A Book Review: You and We: A Relational Rethinking of Work, Life, and Leadership

In a leadership narrative style, Jim Ferrell offers us his fresh perspective on leadership. In You and We: A Relational Rethinking of Work, Life, and Leadership, he writes:

“Management of the individual is dead, or soon will be; management of relation is the new leadership paradigm.”

Ferrell contends that “Relationships are what we build with each other. However, relation, by contrast, is simply a fact of existence. Relation isn’t built; it’s already there—a reality, not a construct. Everything is in relation, including us, so we are in relation whether we want it or not, and whether we have a relationship or not.”

Drawing on the work of philosophers and theologians such as Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, Martin Buber, Carl Jung, and Gabriel Marcel, he calls leaders to a new level of transparency and awareness, leveraging relationship to achieve both personal and organizational success.

His view is very dynamic. He points out, “We’re more like verbs than nouns, events rather than things. Every encounter changes the dynamic of who we are. And, interestingly, of who we have been.”

For those familiar with the work of Buber, Ferrell uses his perspective to shine new light on interpersonal relationships.

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