The LeaderStrength System

The Secret: What Great Leaders Know--And Do, Book, 2004, Berrett-Koehler Publishers, $19.95. Review by Deanne Bryce

When a person in a leadership position doesn’t achieve desired results, they have an opportunity to reflect and re-evaluate their leadership skills. The Secret: What Great Leaders Know—and Do by Ken Blanchard and Mark Miller is a book that acknowledges this reality and presents a story that shows how mentoring and coaching can improve leadership skills.

Blanchard and Miller’s short (124 pages), easy-to-read business book will be familiar to readers who know Blanchard’s other titles such as Whale Done! and The One Minute Manager. While it is not my preferred approach, it does convey important concepts about leadership.

Debbie in danger
Briefly, the story begins with Debbie Brewster, the protagonist. We learn that the year before, because of her success as a project manager, she was promoted to the director of corporate client services for the Southwest region of her company. After just one year as a leader, she is stunned to discover that her team is the worst performer out of seven in her company. Eventually, she has the good fortune to be mentored by Jeff, the company president. Events happen quickly, just as in real life, and the reader turns the pages to find out what will happen to Debbie.

The reason I don’t like a fictitious business story is because it feels contrived in order to make a point. When Debbie gets placed with Jeff as her mentor, the plot feels artificial. It is rare to find an executive who is as caring and supportive as Jeff. Blanchard and Miller, more than likely, selected Jeff’s character to be in this role so they would be modeling the ideal. It turns out to be a good choice because a senior leader reading the book has the opportunity to relate to Jeff and get something different out of the book than the middle manager who can relate to Debbie’s situation.

The book teaches a leadership model called SERVE. It includes the following principles:

• See the future.
• Engage and develop others.
• Reinvent continuously.
• Value results and relationships.
• Embody the values.

The leadership model itself isn’t a conceptual breakthrough. The ideas have been around and taught many times using different words. The value this book provides is the approach used to teach the leadership skills and insights. It is a one-on-one approach, one leader guiding another who has had some experience and is currently struggling. Most important is the support over an 18-month period that Jeff demonstrates as he works with Debbie while she gains insights and tries new actions with her group.

The acknowledgments at the end of the book point out that SERVE is a real teaching model. It was created and is used at Chick-fil-A, Inc., where Mark Miller works as vice president, Training and Development. I am curious to know if the mentoring model is also something Chick-fil-A incorporates in their organization and will update this review when I receive a response from the company.

Debbie’s story reveals the truth that when a person can recognize that something is wrong and take responsibility for it, she is ready to take the leadership journey. Debbie decides on her own that she is ready for mentoring. Even though her group is ranked lowest in the company for performance, she was not placed in a mentoring program. Instead, she submits an application to be accepted.

My experience with leadership development tells me that a self-directed approach is essential to the success of a mentoring-coaching program. People will change when they are ready and have come to the realization on their own that things are not working.

Recommendation
I recommend The Secret because it provides a framework for how to teach leadership once a person has determined they are ready to learn. Because of the structure of the story, the lessons can be interpreted on two levels. You can read it and make insights for your own leadership journey, or you can discover how to develop other people’s leadership abilities. Be aware, though, that the narrative framework, a fictitious case study, will not appeal to all readers because it can come across as contrived.