Simon Cleveland - There Is No Box: A Practical Guide for the Relatable Leader

Contents

Praise for There Is No Box

There Is No Box is a critically important book, offering invaluable insights and a clear path forward to becoming a relatable leader. Professor Clevelands premise that leadership is more than a skill, it is a lifestyle, is exactly on point. And his conclusions are based on strategies drawn from real-world experience. As a former United States ambassador serving under President Ronald Reagan, I strongly concur with his observation that the power of cross-cultural competence is essential for becoming a successful leader.

Paul A. Russo, United States Ambassador (ret.)

Marisa and Simon in There Is No Box have captured the essence of leadership by bringing to light relatability as the primary driver to success, with communication and compassion as central elements. Their gifted approach to leadership is grounded in established theory and reinforced by continuous reflection exercises based on their vast experience in leading diverse teams of people. The road map to relatable leadership offers a synergistic right and left-brain perspective that will benefit anyone desiring a clear path to leadership success as presented through the lens of proven leaders.

Paul Dooley, PhD, former Assistant Secretary General, United Nations

There Is No Box challenges our leadersemerging and establishedto focus on the importance of finding common ground amid a landscape of global and digital diversification. The authors weave together a method for becoming a relatable leader and taking charge of your own life. This is the book that every leader should share with their teams so they can thrive intellectually and emotionally. Based on my experience as a lawyer, ethics professor, and policy maker, Im impressed with the way the authors blend academic theory with real-world implementation.

Paul Lewis, JD, former Special Envoy at the U.S. Department of Defense

Today we live in a volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous (VUCA) world. The complexities organizations face everyday cry out for effective and relatable leaders to successfully navigate change. This book provides a clear road map on how to become a relatable leader to drive change while fulfilling your destiny. As Marisa and Simon Cleveland point out: Leadership isnt a trait; leadership is a lifestyle.

Timothy Mills, CSM PMP, Instructor, Agile Project Management, Harvard Extension School Dept. of Continuing Education, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA

There Is No Box is a sensible, skillfully assembled, eminently readable survey of the most important aspects of being a leader and a human being. The authors inspire you to think about leadership as a state of being that can be found throughout any level and sphere of life, not just in the workplace. Relatable leadership and cultural agility, the books main contributions to leadership literature, have changed the way I lead and live my life. You might feel uncomfortable, but then youll feel grateful to prioritize your own leadership development.

George Moschoglou, PhD, Associate Professor of the Practice and Faculty Director, Georgetown University

There Is No Box presents a fresh view of leadership through the lens of what the authors call relatable leadership. The concept of relatable leadership builds on the findings of prior studies, which found that there is no one best style of leadership that fits all situations. However, developing a relatable style will help one adapt to present-day situations where diversity, equity, and inclusion are center stage. The authors go beyond discussing the topic by providing a framework for developing a relatable leadership style based on project management concepts. There Is No Box is a great read for those just starting out, those sensing that they need to change their approach to leadership, or even those who just want to look outside the existing leadership style boxes.

Dr. Jack Deem, Academic Department Chair, School of Business and Information Technology, Purdue Global University

There Is No Box shows us all the ways to step outside of our comfort zone, embrace ambiguity, and leverage our experiences of immovable boundaries and rigid playbooks to create a new paradigm between a leader and those they influence.

Mary Ludden, MBA, PhD, Senior Vice Chancellor and Senior Vice Provost, Northeastern University

There Is No Box copyright 2022 by Simeris Alliance, LLC

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First E-Book Edition: 2022

Library of Congress Control Number: 2022017975

ISBN 9781637741948 (hardcover)

ISBN 9781637741955 (electronic)

Editing by Katie Dickman

Copyediting by Ruth Strother

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For our moms, Joan and Ionka, for teaching us that even though we might not fit in, we shouldnt be afraid to stand out.

During childhood, were told to color inside the lines. In our twenties, were asked to think outside the box. But what if there is no box?

Leadership is not a trait; leadership is a lifestyle.

CONTENTS

M y career in leadership began in a much different world than we live in today. It was more common than not that those leaders of yesteryear would follow command and control approaches, or theory x type of leadership styles. What this meant is that they were the boss and you took your direction from them with little opportunity to discuss alternative solutions to emerging challenges. It was also quite common to work in an us vs. them environment with management on one side of an argument and employees on the other side with a fair amount of mistrust in the middle. You certainly wouldnt have categorized your boss as compassionate or culturally agile two decades ago. Phrases that were commonly injected into my daily meetings were stay in your lane or thats not your role, which were used as levers of control by top management and meant to limit your influence on organizational outcomes. A multitude of environmental forces have now conspired to force leaders of today into confronting their own positionality and explore adopting contemporary approaches to inspiring teams in a way that few of us could have imagined even five years ago.

Even after all these years, I consider myself a leader under construction. Always learning. Always adapting. The vignette by the authors that describes that not all individuals come to the table with the same amount of food on their plate is a powerful representation of the ongoing learning we all need to embrace and which should be fueled by an endless curiosity and a desire to improve our individual knowledge of what works and what doesnt when we serve as leaders. My greatest leadership teachers have been sourced from unlikely places and include less than enlightened managers, failed projects, and my own missteps as I learned through experiences too numerous to mention. Over the years, books that integrated key theories and approaches to developing my own leadership style were few and far between and often yielded little benefit to my individual development. Rather than a new leader having to retrace my path,