Leading the Unleadable: How to Manage Mavericks, Cynics, Divas, and Other Difficult People

How can business managers deal with difficult employees and difficult teams? Largely by listening and coaching, explains Willett, president of the consulting firm Oxseeker, in this thin, familiar guide. According to him, leaders need to approach people problems proactively and without fear—exactly what most of them don’t do. Citing a track record that includes work with hundreds of leaders, Willett takes a highly communication-based approach, walking readers through various issues. These include the difficulties of leading, “accept[ing] the call of exceptional leadership,” cultivating the right mindset, identifying trouble (and troublemakers), keeping employees performing, fixing problems before they arise, nurturing talent, and answering the toughest question of all: can these trouble employees be helped, or is it better to simply give up and let them go? The breakdown of different kinds of troubled teams—incompetent, reactive, divided, etc.—may be helpful to readers trying to diagnose a problem. However, the tips for how to sense trouble in the first place (e.g., “talk to people”) and set performance expectations (“do things right from the beginning”) are too obvious, and too clunkily presented, to be the salvation of the floundering business leader. [em]Agent: John T. Willig, Literary Services. (Nov.) [/em]