How We Work

New business leaders face a myriad of challenges when entering their new roles.  From a difficult team to trouble understanding your purpose, leaders often grow frustrated and leave their positions.  Leah Weiss, PhD, shows leaders how to overcome these challenges in her book How We Work.

This book includes practical advice on topics such as healing toxic workplaces, finding purpose, leaning into our emotions in productive ways, and how to fail better.  Throughout the book, Weiss includes sections on practical applications titled “Accomplish This” to further understanding.  Weiss also includes input from other leadership and management professionals and educators to bolster her plans.

I give How We Work 3 out of 5 stars.  I struggled to make it through this book myself.  While I appreciate the concepts and teaching, this book reads more like a textbook or collegiate class additional reading than a management how-to.  Halfway through, I found myself not retaining any information because of how tough the reading is – I had to go back and outline the book to focus on it.  One item I did take away from this is the Hippocratic Oath for Managers – I made a copy for the office at my day job.

I recommend this book for new business leaders and those more experienced but dealing with burn out or leadership challenges.  Less academically-minded readers may find this book difficult to read – I have a Masters in Management, did my fair share of text book reading, and still found it tough.  I would also recommend this for leaders looking to learn more about mindfulness and using emotions in a positive way.

I chose How We Work as my July personal development read.  While I’m not in a management position exactly, all workers can choose to be in a leadership role – those are two very different terms.  I received this book in a women’s management subscription box last year but hadn’t had the opportunity to review it yet.  I did give this a low rating simply for the difficulty in reading it – I hope you find it easier to read than me!

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What I’m Reading

• Current print book: Patriot Games, Tom Clancy
• Current audio book: John Adams: A Live, John Ferling
• Book I’m most looking forward to: The Book Woman of Troublesome Creek, Kim Michele Richardson