BAC324: Leadership and Motivation: Choosing your Book

It could happen today. You are called into the office, and the boss tells you that due to unforeseen circumstances, starting today you will be in charge of a team, a project, an office, a committee, or a business unit. Without any warning (or preparation on your part) you′ve become an accidental leader. If you have been thrust into a position of sudden responsibility, you need The Accidental Leader . This book is a first aid kit that gives you the information and inspiration you need to Know what you bring to the challenge- your pluses and minuses Define success and achieve it Get other people on your side Overcome your natural shortcomings Get organized- right now See through the apparent system to the culture within Direct people and get them to act The Accidental Leader is your lifeline to leadership success. It is filled with practical answers to the many leadership questions that you will face.

Most business leaders can take only so much pressure before their performance slides. Yet some CEOs deliver their greatest successes when times get toughest#151;when customers’ preferences are shifting away from a company’s products, when new regulations are shrinking profit margins, when political unrest is destroying supply lines. In Better Under Pressure, Justin Menkes reveals the common traits that make these leaders successful. Drawing on in-depth interviews with sixty CEOs from an array of industries and performance data from two hundred other leaders, Menkes shows that great executives strive relentlessly to maximize their own potential#151;as well as stoke their people’s innate thirst for their own triumphs. To do so, they draw on a set of three essential and rare attributes: #149; Realistic optimism: They recognize the risks threatening their organization’s survival#151;and their own failings#151;while remaining confident in their ability to have an impact. #149; Subservience to purpose: They dedicate themselves to pursuing a noble cause and win their team’s commitment to that cause. #149; Finding order in chaos: They find clarity amid the many variables affecting their business by culling data and forming the conclusions that matter most to the company. The good news: these three capabilities can be learned. Drawing on a broad range of examples from real companies#151;including Avon, Yum Brands, Southwest, Procter & Gamble, and Ryerson Steel, to name just a few#151;Menkes demonstrates how each psychological attribute manifests itself in real life and enables top performance under extreme duress. He also shows you how to develop and deploy those attributes#151;so you can transform yourself into a leader who only shines brighter as the pressure intensifies. Deeply personal, brimming with compelling stories from real-life CEOs, and packed with powerful insights, tools, and practices, this book is a potent resource for aspiring, emerging, and seasoned business leaders alike.

This book gathers together Peter Drucker's articles from Harvard Business Review and frames them with a thoughtful introduction from the Review's Editor Tom StewartOne of this century's most highly regarded students of management, Drucker has sought out, identified, and examined the most important issues confronting managers, from corporate strategy to management style to social change.Through his unique lens, this volume gives us the rare opportunity to trace the evolution of the great shifts in our workplaces, and to understand more clearly the role of managers.This book gathers together Drucker's articles from Harvard Business Review and frames them with a thoughtful introduction from the review's editor Thomas A. Stewart.

A practical guide for building and sustaining top-performing teams

Chip and Dan Heath, the bestselling authors of Switch and Made to Stick, tackle one of the most critical topics in our work and personal lives: how to make better decisions. Research in psychology has revealed that our decisions are disrupted by an array of biases and irrationalities: We're overconfident. We seek out information that supports us and downplay information that doesn't. We get distracted by short-term emotions. When it comes to making choices, it seems, our brains are flawed instruments. Unfortunately, merely being aware of these shortcomings doesn't fix the problem, any more than knowing that we are nearsighted helps us to see. The real question is: How can we do better? In Decisive, the Heaths, based on an exhaustive study of the decision-making literature, introduce a four-step process designed to counteract these biases. Written in an engaging and compulsively readable style, Decisive takes readers on an unforgettable journey, from a rock star's ingenious decision-making trick to a CEO's disastrous acquisition, to a single question that can often resolve thorny personal decisions. Along the way, we learn the answers to critical questions like these: How can we stop the cycle of agonizing over our decisions? How can we make group decisions without destructive politics? And how can we ensure that we don't overlook precious opportunities to change our course? Decisive is the Heath brothers' most powerful-and important-book yet, offering fresh strategies and practical tools enabling us to make better choices. Because the right decision, at the right moment, can make all the difference.

A systematic look at how relationships determine the success of leaders and their enterprises, along with tools to help strengthen and change them Since time immemorial, relationships have determined the fate of leaders. But today they are more critical to success than ever. No longer can leaders count on long time horizons or sloppy competition to make up for the inefficiencies that poor relationships create. Leaders must make decisions and take actions quickly and well with others, even those with whom they share very little'perhaps not even a time zone. This new world puts relationships at the center of what leaders must understand and master to succeed. Uses in-depth observational studies and clinical research to explore how relationships at the top of organizations work, develop, and change Shows how to understand, strengthen, and transform these relationships, so they can withstand the most intense pressures and conflicts This important book features a Foreword by Peter Senge, author of The Fifth Discipline.

Everyone knows that high IQ is no guarantee of success, happiness, or virtue, but until the discoveries of modern brain researchers, theorists could only guess why. Daniel Goleman's fascinating report from the frontiers of psychology and neuroscience offers us startling new insight into our "two minds" -- the rational and the emotional -- and how they together shape our destiny. Beginning deep in the brain,Emotional Intelligenceshows us the exact mechanism of an "emotional hijack," when passion overcomes reason. Through vivid examples, Goleman then delineates the crucial skills of emotional intelligence, and shows how they determine our success in relationships and work, and even our physical well-being. What emerges is a crucial new way to talk about being smart. The final chapters reveal the possibilities -- and limits -- of "emotional literary," as it is taught by both parents and educators. The book concludes with a compelling vision of what true emotional intelligence means for us both as individuals and as a society. The message of this eye-opening book is one we must take to heart: the true "bell curve" for a democracy must measure emotional intelligence. Daniel Goleman offers a new vision of excellence and a vital new curriculum for life that can change the future for us and our children.

The international bestseller and globally acknowledged bible on leadership and career transitions Fully a quarter of all managers in major corporations enter new leadership roles each year. Whether their assignments involve starting a new job, being promoted internally, or embarking on an international assignment, how new leaders manage their transitions can mean the difference between success and failure.In The First 90 Days, Michael D. Watkins, a noted expert on leadership transitions, offers proven strategies for moving successfully into a new role at any point in one's career. Concise and practical, The First 90 Days walks managers through every aspect of the transition, from mental preparation to forging the right alliances to securing critical early wins. Through vivid examples of successes and failures at all levels, Michael Watkins identifies the most common pitfalls new leaders encounter and provides tools and strategies for how to avoid them.As hundreds of thousands of readers already know, The First 90 Days is your roadmap for taking charge quickly and effectively during critical career transition periods--whether you're a first-time manager, a midcareer professional on your way up, or a newly minted CEO.Published by Harvard Business Review Press.

Today's young leaders grew up in the glow of television and computers; the leaders of their grandparents' generation in the shadow of the Depression and World War II. In a groundbreaking study of these two disparate groups-affectionately labeled "geeks" and "geezers"-legendary leadership expert Warren Bennis and leadership consultant Robert Thomas set out to find out how era and values shape those who lead. What they discovered was something far more profound: the powerful process through which leaders of any era emerge.Geeks and Geezers is a book that will forever change how we view not just leadership-but the very way we learn and ultimately live our lives. It presents for the first time a compelling new model that predicts who is likely to become-and remain-a leader, and why. At the heart of this model are what the authors call "crucibles"-utterly transforming periods of testing from which one can emerge either hopelessly broken, or powerfully emboldened to learn and to lead. Whether losing an election or burying a child, learning from a mentor or mastering a martial art, crucibles are turning points: defining events that force us to decide who we are and what we are capable of. Through the candid and often deeply moving crucibles of pioneering journalist Mike Wallace to new economy entrepreneur Michael Klein, from New York Stock Exchange trailblazer Muriel Siebert to environmental crusader Tara Church, Geeks and Geezers illustrates the stunning metamorphoses of true leaders. It also reveals the critical traits they share, including adaptability, vision, integrity, unquenchable optimism, and "neoteny"-a youthful curiosity and zest for knowledge. Highlighting the forces that enable any of us to learn and lead not for a time, but for a lifetime, this book is essential reading for geeks, geezers, and everyone in between. AUTHORBIO: Warren Bennis is Professor and Founding Chairman of The Leadership Institute at the University of Southern California, and the author of over thirty visionary books on leadership. Robert J. Thomas is an Associate Partner and Senior Fellow with the Accenture Institute for Strategic Change and award-winning author of What Machines Can't Do.

An engaging book that brings new relevance to the old proverb "Give and you shall receive" The Go-Giver tells the story of an ambitious young man named Joe who yearns for success. Joe is a true go-getter, though sometimes he feels as if the harder and faster he works, the further away his goals seem to be. And so one day, desperate to land a key sale at the end of a bad quarter, he seeks advice from the enigmatic Pindar, a legendary consultant referred to by his many devotees simply as the Chairman. Over the next week, Pindar introduces Joe to a series of "go-givers:" a restaurateur, a CEO, a financial adviser, a real estate broker, and the "Connector," who brought them all together. Pindar's friends share with Joe the Five Laws of Stratospheric Success and teach him how to open himself up to the power of giving. Joe learns that changing his focus from getting to giving--putting others' interests first and continually adding value to their lives--ultimately leads to unexpected returns. Imparted with wit and grace, The Go-Giver is a heartwarming and inspiring tale that brings new relevance to the old proverb "Give and you shall receive."

In The Five Dysfunctions of a Team Patrick Lencioni once again offers a leadership fable that is as enthralling and instructive as his first two best-selling books, The Five Temptations of a CEO and The Four Obsessions of an Extraordinary Executive. This time, he turns his keen intellect and storytelling power to the fascinating, complex world of teams. Kathryn Petersen, Decision Tech's CEO, faces the ultimate leadership crisis: Uniting a team in such disarray that it threatens to bring down the entire company. Will she succeed? Will she be fired? Will the company fail? Lencioni's utterly gripping tale serves as a timeless reminder that leadership requires as much courage as it does insight. Throughout the story, Lencioni reveals the five dysfunctions which go to the very heart of why teams even the best ones-often struggle. He outlines a powerful model and actionable steps that can be used to overcome these common hurdles and build a cohesive, effective team. Just as with his other books, Lencioni has written a compelling fable with a powerful yet deceptively simple message for all those who strive to be exceptional team leaders.

The Harvard Business Review Paperback Series is designed to bring today's managers and professionals the fundamental information they need to stay competitive in a fast-moving world. From the preeminent thinkers whose work has defined an entire field to the rising stars who will redefine the way we think about business, here are the leading minds and landmark ideas that have established the Harvard Business Review as required reading for ambitious businesspeople in organizations around the globe. The latest thinking in the field of leadership is collected in this volume. With all-new articles published in the last three years and two articles from leadership guru, Daniel Goleman, this collection is a must have for CEOs and top level managers. The volume also pays special attention to leadership succession issues.

Why is organizational change so hard? Because in order to make any transformation successful, you must change more than just the structure and operations of an organization--you need to change people’sbehavior.And that is never easy. The Heart of Changeis your guide to helping people think andfeeldifferently in order to meet your shared goals. According to bestselling author and renowned leadership expert John Kotter and coauthor Dan Cohen, this focus on connecting with people’s emotions is what will spark the behavior change and actions that lead to success.The Heart of Changeis the engaging and essential complement to John Kotter’s international bestsellerLeading Change. Building off of Kotter’s revolutionary eight-step process, this book vividly illustrates how large-scale business change can work. With real-life stories of people in organizations, the authors show how teams and individuals get motivated and activated to overcome obstacles to change--and produce spectacular results. Kotter and Cohen argue that change initiatives often fail because leaders rely too exclusively on data and analysis to get buy-in from their teams instead of creatively showing or doing something that appeals to their emotions and inspires them to spring into action. They call this the see-feel-change dynamic, and it is crucial for the success of any true organizational transformation. Refreshingly clear and eminently practical,The Heart of Changeis required reading for anyone facing change and looking to build their leadership skills. Published by Harvard Business Review Press.

YOU CAN GO AFTER THE JOB YOU WANT...AND GET IT! YOU CAN TAKE THE JOB YOU HAVE...AND IMPROVE IT! YOU CAN TAKE ANY SITUATION YOU'RE IN...AND MAKE IT WORK FOR YOU! For more than sixty years the rock-solid, time-tested advice in this book has carried thousands of now famous people up the ladder of success in their business and personal lives. Now this previously revised and updated bestseller is available in trade paperback for the first time to help you achieve your maximum potential throughout the next century! Learn: * THREE FUNDAMENTAL TECHNIQUES IN HANDLING PEOPLE * THE SIX WAYS TO MAKE PEOPLE LIKE YOU * THE TWELVE WAYS TO WIN PEOPLE TO YOUR WAY OF THINKING * THE NINE WAYS TO CHANGE PEOPLE WITHOUT AROUSING RESENTMENT

What makes a great leader?It's a question that has been tackled by thousands. In fact, there are literally tens of thousands of leadership studies, theories, frameworks, models, and recommended best practices. But where are the clear, simple answers we need for our daily work lives? Are there any?Dave Ulrich, Norm Smallwood, and Kate Sweetman set out to answer these questions - to crack the code of leadership. Drawing on decades of research experience, the authors conducted extensive interviews with a variety of respected CEOs, academics, experienced executives, and seasoned consultants - and heard the same five essentials repeated again and again. These five rules became The Leadership Code.In The Leadership Code, the authors break down great leadership into day-to-day actions, so that you know what to do Monday morning. Crack the leadership code - and take your leadership to the next level.

Thirty years after women became 50 percent of the college graduates in the United States, men still hold the vast majority of leadership positions in government and industry. This means that women's voices are still not heard equally in the decisions that most affect our lives. In Lean In, Sheryl Sandberg examines why women's progress in achieving leadership roles has stalled, explains the root causes, and offers compelling, commonsense solutions that can empower women to achieve their full potential. Sandberg is the chief operating officer of Facebook and is ranked on Fortune's list of the 50 Most Powerful Women in Business and as one of Time's 100 Most Influential People in the World. In 2010, she gave an electrifying TEDTalk in which she described how women unintentionally hold themselves back in their careers. Her talk, which became a phenomenon and has been viewed more than two million times, encouraged women to "sit at the table," seek challenges, take risks, and pursue their goals with gusto. In Lean In, Sandberg digs deeper into these issues, combining personal anecdotes, hard data, and compelling research to cut through the layers of ambiguity and bias surrounding the lives and choices of working women. She recounts her own decisions, mistakes, and daily struggles to make the right choices for herself, her career, and her family. She provides practical advice on negotiation techniques, mentorship, and building a satisfying career, urging women to set boundaries and to abandon the myth of "having it all." She describes specific steps women can take to combine professional achievement with personal fulfillment and demonstrates how men can benefit by supporting women in the workplace and at home. Written with both humor and wisdom, Sandberg's book is an inspiring call to action and a blueprint for individual growth. Lean In is destined to change the conversation from what women can't do to what they can.

The recent financial crisis has awakened a renewed sensibility to ethics in business and management, and an increasing interest in a better understanding of how ethics and economics are intertwined. Managers and executives must understand not just the moral value of ethical behaviour, but also how this can strengthens and benefits the organization

When pressures in the workplace threaten to compromise personal values and principles, moral courage is necessary to do what is right. Moral Courage in Organizations: Doing the Right Thing at Work, edited by Debra Comer and Gina Vega, underscores the ethical pitfalls that can be encountered at work and provides guidelines for doing the right thing, despite organizational pressures. This book highlights the effects of organizational factors on ethical behavior illustrates exemplary moral courage and lapses of moral courage explores the skills and information utilized by those who act with moral courage and considers how to foster change in organizations to promote moral courage, as well as how to exercise the moral courage to change organizations. Book jacket.

' Conversation-powered leadership' How can leaders make their big or growing companies feel small again? How can they recapture the "magic"--the tight strategic alignment, the high level of employee engagement--that drove and animated their organization when it was a start-up? As more and more executives have discovered in recent years, the answer to this conundrum lies in the power of conversation.In 'Talk, Inc.', Boris Groysberg and Michael Slind show how trusted and effective leaders are adapting the principles of face-to-face conversation in order to pursue a new form of organizational conversation. They explore the promise of conversation-powered leadership--from the time-tested practice of talking straight (and listening well) to the thoughtful adoption of social media technology. And they offer guidance on how to balance the benefits of open-ended talk with the realities of strategic execution.Drawing on the experience of leaders at diverse companies from around the world, 'Talk, Inc'., offers provocative insights and user-friendly tips on how to make organizational culture more intimate, more interactive, more inclusive, and more intentional--in short, more conversational.

Ten leaders, ten key virtues: this philosophical work distils the characteristics of leadership and shows how anything less is ‘misleadership’. Written by two renowned scholars of ethics, the book includes fascinating biographical detail on exemplars such as Abraham Lincoln, Winston Churchill, and Oprah Winfrey. Accessible and readable work of philosophy Covers the background theory as well as how it can be applied Authors renowned for their scholarship in ethics and philosophy Includes a wealth of fascinating biographical detail on exemplary leaders and their outstanding virtues and characteristics

Twenty-first century organizational leaders face many difficult challenges. As governments and businesses expand to meet the needs of an ever-increasing population, the decisions leaders make today are more important than ever. With rising competition amid the uncertainty of a progressively globalized economy, success and failure are increasingly defined on an ever-grander scale. In these trying times, how can executives and other business, government, and nonprofit leaders guide their organizations to success amid the challenges of the modern world? In this extensively researched yet thoroughly practical book, renowned executive consultant Richard Kilburg characterizes effective leadership as a combination of specific behaviorally based competencies and virtuous aspects of character. He demonstrates that despite all the complexities of the modern world, the foundations of executive leadership can still be found in the timeless and enduring virtues of the ancient Chinese and Greeks. With rich and informative discussions of the classical and modern literatures on virtue and executive leadership, and a wealth of exercises and questionnaires that translate models of leadership into plans for action, Virtuous Leaders is a vital resource for leaders and executive consultants alike, and is sure to become a classic in the field.

If any of the following behaviors sound like you or someone you work with, beware! In Why CEOs Fail, David L. Dotlich and Peter C. Cairo describe the most common characteristics of derailed top executives and how you can avoid them: Arrogance?you think that you're right, and everyone else is wrong. Melodrama?you need to be the center of attention. Volatility'you're subject to mood swings. Excessive Caution?you're afraid to make decisions. Habitual Distrust?you focus on the negatives. Aloofness ?you're disengaged and disconnected. Mischievousness'you believe that rules are made to be broken. Eccentricity?you try to be different just for the sake of it. Passive Resistance?what you say is not what you really believe. Perfectionism?you get the little things right and the big things wrong. Eagerness to Please?you try to win the popularity contest.

Women and Leadership brings together in one comprehensive volume preeminent scholars from a range of disciplines to address the challenges involving women and leadership. These experts explore when and how women exercise power and what stands in their way. This groundbreaking volume offers readers an informed analysis of the state of women and leadership and offers the most informed and current thinking on ·        The perils of stereotypes ·        The importance of leadership style ·        Gender differences in the decision to seek leadership roles ·        Lessons from women leaders ·        ?Opt out? patterns and the need for flexible career paths ·        Global inequalities and initiatives ·        Strategies that get women to the top    Women and Leadership is indispensable for understanding recent progress  toward equal opportunity and the challenges that remain.

As founder of Beckwith Advertising and Marketing, Harry Beckwith learned early on in his career that no matter what product is being sold, the most important component of the sale is you. And in YOU, INC. Beckwith teams up with Christine Clifford (motivational speaker and former top sales executive) and they expand on this fundamental premise of selling, providing wonderful tidbits, anecdotes, and advice through his well-known home-spun writing style. The authors offer doses of humor and practical knowledge to anyone who wants to learn how to "seal the deal" and thrive in business.