[Larkin Tackett · Rating 4 out of 5]

We’re reading this as an executive team and the definition of leadership as “about empowering other people a result of your presence — and making sure that impact continues into your absence” is compelling and aligned with our company’s approach. The guiding concentric circled framework of trust, love, belonging, strategy, and culture could be very useful as we grow, and I’m excited for how we might use it.

[Laura May · Rating 2 out of 5]

I read this because a bunch of people I work with have been influenced by it. I found the vignettes interesting, disagreed in places, and otherwise found it...fine. This book seems written for people at the start of a journey of unpacking what it is to be a leader, and especially for the a-hole CEO types. As such it serves as an introduction, but is otherwise not particularly practical and veers towards nothing-burger rather frequently. At least it wasn't super long or poorly written. 2.5⭐

[Deepika Singh · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book nails it: the most important part of managing is making others better. I found myself thinking back on my own career and realizing the best managers I had were the ones who were so focused on that. Easily one of the best books and most impactful books I have ever read, I can’t wait to apply my learnings with my own team.

[Borith · Rating 4 out of 5]

What I like about this book is that the authors actually provide practical frameworks for breaking down the trust and culture issues into actionable components.

From a managerial perspective, it allows me to identify which trust components I miss as a leader and what I should do to regain back the trust among the teams.

Further down the pages, the authors show how the company's strategy and culture are the reflections of leaders' personalities and how can we as leaders use these two levers to extend our influences beyond our presence.

[Martin Hanaka · Rating 1 out of 5]

Waste of time. Repackaged ideas from decades past. Herb Kelleher? Jan Carlson? Kalanick behavior? Very little fresh or new. Must have been a HBS contract requirement to publish? Just wondering.
Btw, the structure is nothing short of disruptive. The attempt to be creative or different is clunky and ruins the flow.

[Juuso · Rating 5 out of 5]

Unleashed is the best leadership book I've read in a long time, and I wish all leaders read it and truly reflected on what Frances and Anne are trying to communicate to us. The ideas might not be new to anyone who hasn't been in coma for the past five years, but the packaging of those ideas is fresh and crisp.