The 365 Best Business Books Of All-Time: The Leadership Gap

Lolly Daskal has seen it all in her years as an executive coach. She’s spent countless hours in boardrooms, executive suites and corporate jets. She’s helped leaders navigate both success and failure.

In her book The Leadership Gap, she introduces us to a system of seven archetypes that will help view yourself objectively so that you can identify the gaps you face as you work towards greatness.

You’ll see parts of yourself in each of the archetypes. We shift between them depending on the situation.

But you’ll also recognize yourself in what Lolly describes as leadership gaps. These gaps sometimes lead us to the “shadow side” of our leadership archetypes, ultimately holding us back from becoming successful.

Once you are able to see yourself objectively, you can start to create a path forward. Today, let’s look at one of the archetypes.

My Key Takeaway/Principle

In every leadership situation, we need a strategy for overcoming our gaps.

Here are the 7 archetypes and their corresponding leadership gaps:

1. Rebels have the confidence to forge forward, but they can feel like imposters and have self-doubt.
2. Explorers use their intuition to find solutions, but they can become exploiters who manipulate others.
3. Truth Tellers speak with candor, but they can become deceivers who create suspicion.
4. Heroes are courageous in the face of fear, but they can also become fearful bystanders.
5. Inventors lead with integrity, but they can become corrupt destroyers.
6. Navigators create practical and pragmatic solutions that people trust, but they can become fixers who behave arrogantly.
7. Knights are loyal and dedicated to those they serve, but they can become self-serving mercenaries.

Questions to ask yourself

• What leadership archetype most resembles me, right now?
• What are the gaps I need to be aware of for that archetype?
• What are the steps I can take to overcome them?

What else is covered in this book?

The book (and our summary) cover the action steps you can take to identify and overcome the leadership gaps that are impacting you right now, whether you know it or not.

This year (2018) I’m reading and summarizing the top 365 business books of all-time. You can get the full list of books, and links to my reviews of each book, by clicking here.

Happy learning!