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?
Executive Coaching – On The Rise
Isn’t it funny what we assume about leaders in senior positions. They no longer have anything to learn about interpersonal relationships or leadership. They have arrived, proof positive of their skill level! Furthermore, only a fearless few people will give them the honest, useful feedback that self-development requires. The “culture” expects them to be role…
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.”
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”
Finding Our Way: Leadership For an Uncertain Time
By Margaret J. Wheatley Berrett-Koehler, 2005, ISBN #978-1-57675-317-0 Reviewed by Ian Cook Margaret Wheatley, back in 1992 with her book, Leadership and the New Science, was one of the first writers to bring into mainstream discussion the idea that organizations share a lot of the characteristics of living, self-organizing systems in nature. Large weather systems,…
Joy at Work: A Revolutionary Approach to Fun on the Job
By Dennis W. Bakke PVG, 2005 ISBN #0-9762686-0-4 Reviewed by Ian Cook In 1982 Dennis Bakke co-founded the energy company AES and led it, by the year 2000, to $8.6 billion revenue, over $33 billion in assets in thirty-one countries, 40,000 employees, and an energy provider to over 100 million consumers. He resigned in 2002,…
A Lesson for Managers from the World of Sales
By far the single biggest concern I hear from managers I work with is, “How can I get my people to do more?” Their number one challenge is how to ensure their employees are motivated. For the answer to this question we turn to the sales professional. Superior salespeople do many things well but one…
You Gotta Get’em to Wanna: 6 Roles the Modern Leader Plays
So much is changing in our economic and business environment these years, is it any wonder that the nature of leadership is changing too? We’re not talking a new fad, here, folks. Fads come and they go. Leadership—as it is progressively practiced today—is here to stay! If you manage, supervise, direct or formally influence other…
Kickstarting a Brand New Team
Do you remember the last time you attended the initial meeting of a new task force or project team at work? No one could agree on the goals. A couple of people complained about all their other work demands. Someone was pushing a personal agenda to become the team “leader.” After a couple of hours…