Category : Book Reviews

The Practice of Adaptive Leadership: Tools and Tactics for Changing Your Organization and the World

The Practice of Adaptive Leadership: Tools and Tactics for Changing Your Organization and the World

by Ronald Heifetz, Alexander Grashow, & Marty Linsky
Harvard Business Press, 2009
ISBN #978-1-4421-0576-4
Reviewed by Ian Cook
Dealing with change and problem solving–these tasks are at the core of what leader/managers do. But there are two distinctly different types of challenges that precipitate change and bring on problems for managers. The authors of this enlightening book lay these [...]

Leadership from the Inside Out: Becoming a Leader for Life

Leadership from the Inside Out: Becoming a Leader for Life

by Kevin Cashman
Berrett-Koehler, 2008
ISBN #978-1-57675-599-0
Reviewed by Ian Cook
At the point our body and our senses (eyes, ears, touch, etc.) meet the world lies a crossroads. At this very point we experience a constant, two-way flow from the…

Outside in–situations, actions and events in their environment
Inside out–how we feel, interpret, process these situations and decide on our [...]

Why Should Anyone Be Led by You?: What It Takes To Be An Authentic Leader

Why Should Anyone Be Led by You?: What It Takes To Be An Authentic Leader

by Rob Goffee & Gareth Jones
Harvard Business School Press, 2006
ISBN #1-57851-971-3
Reviewed by Ian Cook
People want to be led by a person, the authors contend, not by someone with a fancy job title or a manager who has amassed a vast chunk of organizational turf. Employees will choose to follow only a real, live, breathing human [...]

Influencer: The Power To Change Anything

Influencer: The Power To Change Anything

by Kerry Patterson, Joseph Grenny, David Maxfield, Ron McMillan & Gareth Jones
McGraw-Hill, 2008
ISBN #978-0-07-148499-2
Reviewed by Ian Cook
If you are like me, and like most of the managers we all know, you have a default strategy for influencing people around you. You TELL them what they should do! You SHARE your wisdom and advice, often drawn [...]

Mindset: The New Psychology of Success

Mindset: The New Psychology of Success

By Carol S. Dweck
Random House, 2006
ISBN #1-4000-6275-6
Reviewed by Ian Cook
John McEnroe reached great heights in the world of professional tennis but, by his own admission, he did not fulfill his potential. Whenever he lost, it was not his fault. Even his defeat at the 1984 French Open he blamed on sound coming from the headset [...]

The Dynamic Path: Access the Secrets of Champions to Achieve Greatness Through Mental Toughness, Inspired Leadership, and Personal Transformation

The Dynamic Path: Access the Secrets of Champions to Achieve Greatness Through Mental Toughness, Inspired Leadership, and Personal Transformation

By James M. Citrin
Rodale, 2007
ISBN #978-1-59486-358-5
Reviewed by Ian Cook
Ground-breaking tennis great Billie Jean King won 20 Wimbledon titles, 13 US Opens, the French and Australian Opens, and was ranked the world’s No. 1 woman tennis player seven times. She went on to do pioneering work on Title IX legislation for women’s access to athletics resources [...]

Quiet Leadership: Six Steps to Transforming Performance at Work

Quiet Leadership: Six Steps to Transforming Performance at Work

By David Rock
HarperCollins Publishers, 2006
ISBN #978-0-06-083590-3
Reviewed by Ian Cook
Managers are default programmed to solve problems. That’s what they are paid to do. That’s what they are good at. And that is how they see themselves, at a subconscious level. So, when an employee comes with a problem, the manager’s knee-jerk reaction kicks in (pun intended)–right [...]

True North: Discover your Authentic Leadership

True North: Discover your Authentic Leadership

by Bill George with Peter Sims
John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 2007
ISBN #978-0-7879-8751-0
Reviewed by Ian Cook
How do you become and remain an authentic leader?
This was the question Bill George posed in his in-depth study of 125 leaders drawn from corporations to not-for-profits, to the arenas of politics and academia. George was CEO and then Chairman, from [...]

A Leader’s Legacy

A Leader’s Legacy

By James M. Kouzes & Barry Z. Posner
Jossey-Bass, 2006
ISBN #978-0-7879-8296-6
Reviewed by Ian Cook
As a leader, would you say one of your goals is to leave a legacy? Based on their observations of leaders over the last twenty years, Kouzes and Posner expect your answer is probably “yes.”
By “legacy,” we don’t mean just the big footprint [...]

The Extraordinary Leader: Turning Good Managers Into Great Leaders

The Extraordinary Leader: Turning Good Managers Into Great Leaders

By John H. Zenger & Joseph Folkman
McGraw Hill, 2002
ISBN #0-07-138747-1
Reviewed by Ian Cook
“Good leaders…neither they nor their leaders appear to recognize the substantial contribution they could make by moving from being merely good to great”
This is just one of the many intriguing new perspectives this book brings to the subject of leadership. Whether you are [...]

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