From the Wall Street Journal bestselling author of The Lean Brand
The Read
Diagnostic Leadership and How Leaders See What’s Really Happening Before They Act
Your team may not be broken.
Your read may be.
You know how to coach, give feedback, and make a call. But even a good response fails when it solves the wrong problem. The Read teaches the step that comes first: seeing what’s actually happening before you act.
Coming
Retailer links and pricing will be announced here.
You’ve been in the meeting
You made a reasonable call.
And nothing changed.
The silence after you asked for input. The project that stalls no matter how many times you reset it. The team that agrees with everything and delivers nothing.
Leaders are overtrained in response and undertrained in diagnosis. We learn to coach, facilitate, give feedback, and resolve conflict. Almost no one teaches us to see what is actually happening before we choose which skill to use.
So the quiet person gets coached when the room is afraid. The process gets redesigned when the real issue is trust. Good people leave, and nobody can say exactly why.
A bad read makes a good response a matter of luck.
The missing step · Diagnostic Leadership
Before the move, there is the read.
The Read turns the discipline of looking twice into a practice for leaders. It starts with three questions.
What do I see?
Separate what happened from the story you have told yourself about it. Silence is an observation. Disengagement is an interpretation.
What is driving it?
Look beyond your first explanation. The same silence can come from confusion, caution, or a room where speaking up has become too costly.
What does this moment need?
Choose a response that fits the situation. Then watch what happens, test your read, and change course when the evidence changes.
Answered honestly. Even when the answer implicates you.
A lesson from a flooded cave
It looked like nothing.
He almost let it go.
Cave divers run the same check every five minutes, whether anything feels wrong or not. On one dive, Jeremiah Gardner’s check turned up a thin ribbon of bubbles on a teammate’s tank valve.
It looked like nothing. Five minutes later, it wasn’t nothing.
That discipline—checking the situation instead of trusting your first impression—sits at the heart of The Read. Gardner brings it into the rooms where leaders make decisions, drawing on two decades of advising organizations including Nike, Disney, GE, and Roche.
Inside the book
A practice for your next meeting.
And the one after that.
For executives, founders, managers, and coaches who are tired of solving the wrong problem well.
Catch the answer you reach for too quickly.
See why your default response can arrive before you have asked the right question—and learn to catch it.
See the same sign in a different light.
Worked scenarios show how the same behavior can come from different sources, and why the difference changes your next move.
Recognize 16 signs leaders misread.
A field guide takes you from silence and fast agreement to polished updates that hide late problems.
Build the read into your week.
A four-week practice turns the three questions into a habit you can bring to a recurring meeting.
Recover when you get it wrong.
Learn how to revisit a mistaken read without defending it or doubling down.
Help your team see with you.
Build a shared practice of noticing, questioning, and correcting the read together.
Grounded in research on psychological safety, decision making, and adaptive leadership from Amy Edmondson, Daniel Kahneman, and Ronald Heifetz.
About the author
Jeremiah Gardner
Jeremiah Gardner helps people catch a misread before it becomes a mistake. A former Chief Innovation Officer, technical cave diver, and author of the Wall Street Journal bestseller The Lean Brand, he has advised organizations including Nike, Disney, GE, and Roche. His keynotes give audiences three questions to ask before they act: What do I see? What is driving it? What does this moment need? His next book, The Read (2027), introduces Diagnostic Leadership. He has delivered more than 100 keynotes in over 20 countries.
More about Jeremiah →The Read · Coming February 9, 2027
See what the moment needs.
Then make your move.
Bring a better read to the work you already do. Available in hardback, paperback, ePub, Kindle, and audiobook on publication.
Retailer links and pricing will be announced here. Email the press with ordering questions.
Want to put the practice to work with your team? Explore DeadReckon programs →
- Title
- The Read
- Subtitle
- Diagnostic Leadership and How Leaders See What’s Really Happening Before They Act
- Author
- Jeremiah Gardner
- Publication date
- February 9, 2027
- Publisher
- Halocline Press
Formats and ISBNs
- Hardback6 × 9 in
- ISBN 978-0-9961007-3-1
- Paperback6 × 9 in
- ISBN 978-0-9961007-5-5
- ePub
- ISBN 978-0-9961007-6-2
- Kindle
- ISBN 978-0-9961007-8-6
- Audiobook
- ISBN 978-0-9961007-7-9