Great Leaders Have No Rules Book Summary - Great Leaders Have No Rules Book explained in key points

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Great Leaders Have No Rules summary

Name: Great Leaders Have No Rules
Rating: 4.6 (233 reviews)
Author: Kevin Kruse

Kevin Kruse

Contrarian Leadership Principles to Transform Your Team and Business

4.6 (233 ratings)

27 mins

Brief summary

Great Leaders Have No Rules by Kevin Kruse is a leadership book that challenges conventional management principles. Kruse argues that effective leaders do not rely on specific rules and regulations, but instead create an environment of trust and empowerment for their employees to succeed.

Topics

Work Culture Leadership Coaching

Table of Contents

Great Leaders Have No Rules
Summary of 8 key ideas

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Key idea 1 of 8

What’s in it for me? Revolutionize the way you lead, to increase your team’s productivity and profitability.

Regardless of your leadership style, holding on to outdated managerial philosophies may be holding you and your team back.

But what if there was an alternative leadership style that made your team so effective that productivity shot through the roof? What if you could create a workplace where everyone had autonomy, giving you freedom to focus on business strategy? Sound like a perfect managerial mirage?

Well, this vision is actually within your reach, with a little shift in approach. These blinks explain why a more contrarian leadership perspective helps you get better results. Forget what you’ve been taught about management, and buckle into a new way of doing things. Here’s to becoming the leader you’ve always wanted to be!

In these blinks, you’ll learn

one word you need to say to your employees each day;
why to-do lists don’t make you productive; and
the reason you should have favorites.

Abandon your open-door policy and be more deliberate with your schedule.

In 2017, a memo written by talk-show host Steve Harvey went viral. His team was outraged! The memo was blunt. It demanded that anyone who wanted to speak to Harvey must now schedule an appointment. Without an invitation, his dressing-room door was firmly closed.

Author Kevin Kruse was shocked that everyone was so scandalized by Harvey’s memo. Sure, his phrasing could have been a little tamer, but Kruse saw Harvey’s request as completely reasonable. Sixty-year-old Harvey was hosting several TV and radio shows in three different states. Naturally, he needed some peace before a show to connect with his energy and humor. The ‘pop-in’ culture interrupted his focus on what mattered most.

In other words, far from criticising Steve Harvey, we should be copying him.

The key message here is: Abandon your open-door policy and be more deliberate with your schedule.

In a bid to promote trust, collaboration, and communication, most workplaces have adopted an open-door culture, giving team members access to their managers at any time. But rather than achieving that anticipated trust and ease of communication, it actually reduces your productivity as a leader and hampers your team from building crucial decision-making skills.

No matter how much you encourage them to use your open-door policy, statistics show that 50 percent of your team won’t feel comfortable speaking up when they have an issue. These are the folks that fear potential ramifications, like having their concerns dismissed or being judged as troublemakers. They’re also sensitive about having a manager follow-up on their complaint and risking new tensions amongst the team.

For everyone else? They’ll constantly interrupt your workday. That open door won’t just prevent you from getting work done, it’ll also stop your employees from making their own decisions. They’ll get into the habit of running straight for your approval, creating a culture of dependency instead of relying on themselves and possibly making a mistake.

To lead effectively, strike a balance between an open- and closed-door policy by nominating a recurring time when you’re available for employees. It could be for a full day once a week, or an hour every morning; whatever works best for your schedule and the team’s needs. That way, your team will still feel supported, and you’ll have uninterrupted time to tackle problems that need your attention most.

Get rid of rules! They only inhibit employee performance.

Imagine you’re an employee on an overnight business trip. Complying with company policy, you’ve made your reservation at a Motel 6. But there’s an issue when you arrive – no room is available. The other motel in town has availability, but its rooms are $10 more than you’re allowed for accommodations. What do you do? Well, luckily your company accepts car-rental expenses; so your best option is to rent a vehicle for $250 and drive four hours to another Motel 6. Sorted. Wait, what?

This may sound senseless, but many workplaces are riddled with rules that defy common sense. The bigger the company, the more rules it’s likely to have. When leaders don’t have direct contact with employees, they rely on those rules to maintain professional standards and mitigate risk. But rules undermine trust. And an untrusted employee is one who underperforms.

Needing to be liked sabotages leadership, but wanting to lead right garners respect.

The need to be liked is an innate part of the human experience. Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, which maps the stages of human development, places our need to belong directly after our most basic requirements, like food, shelter, and safety.

A 2017 Gallup survey found that employees with close work friends were the most highly engaged, proving that a sense of belonging has positive outcomes in the workplace. This explains why so many Silicon Valley enterprises encourage social connection at work by hosting regular company parties, installing foosball tables in staff rooms, and more.

An effective workplace is a loving one.

In 1513, Italian diplomat Niccolò Machiavelli penned The Prince, a political treatise used as an instructional guide for new royals. In it, he claimed that being feared by those you manage was more effective than being loved – a sentiment still revered by many business leaders today.

While fear-based leadership might bully employees into working hard, it doesn’t create a productive work culture. In fact, fear reduces creativity, stifles innovation, and prevents open communication. Fear causes stress, and stress drives employees to look for jobs elsewhere.

Become obsessed with time.

While researching for his book 15 Secrets Successful People Know About Time Management, Kruse interviewed over 280 high performers, from Olympic athletes to entrepreneurs. What he learned shocked him. Hardly any of them used to-do lists to organize their time.

Despite what most of us have been taught, to-do lists aren’t that helpful when it comes to getting things done. In fact, research has found that 41 percent of to-do list tasks are never completed. And knowing that there’s a long list of items awaiting completion increases our stress levels. So, to become a highly effective leader, stop writing lists and start focusing on how you’re using every minute of the day.

Treating everyone the same is unfair.

In 2017, former NFL Super Bowl Champion Gary Brackett was a guest on Kruse’s podcast, The LEADx Leadership Show. After retiring, Brackett started a restaurant franchise called Stacked Pickle. Asked what advice he’d give a new manager, Brackett said not to treat people equally, but to treat them fairly.

Brackett meant that you should always consider the broader context when it comes to an employee’s performance. For instance, if a normally punctual employee is late one week due to car problems, she should be treated differently to someone who’s been rolling in to work late every morning since he started. The rule is universal – show up on time – but the ramifications of breaking that rule should change according to the individual.

Embrace transparency.

How would you react if an employee sent you an email accusing you of being disorganized and unprepared for a meeting? What if they told you that your underperformance was unacceptable and mustn’t happen again?

This happened to Ray Dalio, founder and CEO of Bridgewater Associates. But Dalio wasn’t offended by his employee’s blunt email; he was delighted. Dalio had implemented radical transparency at Bridgewater, meaning nothing is hidden or off-limits, including holding the boss accountable. This policy has transformed his company into the world’s largest hedge fund with $160 billion in assets.

Being vulnerable fosters connection.

The most popular segment of Kruse’s podcast is when his guests share a time they’ve failed. Listeners love hearing high performers talk about something other than how successful they are. Knowing that even great leaders make mistakes helps the audience relate to them.

Vulnerability doesn’t come naturally to most people. Evolution has made us fear being weak. We don’t want to be the gazelle that the lion singles out for dinner.

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What is Great Leaders Have No Rules about?

Great Leaders Have No Rules (2019) challenges leaders to adopt a contrarian approach to managing people and their time so that they succeed more easily and quickly. By identifying the flaws in traditional or typical leadership practices, it reveals why going against the grain results in better outcomes.

Great Leaders Have No Rules Review

Great Leaders Have No Rules (2019) by Kevin Kruse provides valuable insights on effective leadership and why traditional rules can hinder success. Here's why this book is worth reading:

It challenges conventional wisdom by offering unconventional strategies that empower leaders to think outside the box and create innovative solutions.
With its emphasis on results-oriented leadership, the book provides practical advice for driving performance and achieving long-term success.
Through compelling real-life stories and interviews with top leaders, the book captivates readers, ensuring an engaging and thought-provoking read.

Best quote from Great Leaders Have No Rules

The higher the quality of your workforce, the less likely it is that youll need rules.

—Kevin Kruse

Who should read Great Leaders Have No Rules?

Leaders who want to optimize their performance
Managers looking for new ways to motivate their teams
Entrepreneurs seeking to create a dynamic workplace culture

About the Author

Kevin Kruse is the New York Times best-selling author of six books, including Employee Engagement 2.0 and 15 Secrets Successful People Know About Time Management. Serial entrepreneur and host of the podcast LEADx Leadership, Kruse provides leadership training in 192 countries through his free online education platform, LEADx Academy.

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