FAIRNESS IS OVERATED

Thursday, March 05, 2015

FAIRNESS IS OVERRATED
And 51 Other Leadership Principles 
To Revolutionize Your Workplace
By Tim Stevens

OVERVIEW: Fairness Is Overrated is organized around four categories of leadership thought that are crucial for every leader to learn: Part One: Be A Leader Worth Following. Part Two: Find The Right People. Part Three: Build a Healthy Culture. Part Four: Lead Confidently Through A Crisis. This book is an essential read for any leader at any level, whether you are leading a few or a few thousand.

AUTHOR: Tim Stevens is a team leader with the Vanderbloemen Search Group, an executive search firm that helps churches and ministries find great leaders. Previously he was the executive pastor at Granger Community Church in Indiana. During his twenty years there, he helped grow the church to more than 5,000 gathering weekly in three locations and saw a worldwide impact, which included a community center in downtown South Bend, Indiana, and more than 1,800 new churches in southern India.

MY REVIEW: I agree with Thom Rainer, author of I Am a Church Member and Autopsy of a Deceased Church, who said, "Business leaders, church leaders, all leaders: get this book and devour it immediately!"

Stevens distills his lifetime of service and learning into practical, unconventional wisdom that is needed by any leader. This is a book of short, powerful chapters that offer deep wisdom. It's about what matters in the heart of a leader. The principles in this book are written in an easy to understand way. I have read many books on leadership but never one this practical and useful.

I picked up the book thinking I would just read one or two of the short chapters. I found myself looking at the title of chapter after chapter and unable to put it down. Just when I thought I had read the best chapter of the fifty-two, I would read another one and think, maybe this is the best one. They all are needed and helpful. Maybe chapter fifty-two was most helpful to me. In that chapter Stevens lists what he calls the five stages of failure: Justified Reasoning. Questioning. Blaming. Redefining and Leading. I recommend you get your own copy of the book and decide for yourself. I'm sure you will find it as hard as I did to pick only one.

(I received this book from Thomas Nelson Publishers in exchange for a fair and honest review.)