Having outlined some of my leadership favourites, I wonder: what are yours? I invite you to leave your recommendations here.
And I wonder, too, what topics you see as essential resources for leaders? Please share your views here.
Thank you.
Essential resources for leaders: some cracking “good reads”
What do you do when some of your favourite reads and other resources don’t quite land under a clear and easy heading? Below are some of the books and other resources that I and others have delighted in:
The Corporation: The Pathological Pursuit of Profit and Power
Joel Bakan
Available as a book and as a DVD, Bakan’s book makes a devastating case against corporate greed, exploring the implications of the laws which govern the way we do business.
One Minute Manager, One Minute Manager Meets the Monkey etc.
Kenneth H. Blanchard
These small books (and others in the series) do a fantastic job of making leadership easy to understand and to do. More than any other books I’ve recommended here they pass the “transatlantic flight test” – they’re quick to read and easy to stow in your luggage.
Good to Great and How the Mighty Fall
Jim Collins
I confess I haven’t read either of these books but my colleagues have. They may be a little dated and still they are firm favourites and at least one of them passes the “transatlantic flight test” and can be read in one go.
Oh! And for the longest reading list for leaders you’re ever likely to find go to http://www.jimcollins.com/tools/recommended-reading.html
Working with Emotional Intelligence
Daniel Goleman
Goleman has made significant contribution to our understanding of research which highlights the role that emotional intelligence plays in our success in the workplace. Essential reading for leaders, both to help them shape their own approach and to help them to coach and develop others.
Fish! A Remarkable Way to Boost Morale and Improve Results
Stephen C. Lundin, Harry Paul and John Christensen
If you’re looking to transform your leadership style, this book provides succinct guidance. Rooted in the owner’s experience of transforming the ‘World Famous Pike Place Fish Market’ (see below).
When Fish Fly: Lessons for Creating a Vital and Energized Workplace from the World Famous Pike Place Fish Market
Joseph Michelli & John Yokoyama
If you can – though it seems nigh-on impossible – get the CD abridged version of this inspiring book, which tells of the owners personal transformation and what it meant for the World Famous Pike Place Fish Market.
Quiet Leadership
David Rock
A recommendation from a colleague, I picked this book out because it is rooted in an understanding of the neuroscience of leadership.
The Soul of Money: Transforming Your Relationship with Money and with Life
Lynne Twist
For so many of us, work and money are intimately connected. But what is money and what is its meaning in our lives? Lynne Twist’s book is a compassionate and eloquent exploration of this question.
Winning!
Clive Woodward
As coach to the UK rugby team, Woodward set out to create a winning team and was both painstaking and determined in addressing every aspect of what it would take to make this dream a reality, leading to the team’s success in winning the Rugby World Cup in November 2003. A fascinating read which opens up many avenues for exploration.
The Heart Aroused: Poetry and the Preservation of the Soul in Corporate America
David Whyte
Whyte makes a powerful case for bringing ourselves fully into the workplace, offering a profound sense of what it means to locate our work deep within the soul. Whyte’s book offers a completely new perspective on what it means to work.
Life at the Frontier: Leadership Through Courageous Conversation
David Whyte
In this talk, Whyte highlights the need for authentic, real and courageous conversation whilst also recognising the challenges involved. Speaking with humour and compassion, Whyte tells some leadership home-truths.
www.TED.com
If you haven’t got time to read a book, go to www.TED.com for some twenty-minute ‘sound-bites’. This is a valuable resource for leaders who want to explore current thinking in small chunks.
Essential resources for leaders: the leader as coach
The coaching style of leadership is one of the styles highlighted in The New Leaders (The New Leaders: Transforming the Art of Leadership, by Daniel Goleman, Richard Boyatzis and Annie McKee) as highly effective in creating high performance teams. The outstanding leader needs to know how to coach those he or she leads. The books below are just a few of the many great books available to support leaders in developing their coaching style.
Coaching Skills for Leaders in the Workplace: How to Develop, Motivate and Get the Best from Your Staff
Jackie Arnold
This book is tailored for leaders in the workplace and draws on a variety of sources to provide a comprehensive and practical guide for leaders who want to develop their coaching style. This is a “how to” book which covers all the bases.
From Coach to Awakener
Robert Dilts
Dilts’ thought-provoking book highlights the wide range of forms that coaching can take, from helping individuals to acquire a new skill right through to sponsoring the individual in understanding who they are and awakening their awareness of the wider system in which they live and work. This book is for leaders and coaches who want to deepen their understanding of the full range of forms that coaching can take.
Sleight of Mouth
Robert Dilts
It’s not because of the limitations of our circumstances that we get “stuck”. Rather, our perspective or “map” can prevent us from seeing ways forward. Coaching is often a matter of helping people to see old information in new ways. Sleight of Mouth draws on what we know about some of the most effective leaders to offer ways of using language to open up new ways of looking at things. An invaluable resource for the leader as coach.
Coaching: Evoking Excellence In Others
James Flaherty
Coaching is a journey of mutual learning and growth – a two-way relationship. Flaherty’s practical guidance is rooted in a clear understanding of the mutuality of the coaching relationship.
The Coaching Bible: The Essential Handbook
Ian McDermott & Wendy Jago
The Coaching Bible aims both to make the case for coaching and to offer practical guidance to help the coach to make the most of what coaching can offer. It is as valuable for the leader as coach as it is for the professional coach.
The Portable Coach: 28 Sure-fire Strategies for Business and Personal Success
Thomas J. Leonard
Leonard is often cited as the father of modern-day coaching so his book is something of a classic. For the leader as coach (as well as for the professional coach) this book offers a way to coach oneself and this in turn makes for far greater authenticity in coaching others.
Fierce Conversations
Susan Scott
Coaching is about courage as well as compassion. Fierce Conversations reflects the author’s belief that a single conversation can change the course of a career, marriage or life, showing readers how to have conversations that count. A powerful tool for the leader as coach.
Coaching for Performance: GROWing People, Performance and Purpose
John Whitmore
Whitmore’s GROW model has been widely adopted and is often shared in training programmes for leaders in the workplace. Whitmore identifies coaching as an essential leadership skill as well as providing practical approaches for the leader as coach.
Co-Active Coaching: New Skills for Coaching People Toward Success in Life and Work
Laura Whitworth, Henry Kimsey-House and Phil Sandahl
Even when you are coaching as a leader, you are entering into a relationship with those you lead which is based on mutual consent. This book offers clear guidance on the nature of the coaching relationship as well as many practical approaches.
Essential resources for leaders: leadership and communication
So much of leadership in practice is about communication and relationships – with oneself as well as with others. This reading list sets out to identify those books that support a style of communication that is rooted in an understanding of our true nature and in the ‘win, win’ values psychologists identify. This is about sustainable approaches which meet the needs of everyone involved.
Resonant Leadership: Renewing Yourself and Connecting with Others Through Mindfulness, Hope, and Compassion
Richard Boyatzis and Annie McKee
Boyatzis and McKee set out to translate the research findings outlined in their book (with Daniel Goleman) The New Leaders into practical approaches, recognising the extraordinary demands placed on leaders in today’s world.
Words that Change Minds: Mastering the Language of Influence
Shelley Rose Charvet
Our success in communication reflects our ability to appreciate the way others see the world as well as to understand our own views and perspectives. Shelle Rose Charvet’s book stands out in helping the reader to understand the language of influence.
Influence: Science and Practice
Robert B. Cialdini
Cialdini’s book comes highly recommended for anyone who has to market their ideas. This includes leaders as well as salespeople, trainers and others.
The Courage to Love: Principles and Practice of Self Relations Psychotherapy
Stephen Gilligan
Love may not be top of the list as a subject for leaders. Still, Gilligan’s book is valuable reading for the leader who wants to understand and develop his relationship with himself or others.
Nonviolent Communication: A Language for Life
Marshall Rosenberg
This is the book I have most often recommended to others since I first read it in 2003. If you want to develop an approach to leadership which understands human nature and is rooted in values of compassion and accountability, this is your essential “must read”.
The Skilled Facilitator Approach
Roger Schwarz
Schwarz’s book stands alongside Rosenberg’s Nonviolent Communication in translating the findings of leadership theory into clear values and approaches for effective communication. Also a leadership “must read”.
Fierce Conversations: Achieving Success in Work and in Life: One Conversation at a Time
Susan Scott
Scott makes a compelling case for open, honest and courageous conversations in every area of our lives and demonstrates how they act to create momentum, progress and success. Any senior leader who baulks at reading Scott’s input needs to keep reading – again and again and again.
Getting to Yes: Negotiating an Agreement Without Giving In
Roger Fisher, William Ury, Bruce Patton
and
Getting Past No: Negotiating with Difficult People
William Ury
Fisher, Ury and Patton have outlined ways of negotiating such that everyone wins. And whilst you may rarely think of the conversations you have as “negotiations”, you may find the wisdom outlined in these two small books supports you in the day-to-day business of leadership – from performance appraisals to meetings of the Board.
Essential resources for leaders: leadership as a way of being
The style or styles we adopt as leaders reflect a wide range of factors and influences including our experience of being led (the examples we have followed) and our own values and beliefs. Moving from an approach which is both unconscious and incompetent to an approach which is thoughtfully chosen and effective requires deep self awareness. For this reason, leadership is about who we are as well as what we do. This diverse selection reflects the inner journey of a leader.
The Secret: Unlocking the Source of Joy and Fulfilment
Michael Berg
This tiny book is an introduction to the spiritual practice of Kabbalah. Whether or not Kabbalah interests you, The Secret opens up the possibility of living a life of joy and fulfilment in an age when many people hold the untested belief that we are not meant to live in joy.
The Power of Myth
Joseph Campbell
Campbell’s studies of many myths have opened up our understanding of key stages in the ‘hero’s journey’. It is essentially this journey that differentiates the leader from the manager. Reading Campbell’s book gives new insight into what it means to be a leader.
The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People & The 8th Habit
Steven Covey
Covey’s Seven Habits and his more recent 8th Habit have become classics in the field of self management – if you like, the leadership of the self.
The Inner Game of Tennis
W. Timothy Gallwey
Gallwey’s book became an immediate hit amongst business men and women when it was first published because of its insights into our inner dialogue and the role this dialogue can play in the game we play. Although subsequent books have addressed the inner game in specific areas, including work, I still return to my battered second-hand copy of this book.
Born To Win: Transactional Analysis With Gestalt Experiments
Muriel James and Dorothy Jongeward
If you want to understand how Douglas McGregor’s ‘X’ and ‘Y’ leaders think about people, including themselves, you need look no further than the initial chapter of this book. This will help you to test your own way of thinking about people and work.
Synchronicity: The Inner Path of Leadership
Joseph Jaworski
Jaworski’s book is rooted in his own experience and describes two quite different ways of being in his life as a leader.
The Blank Slate: The Modern Denial of Human Nature
Stephen Pinker
We are at our most effective as leaders when our leadership is rooted in an understanding and acceptance of human nature. For this reason I include Pinker’s book.
On Becoming a Person
Carl Rogers
Carl Rogers is often seen as the father of both therapy and coaching, offering a compassionate approach, in line with the essential findings of leadership theory.
The Road Less Travelled
M. Scott Peck
Scott Peck’s book has become a classic in the field of personal development and offers insights into the path we choose when we become a leader.
A Simpler Way
Margaret Wheatley and Myron Kellner Rogers
When we understand the way nature works we have the opportunity to live our lives with ease. A Simpler Way offers a way to preserve the colour and texture of a vital individual life whilst coming together to work with others.
Love’s Executioner and Other Tales of Psychotherapy
Irvin Yalom
Yalom’s books – from textbooks for psychotherapists to novels rooted in his practice and experience as a therapist – offer insights into what it means to accept oneself and others. Yalom offers a way of being which is both delightful and profound.
Essential resources for leaders: understanding the theory
What does the theory tell us about leadership? At least some of the research suggests that people are most motivated when they draw on their inner resources and that the best leaders understand this. The following recommendations provide more information about the research, together with a DVD to illustrate what this looks like in practice.
The Human Side of Enterprise
Douglas McGregor
McGregor’s XY Theory addresses one the most fundamental question leaders have to answer: are people self-motivated or do they need to be incentivised with “carrot and stick”? And what outcomes accrue from either approach?
The New Leaders: Transforming the Art of Leadership
Daniel Goleman, Richard Boyatzis and Annie McKee
The New Leaders is also rooted in research, describing a range of leadership styles which are used by the most effective leaders and highlighting those styles that are most likely to predict outstanding performance. Whilst this research is quite distinct (as far as I know) from McGregor’s own theory its findings are consistent with the XY Theory.
Punished by Rewards: The Trouble with Gold Stars, Incentive Plans, A’s, Praise and Other Bribes
Alfie Kohn
If you want to understand why the XY Theory works you need look no further than Alfie Kohn’s comprehensive review of research into human motivation. This highlights the fundamental truth that people are intrinsically rather than extrinsically motivated and describes the impact – as demonstrated by science – of seeking to use the carrot or stick to motivate.
Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us
Daniel H. Pink
The question of intrinsic versus extrinsic motivation has also been reprised by Daniel Pink in this book. You can also see Pink talking on this subject at http://www.ted.com/talks/dan_pink_on_motivation.html.
Twelve O’Clock High (film)
If you can get past the war-time subject matter and the grainy black and white film, Twelve O’Clock High illustrates the predictive power of leadership – for better or for worse. If you like, this is what McGregor’s XY Theory looks like in practice.
Leadership: taking stock of your approach as a leader
As I write I am dotting ‘i’s’ and crossing ‘t’s’ before sending out my newsletter with its main article Leadership: more than skin deep.
In this posting I offer some questions for individual leaders who want to take stock of their leadership approach. These questions mirror the questions I have shared for CEOs and HR professionals who are taking a whole organisation view of leadership development. They reflect beliefs I share below:
- The quality of leadership you display is a significant factor in your effectiveness and contributes to the effectiveness of your staff. To what extent do you have clear and concrete aspirations as a leader? To what extent do you understand the values, beliefs, thoughts and behaviours that characterise your desired approach to leadership? To what extent are you ready to see your leadership style(s) as a matter of choice?
- If you want to be effective as a leader you need to understand how different approaches work in practice. If you like, you need to understand the difference between your intentions as a leader and how people respond in practice. To what extent have you tested your aspirations against leadership research? What books have you read, for example, and how many of them are rooted in academic research? What courses and other events have you participated in and what are their underpinning foundations?
- Developing your leadership requires you both to develop clear aspirations and to know where you are starting from at any particular point in time. What means do you have of assessing your current approach? When did you last go through a 360 degree assessment, for example? What means do you have of getting clear, specific and honest feedback from those you lead?
- The effectiveness of your leadership reflects multiple factors. These include the fit between you and your job and the culture and climate you work in, as well as your own effectiveness as a leader. To what extent are you taking account of all the factors that effect you as you shape your leadership approach? To what extent are you able to adapt your leadership approach to meet the needs of your current situation? To what extent are you able to differentiate between what you bring and what is beyond your control?
- Learning is deeply personal, requiring a willingness on your part to reflect on your leadership practice, to gain new insights and to adjust your approach. This learning can stimulate deep emotions and leave you feeling deeply vulnerable. To what extent are you willing to embrace the personal nature of this learning in order to develop as a leader? To what extent are you willing to “go deep”?
- Leadership development requires skilled partners. What support do you need (and to what extent do you have it) at this current stage in your learning and development? What additional support do you need at this time?
I wonder, what additional questions would you add to this list? And if you would like to learn more about my own work with leaders, have a browse on this blog or contact me directly (at dorothy@learningforlifeconsulting.co.uk) to arrange to meet.
Leadership: questions for you and your organisation
As I write I am putting the finishing touches to my newsletter, with its main article Leadership: more than skin deep. I wrote about this article yesterday on my blog.
It occurs to me to offer some questions for readers who are taking a whole organisation view of leadership development – you are the CEOs and HR Directors of the corporate world. These questions reflect beliefs which I share below:
- The quality of leadership in your organisation is critical to its success. To what extent do you have clear and concrete aspirations for leadership in your organisation? To what extent do you understand the values, beliefs, thoughts and behaviours that characterise your desired approach to leadership?
- It makes sense to invest in approaches to leadership which have been proven elsewhere. To what extent have your aspirations been tested against leadership research? Have you, for example, reviewed leadership research findings so that you can reliably predict the outcomes from your chosen approach? Have you conducted research in your own organisation to determine what leads to success?
- Effective approaches to leadership development take account of where you are starting from. What investment have you made in assessing the size and nature of the gap(s) between your current and desired leadership approach? How do your resource commitments (time, money etc.) stack up against your findings?
- A well-planned leadership development approach recognises that the quality of leadership in your organisation reflects multiple inputs, including organisational and job design, leadership recruitment, performance management and training and development. To what extent do your plans for leadership development reflect all the areas that contribute to leadership effectiveness? To what extent do your plans reflect a true understanding of where your organisation is starting from and what initiatives will best support your progress?
- Learning to lead is deeply personal, requiring a willingness on the part of the individual to reflect on his or her practice, to gain new insights and to adjust his or her approach. This learning can stimulate deep emotions and leave leaders feeling deeply vulnerable. To what extent have you taken account of the nature of learning in designing approaches to leadership development? To what extent does your organisational culture and climate support leaders in their learning?
- Leadership development requires skilled partners. How are you choosing your partners (recruitment consultants, trainers, consultants etc.) as an organisation to support you in making progress towards your aspirations as an organisation? How are you assessing their ‘fit’ to the values, beliefs, thoughts and behaviours to which you aspire? To what extent does your way of working with them reflect and embody your deepest aspirations as an organisation?
What questions would you add? And if you would like to learn more about how I work with client organisations to support their leadership development, please go to my website at http://www.learningforlifeconsulting.co.uk/ or contact me directly (at dorothy@learningforlifeconsulting.co.uk) to arrange to meet.
Leadership: more than skin deep
Today I am putting the finishing touches to my newsletter which will go out next week. The main article focuses on leadership development, exploring what it might take to close the gap between theory and practice in the field of leadership: with so much research to tell us what differentiates outstanding leaders, why is this gap so wide?
Taking a moment away from the final edits I consider the depth of reflection and self mastery that characterises the most committed leaders. This gives me the title of my article: Leadership: more than skin deep. One the key questions I reflect on is this: to what extent do organisations recognise what it requires of individual leaders to learn and grow when they comission leadership development events?
I welcome your comments: please add them to my blog. To readers of my newsletter I ask, what does this article evoke for you? To readers of my blog I ask, what are your thoughts on this subject?
It’s my aim this year to make my newsletter more accessible by using a third party platform. You can be sure I’ll let you know when the time comes. Meantime, if you’d like to sign up for my newsletter, you can contact me directly at mailto:dorothy@learningforlifeconsulting.co.ukm for more information.
Your story in 2010
It’s not the first time that I have asked my friend and fellow coach, Len Williamson, for his permission to share one of the brief writings he shares from time to time. Len has a particular gift for hitting the spot with just a few words. With his permission I share this example. It speaks for itself:
January and February are now written and the year’s themes are taking shape. Like any good novel now is a good time to take stock. Are you still holding the pen writing your story and do you like what is being written? Often by March the pen has slipped across our desk or been taken from our hands by someone else. In a trance we watch the pen write, live the story it tells and wonder why we are not where we want to be. If it is firmly in your hand or the hand of a friend and the story reads well then let the pen’s prose flow. If it is not then take it back, fill it with your ink and write the story you want to tell.
You can reach Len via his website at http://www.theowlpartnership.com. You can also read about Len’s efforts to raise awareness and funds for sufferers of multiple sclerosis at http://www.1000miles4hope.com/.