Alpha Male Syndrome

If you know anything about personality types from either Socionics (Rod Novichkov) or MBTI then you'll know who the Alpha Male is exactly (ESTJ or ISTJ personality types). This book shows you logical ways of dealing with people of these personality types. It's good reading.

Making a great team out of a group of driving and opinionated managers and professionals is hard; they need to trust and rely on each other when in fact it is more comfortable for them to stay apart. The Alpha Male Syndrome is a rare and valuable book that offers real solutions to these difficulties.

Very good book for those who want to understand what's going on in the management team. All managers should read this book. A must

Two management consultants have jointly written this book about alpha males who occupy some 75% senior management positions in America's business world. According to them, alpha males are indomitable, tenacious, and persevering enough to reach the apex of their career. They inspire awe and respect but could move people to fear and trembling. Despite having great career success, the downside of their traits and behaviours such as the `laws of the jungle' attitude, interpersonal impatience, and difficult controlling anger can have devastating effect to their health, marriage, and other people surrounding them.

Both writers marry hard data on some 1,500 executives and base on their abundant coaching experience with senior executives from Fortune 500 firms to figure out why such top dogs become pit bulls that snowball problems and expose their vulnerabilities. In short, alpha males are various in terms of their different traits they possess such as commander, visionary, strategist, and executor. Some are inclined to act like visionaries that often dream up exotic ideas but hate naysayers. Others have an uncanny ability to deal with crisis but tend to exercise their authority through intimidation and domination. Both writers conclude that Trump's `apprentice' mentality would do more harm than good. In today's business environment where trust, respect, and collaborative dialogue between corporate bigwigs and coworkers are vital for business survival and growth, both writers offer alpha males a list of `awareness of self and others' tools that could guide them beyond the `alpha triangle' trap and move themselves and their people to effectiveness.

This book is a comprehensive study of alpha males. It is also a landmark management study that not only fills need for alpha males but also provides an impetus for further research on this subject. Revealing the importance of tapping human potentials in teams to high performance, alpha males should learn how to involve the whole team that harness their intelligence, vitality, and drive without wreaking havoc on working relationships. They have to put aside their `zero-sum' jungle mentality as well as personal glory in pursuit of the alchemy of human connections. This book is accompanied by a website that contains an online alpha assessment to testify whether you are an alpha male or not and also your alpha strengths and risks. It helps readers undertake a self-awareness exercise in order to understand and modify their tendencies and risk areas. Chapter 8 provides alpha males with a repertoire of tools to practice emotional and physical reset such as stress relief and endorphin increments in order to achieve high-level health and wellness.

This book is highly recommended for readers who are interested in understanding more about the upside as well as downside traits of alpha males. It is also a highly recommended book for alpha males who aspire to leverage their strengths and subdue their flip-side risks for the best interest of shareholders and their people.

It is hard to not wax poetic about this book as I was so excited to literally walk into it in an airport store soon after it was published. Not one to usually look at hardback books, the title was alluring and the content took my breath away. Here were two top consultants working with some of the best and the brightest who had characterized the execs into four categories. Their process of categorization allows a much greater understanding by the executive than most of the others I have seen over the years.

Each of the four "types" (and most of us have a mix) have specific strengths and risks when it comes to leadership and effectiveness as a top executive. As an executive coach, I really like helping each "alpha" I work with to look at the "risks" of their personality traits rather than call anything a weakness. We play to our strengths and mitigate our risks. This offers a framework from which we can look at what is working, what isn't, and set very specific goals for behavioral change.

Every successful executive has some/many alpha traits. Kate Ludeman, PhD and Edie Erlandson, MD at Worth Ethic, offer an online test that is incredibly helpful as it provides very clear explanations of the specific strengths and risks indicated by the individual. The conclusions and recommendations they offer are extremely valid (from a practical point of view). Having worked with hundreds/thousands of alphas over the past 25 years, I wish I had the benefit of this screen and understanding of their conceptualization process for each client earlier. This is one of the few items I always use when working with a new client.

Breaking the traits into strengths and risks is really what it is all about. Although I have used a SWOT analysis for years in all levels of work (with individuals or with boards and strategic planning), I've always hated the "W" term, weakness. This is such a judgmental and pejorative term to most people, and sounds very permanent. The term "risk" is ever so much better to work with (and hints at the situational component). So even if SROT won't be a best seller, I now explain that what I want to look at are their personal risks, not weaknesses. Every exec is comfortable with risk. It's how we live, and really is an important part of what gives the fabric of life a certain richness and depth. A risk is something that one can assess and make decisions about. A weakness is just, well, yuck.