- Balanced Accountability: Create a Culture of Ownership

African-born California author Hernani Alves is the founder of Balanced IQ, a company that helps leaders build world-class teams focused on getting sustainable results in varying economic climates, an entrepreneur, international speaker, and an executive consultant.Hernani opens his book with a reference to his childhood in Angola, Africa where his father held him accountable for chores. He uses this warmly personal manner to open the doors to his purpose for writing this book – to teach us the importance of using accountability in the workplace to improve performance with less stress and more benefits and success. The message is straightforward and poignant.Using personal stories and sharing his insights Hernani proves that accountability equals love – just as his experience with his father’s rules he embraced as a child. He presents three types of accountability – personal, positive and performance, his 3P program. As he states, ‘Personal accountability is the most important and challenging aspect of this program. It’s important because, although it may not always feel like it, your employees want to follow you…Because our employees copy us, we need to hold ourselves accountable before we can do the same for them. We need to make ourselves better, so we can lead by example.’It is this manner of sharing his experience and well-earned reputation as a prominent business consultant that makes this accessible book a little bible for managers. Balanced accountability equals success – and with Hernani’s guidance all readers can step up their level of happiness in the workplace and discover success at a new level. Highly recommended. Grady Harp, May 19

Satisfied.

The cover to the book is pretty spot on and takes out the guessing work for what this book’s all about.I appreciated that the author, Hernani Alves, was so candid in sharing his own experiences, both from childhood as well as in the business world. Alves does not paint himself as a natural-born leader full of charisma and wisdom. There are some natural leaders out there, but for many of use, we need a book like Balanced Accountability to help navigate the waters of leading a team.At the very beginning of the book, he has a subtitle Managers vs Leaders. That subtitle alone is a learning tool. I found the chapters to be well organized and easy to follow and read. Not all self-improvement books are easy to read, many can be quite dull. I feel that the snippets Alves shares into his past give the book more life.The suggestions provided in this book are realistic. Such as “They Must Know,” I think that as managers we expect our direct reports to know we appreciate the work they do, but in truth, it is so often overlooked. Letting people know that what they do matters is so key. It’s these little words of wisdom that make this book so perfect for those leading a team.

This book helps me be a better leader

Hernani Alves writes about 3 Leadership Secrets to Win Hearts and Maximize Performance in his leadership book, Balanced Accountability. This is an excellent book for anyone who leads in any area, or if you hope to lead someday. We could also use the principles he teaches in our homes. Teaching that both the leader and the follower are accountable is lacking in our businesses and families. I love how focused the author is on bringing out the best of everyone, while building a foundation in their life that will take them further. Balanced Accountability is told with the feeling that this author, Hernani Alves, cares about people and wishes to teach how the reader can improve themselves and their co-workers. I loved the quote at the beginning, “If you want to be successful, surround yourself with great people, treat them well and make everyone successful.” I felt I was getting the best of several authors and years of experience while reading this book. The energy and motivation that comes from this author makes you wish you knew him personally.

This book by Hernani Alves is designed to help you become the best leader you can be by learning how to encourage and motivate others. Alves dives into various aspects you can use, such as positivity, open communication, and performance accountability in your workspace. By using them, you’ll find that you not only help to make others feel better, but can actually create a work environment that functions well and is productive. The author also includes quotes from many famous leaders and business professionals to help inspire and encourage you even more.The book runs at 221 pages, so it might be a bit of a long read for some. However, it contains helpful information in it that all business professionals should definitely keep in mind, making it a worthwhile read. In addition to this, Alves uses a great writing style that will captivate your mind while also being easy to read.

In this read, Hernani Alves does a great job at explaining to all readers is that all they need to succeed is one concept - ownership. Through explaining this balanced accountability framework, Alves creates a perfect roadmap to lifting morale, reducing turnover, and creating a better overall business. I highly recommend this to all business professionals, especially those who are working on/leading teams!

I'd start by saying that I had very high expectations concerning the book. Was looking at learning new stuff about building a culture of accountability. I teach accountability to organizations and was looking at what I can learn to add to my knowledge. Nothing new here. The book is just okay, at best.A 5-star rating is for a book filled with new insights that you can't put down, ine that you will recommend to a friend, and will definitely read again. I don't think this book passes that test.As an author myself, I don't like giving bad reviews but this book is for people who wants to learn the basics of accountability. Nothing groundbreaking in it. However, as a first timer into the concept, you may find some things useful and that's why I rated it a 3.