Leadership on the Line: A Guide for Front Line Supervisors, Business Owners, and Emerging Leaders, 2^nd Edition

reviewed by Robert Pritchett

Ed Rehkopf brings his rich experiences from the Hospitality Industry and shows how to apply the good ones (and how to avoid the bad ones) to all manners of supervision.

If you ever needed a common sense book on how to lead others and not just managing them, you won’t go wrong by reading this book.  Think ‘Service-based Leadership”:

What They Say

At the other end of the spectrum is the ideal of service-based leadership.  With this approach, the attitude and primary motivation of the leader is service to others – to customers, to employees, to shareholders.  This approach to leadership naturally creates relationships – the deep and abiding bonds that sustain the efforts of the company.  This outward focus of the leader sets up a dynamic where:

• Employees are continually recognized.
• There is an open flow of ideas, opinions, and information.
• Initiative and risk are highly regarded.
• Problem discovery and solution is a focus while placing blame is unimportant.
• Every employee feels energized and part of the team and is valued for his or her contribution.
• Prestige is derived from performance and contribution, not title.
• Customers are treated well because employees are treated well.
• The energy and initiative of all employees is focused on the common effort.

With service-based leadership, you will find that good customer service to both internal and external customers is effortless.  Less energy is expended in processing complaints, grievances, and conflicts.  Work is more fun and everyone's job is easier.

What I Say

Frankly, I was getting a bit jaundiced about management/leadership books, but I actually went cover-to-cover with this one, because Ed Rehkopf had great experiences and what-to-avoids interspersed with what-to-dos. Much of it is basic common courtesy and treating everyone as human beings, if not extended family. Where he draws the line is in getting “too close” to those over whom you are responsible. Much like a parent who is also a full-time teacher who home-schools  children and has to demonstrate that he/she is wearing a different hat, based on what role is being played in order for effort to be handled and rewarded. (How’s that for political correctness?) Think disciplined approach with a velvet glove. Hopefully it is not hiding an iron fist, but you never know…

Every section has an executive summary at the end that “qualifies the quantity” of those sections. At the end of the book, there are another fourteen articles that are an amalgam of articles published in magazines over the years by the author – and worth every printed page.

What I gathered form this book is that Leadership on the Line is more service – with love.  And that is what separates a leader from a pointy-headed Dilbert cartoon manager. The leader cares about those he or she leads. While the manager is rules from a position of fear. Who would you rather follow or be?  Put caring back into management – at least at arm’s length. And also learning that the ”right” people are your most important asset – and believing it.