The Hidden Leader

Scott K. Edinger and Laurie Sain The Hidden Leader Amacom Books, 2015, 225 pages (including appendixes), $21.16 (hard cover)The hidden leader provides practical insight into identifying and engaging leaders at any level of the organizational hierarchy to create and sustain a robust competitive advantage. While the central tenets of the book are not new or revolutionary, the value of the text is provided through the assessment tools provided which are applicable to organizations across all industries and missions. The unique perspective provided by The Hidden Leader is that there are many employees within the organization who are not in leadership positions, and may not even aspire to lead, but are vital to the firm's success. These hidden leaders will have a positive influence on the bottom line, employee engagement, and the firm's strategic direction if the firm is successful in identifying, cultivating, and supporting the growth of these priceless assets.The goal of the hidden leader is consistent with the organization's central aim which is fulfilling the value promise by understanding the needs of the customer, the features of the product or service which satisfies those needs, and the benefits of the product or service which are superior to competitors' benefits. In order to fulfill this goal, hidden leaders operate with four primary observable actions: demonstrating integrity, leading through relationships, focusing on results, and being customer purposed. Acting with integrity lays the foundation for any employee because it is only through consistent actions of integrity that others learn to trust and depend on the reliability of others. It is the existence of each of the other three characteristics which differentiates hidden leaders from other employees as well as ineffective leaders.Chapters 3-6 provide in-depth insight into these four characteristics of hidden leaders. With regard to integrity, once positional leaders have identified integrity amongst hidden leaders within the organization, it is vital to provide support for the demonstration of that integrity by responding positively to integrity, incorporating integrity into the culture, and showing integrity when facing ethical dilemmas which has a signaling effect. A company's culture is one of the strongest influencers of actions of integrity and the hidden leader provides insight into enabling and teaching others to act with integrity.Building essential relational skills is vital to inspiring and appealing to others at an emotional level which creates passion and drive to work hard and improve. This skill is particularly important to leaders who are early in their career as they may be operating from a front-line or middle-manager position, and as a result, must build a coalition of support in order to initiate change within an organization. Building a coalition of support not only involves emotionally connecting with others, but also practicing transparent critical thinking which sells the value of the idea by showing the problem that exists and the solution which capitalizes on the opportunity. While many people can identify changes that should occur, hidden leaders have the ability to leverage the power of relationships and think transparently to accomplish that change even without the positional power to do so. …