There are books intended to be read once, gleaned for quick and general insights and then casually put aside. Become a Global Leader by Victoria Rennoldson is not one of those.
Rennoldson is the CEO and Founder of Culture Cuppa, a growing cross-culture coaching service. She is also a trending podcast host of Cultural Communication Confidence, under which she has produced more than 150 episodes. She has both the experience and the success to back up her ideas, suggestions and guidance.
Drawing from that, she creates something with the depth and subtlety that warrants a lot more attention than a quick scan from anyone who picks this up. She has a deep understanding of the subject, primarily the importance of sound andeffective communication in global leadership and how to achieve that with reliability and consistency.
With sharp, point-by-point advice, brought to vivid and compelling life by carefully interlaced anecdotes from her time working and tutoring with successful global leaders, we are taken on a journey through a method and approach that slowly builds you up. Self-development is critical, as these skills will help you become a better person as much as a better leader.
The goal is partly discovery, understanding what you already bring to leadership through your unique personality and background, which can be an asset rather than a hindrance in that workspace.
The book is handily divided into four pillars that respectively look at ways to empower your confidence, fully master your clarity, empathetically bridge the most challenging conversations and connect with your own reserve of cultural intelligence.
That is, the author seeks to show you how to be a self-empowered, global leader who can speak and write with precision to overcome conflict and tap into the critical power of a diverse workforce. That diversity is something Rennoldson genuinely values, as she perceives that it is the coming together of various life paths and types of people that create a team that is more than the sum of its parts.
Each section (or pillar) of the book then begins and ends with the key takeaways and concludes with a helpful suggestion of the main points to commit to memory, all of which makes navigating the advice and exercises much easier. An invested reader will return to Become a Global Leader, starting with these sections and reinforcing what they have learned.
There are bullet point summaries within chapters, too. And sections where Rennoldson guides the reader to engage with it as a workbook and answer her searching questions about how you have developed your communication style. There are additional online resources linked by QR codes. Whether you are an existing or aspiring global leader, she emphasises asking what the key areas are in which you could still improve and hone.
Whether you are fighting imposter syndrome or struggling with being a better listener, Become a Global Leader will give you so much more than you will anticipate going in.
Review by Rowan Fortune (editor at TWH Press and Rowan-Tree Editing)
