Leadership is tough, and finding a book that offers real, actionable solutions can be even tougher. The Ten Toughest Leadership Problems by Dr. Katie Best caught my attention because it promises to tackle common leadership struggles—like decision-making, team engagement, and navigating hybrid work—using a structured SOLVE framework.

What I appreciate is the focus on practical problem-solving rather than just leadership theory. The idea of breaking down challenges step by step feels approachable, especially for those who might feel overwhelmed in leadership roles. That said, I do wonder if the book will bring fresh insights or if it will feel like a repetition of common leadership advice.

For anyone facing leadership challenges, this book seems like a useful self-coaching tool. I’m curious to see if it delivers on its promises and provides strategies that can truly make a difference.

Dr. Best provides a good framework for analyzing common leadership problems. Though the list is not extensive, many other problems can be categorized with the ten on which she expounds here: personal effectiveness, decision-making, influence, engagement, etc. The framework she lays out is similar to others like OODA (Observe, Orient, Decide, Act), PDCA (Plan, Do, Check, Act) and other variants, Kepner Tregoe techniques and so on. The author uses SOLVE (S = State the problem…). The framework can be applied to many situations, especially if they follow Dr. Best’s practice of asking open-ended questions about it.

The chapter on Influence may be worth the price of the book alone. How much are we trying to influence others based on our preferred style or ways we want others to approach us?

While I found many of the chapters helpful, I found them to be limited in scope. Decision-making, for example, has other elements and perhaps should start with the question: “Do I even need to make this decision or to whom can I delegate it?” Often we catch ourselves in the trap of telling and selling the decision, which limits engagement, instead of consulting and joining others to provide more input and ownership in the decision. While she talks about discerning the need for quick decisions or the possibility of slowing it down, she refrains from putting that choice in terms of risk (capital, social, competitive, environmental, etc.). Likewise, she deals with trust in another chapter, but not in the engagement chapter and has ignored some other research noting other critical elements: trust, making progress/performance improvements, more autonomy for two. However, though she has not encompassed all the aspects of the ten leadership issues, the author does encourage more learning (E = Elevate your learning).

Too many times, as she has observed, leaders are left to chart their own development path, perhaps with a book here and there, a seminar every year or five, and so on. Dr. Best’s book is practical and provides ongoing guidance with her framework for dealing with leadership problems.

I’m appreciative for the publisher providing an advanced copy.