Leadership Two Words at a Time: Simple Truths for Leading Complicated People

by Bill Treasurer

For newcomers and upper management alike, leadership can be overwhelming and overcomplicated. By building core tenets of leadership around two key words for each chapter, Bill Treasurer simplifies the equation.

Congratulations, new leader! You’ve joined the ranks during an exceptionally complicated time.

Our current workplace climate is fraught with political divisions, economic disparities, and ever-shifting social dynamics. Leaders are managing remote teams across larger geographic distances and facing new roadblocks to onboarding, giving performance feedback, and nurturing healthy relationships.

Leadership Two Words at a Time speaks directly to the plight of the new leader and is divided into three parts: Leading Yourself, Leading People, and Leading Work. Rather than overintellectualize the practice, Bill Treasurer breaks up the concept into essential and understandable learning nuggets—summed up by two-word headers—that provide the practical guidance and support that leaders often don’t get. The result is time-tested wisdom that new leaders can grasp immediately and implement easily—and, with a little practice, master completely. Consider it a personal leadership playbook.

This book gives you the basic building blocks to gain both competence and confidence, take on greater responsibility, and learn what it takes to be and stay a leader.

Genres: Leadership, Nonfiction, Business

256 pages, Kindle Edition

Published September 27, 2022

About the author

Bill Treasurer is the Chief Encouragement Officer at Giant Leap Consulting (GLC), a courage-building company that exists to help people and organizations be more courageous to drive superior performance. He is dedicated to advancing the new organizational development practice of courage-building, a concept that he introduced in his internationally bestselling book, Courage Goes to Work.

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Bill's newest book is Leadership Two Words at a Time: Simple Truths for Leading Complicated People. It serves as a playbook for new leaders, covering the essentials that will improve performance, effectiveness, and enjoyment.

John Ryan, past president and CEO of the Center for Creative Leadership, calls the book "honest, funny, and deeply insightful."

Jeff Hayes, president and CEO of The Myers-Briggs Company says, “I have read many books on leadership during my career, but none have provided the practical guidance reflection and call to action that Leadership Two Words at a Time does...This is truly a must-read playbook, if you will, for every new leader. In fact, it’s a wonderful resource for all leaders.”

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Bill co-authored The Leadership Killer: Reclaiming Humility in an Age of Arrogance with U.S. Navy Seal Captain John Havlik (retired).

Tony Bingham, president and CEO of the Association for Talent Development called the book a "valuable resource on what every leader should know, embrace, and practice if they want to be successful in the most meaningful way."

E. Gordon Gee, the current president of West Virginia University, said, "In an age crying out for wise judgment and effective leadership, “The Leadership Killer” is an essential read."

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Bill is the author of A Leadership Kick in the Ass, which focuses on the importance of confidence and humility. The book received rousing endorsements from leadership luminaries such as Ken Blanchard, Marshall Goldsmith, Jim Kouzes, Adam Grant, and many others, and received the Gold Award from the Nonfiction Book Awards. Bill also wrote Leaders Open Doors, a simplified approach to leadership that emphasizes the importance of leaders as opportunity-creators. Bill donates all his royalties from this book to programs that support children with special needs.

Bill is the creator of Courageous Leadership: Using Courage to Transform the Workplace. The comprehensive off-the-shelf courage-building training program has been taught on five continents in twelve countries since being published in 2011.

Bill's first book, Right Risk is about how to take smart risks, and draws on Treasurer's experiences as both an organizational development professional and as a daredevil athlete.

Bill's insights have been featured in hundreds of national and global media outlets, including The Washington Post, The NY Daily News, The Chicago Tribune, Atlanta Journal Constitution, Boston Herald, and Investor's Business Daily, Entrepreneur Magazine, Huffington Post, Leader-to-Leader, Woman's Day, Parent, Redbook, Fitness, American Way, and The Harvard Management Update.

Since 1991, he has conducted over 1000 corporate workshops designed to strengthen people's leadership skills, improve team performance, accelerate innovation, and help executives behave more courageously. Among his clients are NASA, Saks Fifth Avenue, eBay, Accenture, UBS Bank, Spanx, eBay, Lenovo, Walsh Construction, Hugo Boss, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the U.S. Forest Service, the National Science Foundation, and the U.S. Department of Veteran's Affairs.

Bill lives in Asheville, North Carolina, with his wife Shannon and their three children, Bina, Alex, and Ian. To contact Bill, email btreasurer@giantleapconsulting.com or go to CourageBuilding.com.

Reviews

[Britany]

Read for a work book club and this is entirely forgettable. Read like a copy/paste of all the popular topics and "how to be the best at..." from every other work related book. I skimmed a good chunk of the end because I don't think I took much away from this book.

[Alexander]

Aside from his surname, Bill Treasurer is simply put - the man - with his new book, titled Leadership Two Words at a Time: Simple Truths for Leading Complicated People. As the title would suggest, the book is less about the substantive nature of business, and more about the internal, communicatory fabric of it. Treasurer expertly shows that people skills, something once mocked, maligned, and derided as ‘snowflakish’ too literally in the workplace, now lay the foundation for widespread success. Treasurer goes about articulating his roadmap to achieving this in conversational, laid-back prose. He never feels inaccessible on an emotional level when it comes to things, which displays a certain, reassuring continuity. After all, feeling is as much a part of the equation as shrewd, tactical decision making. “Congratulations, new leader, you’ve joined the leadership ranks at an exceptionally complicated time. The world in which you will operate is fraught with touchy political divisions, economic disparities, generational tensions, and racial disharmonies. Magnifying the difficulty are the ever-shifting dynamics of today’s workplace. More leaders are leading remote teams across larger geographic distances, presenting unique challenges in terms of onboarding new employees, giving performance feedback, building esprit de corps, and nurturing healthy relationships. The traditional stability of consistently applied standard operating work protocols has also been upended. Now individual exceptions and customized deals are common, tailored to flexibly accommodate each person’s extenuating life realities,” Treasurer writes in this vein. “Today’s leaders struggle to treat everyone fairly, yet individually. Letting one person work from home three days a week to care for an immunocompromised parent may make sense to you, but it may not make sense to the healthy single person you require to be onsite every day. You’ll simultaneously be seen as exceedingly fair or unfair, depending on who benefits from policy exceptions that today’s realities require you to allow.”

The book then delves into how to navigate the separated, amorphous nature of accommodating each employee’s aesthetics, pros and cons, and skills. As far as Treasurer is concerned, this is the present - and the future. The postmodernist disposition(s) are a part of workplace hiring practices, or have to be, from hereon out. It’s a reality that cannot be denied, or tampered with the intent to maintain old ways. The fast pace of the rat race still exists, just not in a manner traditionalists might anticipate, or recognize off the bat. It’s a question of being conscious and conscientious, but not a pushover. “While the realities facing new leaders are unprecedentedly novel, challenging, and anxiety-provoking, the meager amount of support and training that has historically been provided to new leaders remains, sadly, unchanged,” Treasurer writes. “According to Development Dimensions Inc.’s Global Leadership Forecast, 83 percent of organizations say it’s important to develop leaders, but only 5 percent have fully implemented plans to do so. While your organization may not be intentionally setting you up to fail, they likely aren’t setting you up to succeed either.”

A dire warning, and notification to read this book. I give it an A-

[Tobias Zimmergren]

I like the two-word reasoning.
"Relentless demands" - You are only as good as your latest results. This is a healthy reminder to keep your eyes on the horizon, move things forward, and keep your goals high. Much like in the restaurant service business, you can go to a restaurant 20 times and get A+ service, but the last time you went there, you got sub-par service for some reason, and that's what you'll remember. For the restaurant service worker, much like for leaders today, you're only as good as your last service.

Establish your priorities. Take care of yourself. It doesn't require selfishness; it requires a starting point.
My personal experience here is to take a long lunch. Do some training that fits your habits. Make sure to invest in yourself so that you can invest your energy in leading others.

Generally, the book resonates on many points with my experiences as a leader in business, and it's a good reminder on many accounts—an intriguing read to hear angles to situations you may have experienced.

[Jung]

Bill Treasurer's book, "Leadership Two Words at a Time: Simple Truths for Leading Complicated People," offers essential insights into effective leadership. In the midst of daily work challenges, it emphasizes the core principles that make a leader impactful, drawing on Bill Treasurer's extensive leadership training experience. The book introduces a unique approach, encapsulating the complex art of leadership in simple, two-word phrases. It aims to bring leaders back to basics, providing a practical guide with real-life examples and actionable advice. Whether a seasoned executive or a novice leader, readers gain profound insights that are both simple and impactful, reminding them that crucial lessons can often be conveyed in just a couple of words.

The first two-word advice is "Know yourself." It emphasizes that effective leadership begins with self-awareness and understanding. Leaders need to delve into their strengths, weaknesses, and values. Bill Treasurer likens strengths to personal rays of sunshine, emphasizing the importance of balancing and moderating these strengths to avoid diminishing returns. Knowing oneself also involves aligning actions with values, setting an authentic example for the team.

The second two-word advice is "Create trust." Trust is positioned as a cornerstone of successful leadership. Leaders are encouraged to give trust first, even if it feels risky. Building trust involves spending quality time with team members, fostering open dialogue, and creating a safe space for feedback. The book emphasizes the ripple effect of a leader's vibe on the entire workplace and encourages genuine positivity.

The third two-word advice is "Nurture talent." In the hustle of daily tasks, leaders are reminded not to lose sight of the central role of nurturing people's talent. Delegation is highlighted as a crucial leadership skill, allowing team members to level up their skills. Consistent feedback, both positive and constructive, is presented as indispensable for talent development.

The fourth two-word advice is "Promote inclusion." The book addresses unconscious biases and the importance of actively working towards creating an inclusive workplace. Leaders are urged to recognize and overcome biases, actively pursue diversity, and celebrate the unique backgrounds and experiences of team members. An activity called "I am, but I am not" is suggested as a tool to debunk stereotypes and promote appreciation of individuality.

In summary, the book provides a concise yet impactful guide to leadership, emphasizing self-awareness, trust-building, talent nurturing, and inclusion promotion. With these two-word phrases in mind, leaders are encouraged to bring out their full potential and create a positive and thriving work environment.

[Synthia Salomon]

Two words to make you a better leader.

In the hustle and bustle of the workplace, it's easy to get caught up in day-to-day tasks and overlook the essence of what truly makes a leader impactful.

Drawing on years of leadership training experience, Bill Treasurer focuses on core principles that are often forgotten in the whirlwind of deadlines and meetings.

For instance, ask yourself when the last time you had a 15-minute chat with one of your direct reports was. It may not seem that important, but good leaders understand that these things matter.

Two Words at a Time we’ll bring the complex art of leadership back to basics, encapsulated in simple, two-word phrases. We’ll take a practical approach, weaving in real-life examples and actionable advice.

This book is designed not just to inspire but also to instigate real change in how you, as a leader, operate in your professional environment.

Whether you're a seasoned executive or stepping into your first leadership role, you’ll gain insights that are simple but profound. Sometimes, the most important lessons can be conveyed in just a couple of words.

[Mir Shahzad]

First, know yourself. Great leadership starts with understanding yourself and having awareness of your strengths and weaknesses so you can set a positive example for your team.

Then, create trust. Trust is vital, and it starts when leaders show faith in their teams, even if it feels a bit risky. So spend quality time with your team members, and foster a safe environment for open dialogue and feedback.

You should also nurture talent. To develop your team's skills, delegate tasks, give consistent feedback, and employ the BEER method to make negative feedback constructive.

Finally, promote inclusion. Work to overcome your own unconscious biases. Then make an active effort to pursue diversity in the workplace, and celebrate the different backgrounds and experiences of your team members.

[Erin Nielsen]

This book took a while to read, but only because I had to order a second book when I realized the first book had several chapters missing and out of order 😳. All that to say, this is the best leadership book I've read. It was filled with practical, implementation tips and witty humor for any leader, new or experienced.

[Jessica]

Book was very basic. I like that it gave you 2 words to help remember different concepts.