Image: There Is No Box by Len Lantz (CC BY-NC-ND)
Synopsis: Len's Star Rating: 7 out of 10. A book that explains how to develop a flexible, relatable approach to leading others and shaping your identity as a leader.
BY LEN LANTZ, MD, author of unJoy / 12.26.2022; No. 100
Disclaimer: Yes, I am a physician, but I’m not your doctor and this article does not create a doctor-patient relationship. This article is for educational purposes and should not be seen as medical advice. You should consult with your physician before you rely on this information. This post also contains affiliate links. Please click this LINK for the full disclaimer.
Star Rating – 7 out of 10
Rating guide: 1 = horrible, 5 = average and 10 = wow
Authors
Marisa Cleveland and Simon Cleveland
About the authors
Marisa Cleveland is an author of both fiction and nonfiction works, the executive director of The Seymour Agency, and a managing partner for Simeris Alliance. Her debut teen novel, Accidental Butterfly, was a New York Times and USA Today bestseller. Dr. Cleveland achieved her EdD in Organizational Leadership from Northeastern University and her MA in Educational Administration from George Mason University.
Simon Cleveland has decades of experience in complex, technical project management for organizations and companies including NASA, the Department of Education, the Department of Homeland Security, MD Anderson Cancer Center, Accenture, and General Dynamics. He achieved his PhD in Information Systems from Nova Southeastern University, his EdD in Organizational Leadership from Northeastern University, and his MS in Project Management from George Washington University. He is the Associate Editor for the International Journal of Information Technology Project Management, the International Journal of Project Management and Productivity Assessment, the International Journal of Information and Communication Technology Education, and the International Journal of Smart Education and Urban Society. Dr. Cleveland has over 50 peer-reviewed journal and conference publications and teaches graduate-level courses at Georgetown University, Johns Hopkins University, and Northeastern University.
General description
There Is No Box is a book on becoming a relatable leader by developing a leadership mindset and gaining competencies in collaborative teamwork, cultural awareness, perspective-taking, and effective communication. The authors provide a call to action and a framework for effective leadership in the current workforce as they organize the text around their five ways of cultivating relatability:
Know your starting lines
Increase your cultural agility
Practice compassionate communication
Embrace the leadership lifestyle
View leadership as nonhierarchical
Unique and most important aspects
Some readers might wonder whether or not the title is a reference to the “box” as defined by the bestseller Leadership and Self-Deception: Getting Out of the Box (see Len’s Book Review). In short, it’s not. Drs. Marisa and Simon Cleveland’s choice for their book title can be found in their text: “By learning to expand your worldview, you will challenge what you’ve always known and learn what more there is. One way to do this is to shift your thinking from there’s an inside and outside of a box to there is no box.” The book’s subtitle, A Practical Guide for the Relatable Leader, is what this book is about and the authors deliver on that promise.
Relatable leadership is the authors’ recommended mixture of situational leadership attributes. The main takeaway of There Is No Box, which is to be or become a relatable leader, seems more challenging to implement than the main takeaways of other leadership books, such as being vulnerable, being empathetic, or finding and connecting to your tribe. Having said that, I believe the authors are onto something good – there are many excellent ideas in this book. The text also contains lists, tables, quotations, and references, which give it a bit of an academic feel. While there is a reflection at the end of each chapter, it’s possible that There Is No Box would have a greater impact as a workbook or if it had a companion workbook. Important ideas from this book:
Three prerequisites for becoming a leader
Understanding leadership through complexity theory
The necessity of civil discourse in our society
Communicating from a place of compassion rather than empathy
Making yourself the CEO of your life
Applying project management principles to your personal life
Living and leading from your values and your purpose
Best quotes
“This book will show you how to become a relatable leader, and relatable leaders can change the world. We believe leaders are capable of improving the human condition. Great leaders are capable of generating a joy and love for life among those who get to work with them. Their feelings radiate into other aspects of their lives and influence the lives of those around them.”
“… leadership is not a competency; leadership is a lifestyle.”
“As a younger project manager forming my first team, I made the mistake of hiring for skills instead of personality, and I ended up managing personalities instead of the project. As I developed a sense of what kind of leader I wanted to be, I formed the opinion that it’s better to hire for personality. I can teach the skills to the person with the right attitude.”
“When someone asks you to think outside the box, what they’re really asking is for you to take the knowledge you’ve acquired up to that point and add a new perspective. Your perspective will be unique to you since no one else will have lived in your skin. This is the time when we expand what we know. We use the new influences around us to create new ideas and broaden our definition of what it means to be a leader.”
“Positionality is the concept that a person’s starting line forms the foundation upon which they view every facet of life and form opinions. It’s the perspective from which a person understands the world.”
“The lesson I learned when I purposely chose to focus on compassion over empathy was that I no longer felt bound to the emotions of my team. I could empathize, but I could also act, and by choosing to act on that emotion, I was tapping into compassion.”
“Researchers have noted that a reason multicultural teams are prone to experience more conflicts than teams whose members all share a similar culture is that the differences in cultural values affect how team members communicate.”
“I’ve said this before, and I’ll repeat it until I die: I don’t have a job; I have a purpose.”
Who would enjoy this book?
Readers looking for a rationale and a framework for developing a flexible leadership style are likely to enjoy There Is No Box.
Who would not enjoy this book?
Readers who want a single, simple takeaway or who primarily want to read about quickly-implemented leadership action steps are unlikely to enjoy There Is No Box.
Conclusion
There Is No Box is a book that explains how to develop a flexible, relatable approach to leading others and shaping your identity as a leader.