Unleashed: The Unapologetic Leader’s Guide to Empowering Everyone Around You

| Author : Frances Frei and Anne Morriss, 2020

What’s It All About?

Living in Kentucky, I often see grassy hills with graceful, roaming horses. Each time I see them, I can’t help but think about Unleashed by Frances Frei and Anne Morriss, a book that’s all about empowering people with your presence, just like Kentucky’s horses do.

We all have valuable teammates in our organizations but might not know the best ways to fully “unleash” our leadership power and skills to lead our organizations to the next level. In Unleashed, manufacturing leaders can learn how to self-evaluate their own leadership skills and strengths to become the best leader for their team. Unleashed also provides actions that leaders can implement and practice to find productive outcomes and build a confident team.

For example, Unleashed asks leaders to look at how much time they have spent with their team, then compare it to the growth the team has experienced under their leadership. When do you do this, ask yourself:

Have I elevated others around me?
Are my teammates and colleagues better off when I’m around?
What are some new ways I can unleash their potential?

Another valuable insight from Morriss and Frei’s book is the concept of reframing. As a leader, you don’t need a mindset that’s about you. Instead, focus on the person you’re leading. When you’re only focused on convincing others what to think, this doesn’t create a powerful legacy or unleash the potential of your team. To make an impact in your organization, you need to improve your ability to impact how other think. This means you should be in coach mode! Ask more questions, speak less, and listen more. By investing time in others, you’ll unlock their ability to think and solve problems on their own.

Favorite Quote

“Leadership, at its core, isn’t about you. Instead, it’s about how effective you are at empowering other people and unleashing their full potential.”

Biggest Takeaway

To spark potential in a team member, you need to have the right mindset. If you lack confidence in someone or don’t really believe they can grow, then you cannot really lead them. In situations like this, you’re just managing and overseeing, rather than fully leading. But by being thinking about your own growth mindset, you can develop the thoughts and skills you need to guide your team members into becoming the best, most successful versions of themselves.

To go deeper into growth and fixed mindset, check out my previous book report on Carol Dweck’s Mindset: the New Psychology of Success.

Bonus information

While reading this book, I was reminded of a defining conversation I had with Andrew De Haan, who explained to me that our role as leaders is to support the growth of others. To learn more from Andrew, you can check out his 2020 appearances on the Mindfulness Manufacturing podcast here and here.

Reviewed by: Trevor Blondeel, October 14, 2022

At Manufacturing Greatness, Trevor Blondeel works with manufacturers to connect the top to the shop floor. If you’re ready to improve your own organization, contact Trevor to learn how Manufacturing Greatness can help you build stronger leaders and develop a dynamic, high-performing workplace.

Mindfulness Manufacturing

Our show is about providing listeners with real stories that come from a place of experience, transparency, and authenticity. Most importantly it’s about what we learn from these stories and applying Mindfulness in our everyday work and personal lives.
Our intention is to create an environment where people can learn through open honest discussions on how we apply Mindfulness. Although our experiences and stories come from time in a manufacturing environment hence the title “Mindfulness Manufacturing”, we still see our discussions and topics relatable to any organization or profession.

When a mistake occurs on the plant floor, your mind might jump to one question: who caused this issue, and should I write them up for their mistake? But there’s a more productive approach you could be taking—and in this episode of Mindfulness Manufacturing, guest Dr. Jake Mazulewicz breaks it all down!

With a background as a firefighter, EMT, and military paratrooper, Jake knows the challenges of high-hazard industries, and works with organizations to reduce errors and create safer, more reliable workplace environments. In this episode, Jake shares why you can’t procedularize everything, including the way you handle errors and accidents, and offers great insights and stories about how to use connection and curiosity to improve safety, address errors, and strengthen your organization.

3:35 – Procedures and policies are the work that is imagined, and on the floor is how the work actually gets done

4:19 – The work as-done is almost always radically different than the work as-imagined

5:20 – Even when you have standards and people show up wanting to do a good job, you can still see issues that need to be addressed

6:44 – There will always be areas that absolutely need to have procedures in place

8:02 – There are also adaptive jobs, which leans less into procedures and more intro troubleshooting and tacit human knowledge

10:56 – In an ideal environment, both mechanistic and adaptive models are used and respected and needed

12:11 – There are four levels, ranging from strict procedurals to looser guidelines that show what to do, but not how to do it

15:36 – Tacit knowledge gets shared through conversations

16:22 – A way to share important information is to have frontline experts record videos sharing their insights to problems, especially those that are not covered in procedures

19:44 – Through conversation and connection, more knowledge is shared

21:58 – Debriefing also plays a central role

23:45 – If you have strong discipline, you’ll find more freedom

25:31 – In most situations, errors are signals, not defects

27:07 – When an error occurs, be curious and find the deeper cause of the problem

Connect with Jake Mazulewicz

Find him on Linkedin

Visit his website