Book Review: Leading Things You Didn't Start by Tyler Reagin

Publisher: WaterBrook & Multnomah

Release Date: March 2, 2021

Genre: Christian Leadership

A high-impact leadership coach gives you the tools you need to maximize your influence in a new role, giving you the ability to meet any challenge and take your team, organization, church, or company to new heights.

“A practical path to maximizing your influence, navigating transitions, and producing positive results.”—Jon Gordon, 10x bestselling author of The Power of Positive Leadership

Sure, it’s inspirational when we hear stories about those who founded companies from their garages with one hundred dollars cash while in high school. But such success is super rare and not always how it plays out for great leaders.
 
The reality is that most leaders are responsible for corporations, teams, and products they didn’t launch from the ground up. Tyler Reagin saw the immense need to address this mission-critical but often overlooked aspect of leadership: healthy transition for leaders who inherit teams, places, or platforms others created.
 
His groundbreaking book Leading Things You Didn’t Start provides a faith-based four-step plan that answers practical questions such as:

• Do I really want to take over something loved by so many?
• Is there a secret sauce to doing what the leaders before me did?
• How do I get the current team on board with my leadership?
• How do I honor the past without being trapped by it?
• How do I steward the legacy of the leaders who started the movement?

Through the use of tried-and-true coaching principles and practical case studies with leaders like Buzz Williams, head coach at Texas A&M, and Cheryl Bachelder, former CEO of Popeyes, Reagin helps you maximize your newfound influx of influence and master the intentions of an inheriting leader.

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The Life Giving Leader

Many of us do not consider ourselves as leaders.  I am one of those people that is more comfortable being apart of the group as opposed to standing out.  There is always someone else who is better fit to lead than me and I will gladly step aside and let them take the reins.

When I picked up The Life Giving Leader by Tyler Reagin my entire perspective of what it truly means to be a leader changed and I realized that it is a gift for me to be a life giving leader.

In the past I have co-led group Bible studies in my home and have volunteered in the church to help with Vacation Bible School as well as teach Sunday school classes but I've never viewed those as true "leadership roles."  After reading The Life Giving Leader I have realized that I have been, and am, a leader in the church, as well as in my personal life, and that I need to lead the way that God wants me to personally lead, which might not be the way that others lead.  I've always viewed leadership in a cookie-cutter fashion (which is why I've never seen myself as a leader) but when you are living the authentic life that God created you to live it is from that place that you lead.

This is Tyler Reagin's debut book and I have to admit that I am pretty impressed.  I found myself constantly grabbing my highlighter or pen to highlight a passage or to jot down a note.  His writing style is easy to read and understand and feels like a conversation with a close friend.   Each point that he is makes sticks with you long after you've read it which truly helps to solidify each concept and lights a fire inside to take action.

Even if you do not see yourself as a leader reading this book is a must.  It guides you into better understanding of what it means to be give life to those around you.  The principles shared are nothing new but they are told in a way that will refresh your passion to serve and put your focus back where it needs to be.

*I received an advanced copy of this book from WaterBrook Publishing in exchange for an honest, unbiased review.  All opinions are my own.

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