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  • 2020
  • Book

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

By: Frances X. Frei and Anne Morriss
  • Format:Print
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Abstract

When leaders and aspiring leaders seek out advice, they're often told to try harder. Dig deeper. Look in the mirror and own your natural-born strengths and fix any real or perceived career-limiting deficiencies.

We offer a different worldview. We argue that this popular leadership advice glosses over the most important thing you do as a leader: Build others up. Leadership isn’t about you. It’s about how effective you are at empowering other people—and making sure that this impact endures even in your absence. We show through inspiring stories from ancient Rome to Silicon Valley, the origins of great leadership are found, paradoxically, not in worrying about your own status and advancement, but in the unrelenting focus on other people’s potential.

Unleashed​ provides radical advice for the practice of leadership today. Showing how the boldest, most effective leaders use a special combination of trust, love, and belonging to create spaces where other people can excel, we offer practical, battle-tested tools—based on our work in companies such as Uber, Riot Games, and others—along with interviews and stories from our own personal experience to make these ideas come alive. This book is your indispensable guide for unleashing greatness in other people...and, ultimately, in yourself.

Keywords

Leadership Skills; Belonging; Leadership; Management Skills; Trust; Organizational Culture

Citation

Frei, Frances X., and Anne Morriss. Unleashed: The Unapologetic Leader's Guide to Empowering Everyone Around You. Boston: Harvard Business Review Press, 2020.
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About The Author

Frances X. Frei

Technology and Operations Management
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More from the Authors

    • March 7, 2025
    • Harvard Business Review (website)

    Leaders Can Move Fast and Fix Things

    By: Frances X. Frei and Anne Morriss
    • January 27, 2024
    • New York Times

    Critics of D.E.I. Forget That It Works

    By: Caroline M. Elkins, Frances X. Frei and Anne Morriss
    • November–December 2023
    • Harvard Business Review

    Storytelling That Drives Bold Change

    By: Frances X. Frei and Anne Morriss
More from the Authors
  • Leaders Can Move Fast and Fix Things By: Frances X. Frei and Anne Morriss
  • Critics of D.E.I. Forget That It Works By: Caroline M. Elkins, Frances X. Frei and Anne Morriss
  • Storytelling That Drives Bold Change By: Frances X. Frei and Anne Morriss
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