Unquestioned Brilliance: Navigating a Fundamental Leadership Trap

by John Austin

All leaders must walk a fine line between creating focus and questioning conventional wisdom, between confidence in their ability and unrealistic overconfidence, and between the demands of fast action and a clear-eyed assessment of the situation. Unquestioned brilliance gets in the way of this balance. It is a fundamental leadership trap. Leadership coaches, facilitators and strategic leaders have found this book to be a valuable resource.
application, designed to counter the fundamental leadership trap. The techniques described in this book will not automatically make you a great leader but they will potentially help you navigate your teams on a path away from this dysfunctional cycle.

Techniques include uncertainty vectoring, blind spot centering, TAP expertise assessment, GSO decision making, tension charting, and the HERE snapshot.

Genres: Leadership

220 pages, Paperback

First published August 31, 2015

About the author

John Austin works at the intersection of research and practice as the President of Three Translation Leadership. Prior to that, Dr. Austin was a Principal at Decision Strategies International and a management professor at Penn State University and The University of Washington. He continues to teach executives for The Wharton School, Georgetown University, and The University of North Carolina. John has worked with numerous Global Fortune 500 companies as an executive development resource.

Dr. Austin has a B.A. in economics from The Johns Hopkins University and a Ph.D. in management from Boston College. He is a thought leader in the areas of team leadership, organizational change implementation, and strategic decision-making. His research on knowledge-based decision making teams is widely cited in the academic literature, as is his work on the strategic actions of internal change agents. Dr. Austin’s work on knowledge transfer in managerial teams has been used to develop executive teams around the world.

Dr. Austin is an experienced facilitator and an award-winning teacher who has worked with practicing executives on six continents. John has developed leaders and led long-term projects in the areas of change management, scenario planning, team performance, strategic decision-making, and strategy execution. His experience with individuals at all levels of organizations enables him to translate broad strategies and concepts into actionable, engaging programs.

Dr. Austin’s research has been published in leading management and applied psychology journals including Journal of Applied Behavioral Science, Journal of Applied Psychology, Journal of Organization Design, and Organization Science as well as practice-oriented publications including HR Magazine and The OD Practitioner. John’s work has been recognized with three Best Paper awards from the Academy of Management and has been mentioned in a number of media outlets including CNN, The Wall Street Journal and Barron’s. He is the author of the Leading Effective Change: A Primer for the HR Professional published as part of the SHRM Foundation’s Effective Practice Guidelines Series (2015). Dr. Austin’s new book, Unquestioned Brilliance: Navigating a Fundamental Leadership Trap, was published in fall 2015.

Reviews

[John Austin · Rating 5 out of 5]

Honestly just getting things started on here. Obviously, I like it. I wrote it. See Amazon reviews for comments from less biased readers and hopefully we can also start seeing a few on here as well!

[Denis Mcgrath · Rating 5 out of 5]

John Austin both professor and practitioner offers ten techniques to correct dysfunctional organizations that become mired in leadership traps that are prompted by the “Unquestioned Brilliance” of management. Often it is helpful to label these bumps in the road that challenge every organization. Not every dilemma however can be solved through discussion and third party facilitation may be necessary. This is a handy resource book to have available and as a former professor of management and senior administrator I highly recommend it as a very excellent tool to keep in your kit bag.

I received an electronic copy in return for an honest review.