The Complete Executive: The 10-Step System for Great Leadership Performance

This new book by Karen Wright is described as providing “aspiring leaders with a framework to address all aspects of leadership that translates to peak performance”. Entitled The Complete Executive, it has received a number of favorable reviews. Karen talks about the book in this interview.

Karen’s team sent me a copy of the book for my review, anticipating that I would write about it here. This is how it was described to me:

According to a recent study, 80% of Americans work six weeks of overtime outside of the office every year. Time is a scarce resource for today’s executives and leaders, and it’s a resource that no amount of money can buy. So, how are leaders to function when confronted with the extreme demands for not only their time, but their energy, intellect, and emotional capacity as well?

In THE COMPLETE EXECUTIVE: The 10-Step System for Great Leadership Performance (Bibliomotion; hardcover; September 2012), acclaimed executive coach Karen Wright shares the habits and practices of the most successful senior-level leaders that she has worked with over the past 17 years, and distills them into 10 distinct categories that leaders must monitor and manage in order to perform at the highest levels:

• Health and Fitness
• Life Plan
• Relationships
• Being a Leader
• Business Basics
• Career Plan
• Network
• Learning and Growth
• Fun and Interests
• Reflection

The book does indeed discuss 100 different areas that should be important to all of us, and they are organized in 10 categories. At the end, there is an assessment tool so each reader can determine how well they are addressing the areas individually and as a whole. The tool is also available at no charge on Karen’s web site.

What is good?

• This provides a valuable reminder, a trigger to pay attention to areas (such as your network, your health, and your social life) that we may forget to prioritize
• While it tends to drag a little, because there are so many areas, it’s a fairly light read
• The checklist at the end and also on line is something you can use not just when you read the book, but annually as a check-up

What is not so good?

• The areas are not prioritized in any way and seem somewhat jumbled up to me. The reader can make up for that by adding a weighting factor when completing the assessment
• At the end of the day, I am left wondering if the secret to success is doing all this well. I am not convinced

Should you buy it? Well it is inexpensive and will probably remind you of a number of areas that need to be improved if you are to be successful, not only in business but in life.

My rating: 3 stars out of 5. See other reviews on Amazon.

 

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