The Science of Leadership: Nine Ways to Expand Your Impact
Jeffrey Hull & Margaret Moore
Berrett-Koehler Publishers

A guide for leaders and their teams

This is not light reading or a warm, fuzzy “be a great person and your team will follow you” book. But it’s time well spent, and if you follow Jeffrey Hull and Margaret Moore’s advice, you’ll definitely strengthen your leadership skills and expand your impact.

The Science of Leadership opens with a strong academic tone, but relaxes into more of a conversational style as it moves into the specific leadership topics. Even so, the depth of research the authors have done remains apparent and you understand that you’re going to have to do the work to get results.

The authors focus on leadership topics that you can actually use. They write, “[W]e didn’t include characteristics that leaders can’t easily change, such as age, intelligence, personality, and identity. We left out research on toxic, destructive, and narcissistic leadership; it won’t surprise you that these approaches are harmful to leadership results, including workforce well-being.”

The authors have identified nine leadership capacities broken down into three levels:

• Self-Oriented – Master self-awareness, authenticity, and agility
  • Conscious – See clearly, including myself
  • Authentic – Care
  • Agile – Flex
• Other-Oriented – Build trust, positivity, and deep connections
  • Relational – Help
  • Positive – Strengthen
  • Compassionate – Resonate
• System-Oriented – Create shared purpose, servant leadership, and transformation
  • Shared – Share
  • Servant – Serve
  • Transformation – transform 

Each level is discussed in a chapter and includes case study types of examples with an abundance of candid detail. I could recognize parts of myself and people I know in the stories.

You’ll want to read the entire book before you start the practice exercises because there’s some cross-referencing (for example, chapter 1 makes a reference to a process in chapter 9) and the information all works together.

Chapters include a bullet-point summary and questions to help you articulate the impact of the information on you personally.

We tend to think of leadership styles in silos, but The Science of Leadership helps you see the positive characteristics of various leaders so you can blend them together to strengthen your leadership skills. This book can also be used for training and team development, and includes a detailed discussion and study guide.

Practical and (as the title indicates) grounded in science, The Science of Leadership provides the necessary tools and an easy-to-follow roadmap for elevating your own leadership capacities and taking your team with you.