Paul F Armstrong

Enabling Joy Paul F Armstrong

Are you a team leader, committee chair, event orchestrator or project manager... and you need to lead but without the mantle of managerial authority? In Enabling Joy, Paul Armstrong offers both a fable and quick guide on what to do as a leader. Even when we, like the characters in this fable, have many of the desirable leadership qualities, the question still remains; what do I really do as a leader? Joanna, Dayzie, Megan, Andrew, and Nico are all trying to help their CEO, Tom Waldmor, who is under the scrutiny of the board of directors challenging him to turn some things around at Coeurs, including stopping the steady loss of talented people from the company. Tom has put Joanna on point for figuring out why being conscientious managers and serving leaders is not the whole answer. Joanna unpacks an answer that has too nice of a sound to it, so the leadership team has to build group understanding and buy-in, but only in concert with their own individual journeys, so that they can translate what sounds like a nice idea into a real business application...all before Tom gets the ax. Throughout the story, Armstrong reveals a joy definition, and challenges each of us to consider enabling joy as the primary calling that we have as leaders. Basing his work on Biblical teaching as well as the teachings of respected business leaders such as W. Edwards Deming, Frederick Herzberg and Noriaki Kano, with references to works by Patrick Lencioni and Dan Pink, Armstrong shows that enabling joy is a both a spiritually sound personal purpose and a necessity for organizational greatness.