The Leadership Challenge


James M. Kouzes - 1987
    This new edition includes the latest research and case studies, and offers inspiring new and relevant stories of real people achieving extraordinary results.

Creating Magic


Lee Cockerell - 2008
    The secret for creating magic in our careers, our organizations, and our lives is simple: outstanding leadership--the kind that inspires employees, delights customers, and achieves extraordinary business results. No one knows more about this kind of leadership than Lee Cockerell, the man who ran Walt Disney World(R) Resort operations for over a decade. And in Creating Magic, he shares the leadership principles that not only guided his own journey from a poor farm boy in Oklahoma to the head of operations for a multibillion dollar enterprise, but that also soon came to form the cultural bedrock of the world's number one vacation destination. But as Lee demonstrates, great leadership isn't about mastering impossibly complex management theories. We can all become outstanding leaders by following the ten practical, common sense strategies outlined in this remarkable book. As straightforward as they are profound, these leadership lessons include: Everyone is important.Make your people your brand. Burn the free fuel: appreciation, recognition, and encouragement. Give people a purpose, not just a job. Combining surprising business wisdom with insightful and entertaining stories from Lee's four decades on the front lines of some of the world's best-run companies, Creating Magic shows all of us - from small business owners to managers at every level - how to become better leaders by infusing quality, character, courage, enthusiasm, and integrity into our workplace and into our lives.

Call Sign Chaos: Learning to Lead


Jim Mattis - 2019
    Along the way, Mattis recounts his foundational experiences as a leader, extracting the lessons he has learned about the nature of warfighting and peacemaking, the importance of allies, and the strategic dilemmas--and short-sighted thinking--now facing our nation. He makes it clear why America must return to a strategic footing so as not to continue winning battles but fighting inconclusive wars.Mattis divides his book into three parts: Direct Leadership, Executive Leadership, and Strategic Leadership. In the first part, Mattis recalls his early experiences leading Marines into battle, when he knew his troops as well as his own brothers. In the second part, he explores what it means to command thousands of troops and how to adapt your leadership style to ensure your intent is understood by your most junior troops so that they can own their mission. In the third part, Mattis describes the challenges and techniques of leadership at the strategic level, where military leaders reconcile war's grim realities with political leaders' human aspirations, where complexity reigns and the consequences of imprudence are severe, even catastrophic.Call Sign Chaos is a memoir of a life of warfighting and lifelong learning, following along as Mattis rises from Marine recruit to four-star general. It is a journey about learning to lead and a story about how he, through constant study and action, developed a unique leadership philosophy, one relevant to us all.

The Coming Aristocracy


Oliver DeMille - 2009
    More precisely, it is for those dedicated to reversing those trends through education and entrepreneurship.Drawing from years of intense and exhaustive research, Oliver DeMille demonstrates why social, economic, and political equality are being steadily eroded. He highlights crucial constitutional changes, analyzes the current economic crisis, explains why both liberals and conservatives promote aristocracy, and articulates a comprehensive formula for restoring the American republic.The “Mini-Factory” Freedom ShiftAmerica was built and became great on the backs of free and independent owners. If we are to become great again, two things must happen: 1) the owners must again lead, and 2) a significant number of citizens must again become owners. And the key to both of these is Leadership Education.Together, these initiatives form the greatest freedom trend of our time: “mini-factories.” A mini-factory is “where you do something that has been done historically by institutions, but you do it just as well (or in a way that is preferable for some reason) on a smaller scale.” Entrepreneurship, alternative education, downshifters, environmentalists, alternative health, the growth of spirituality, community architecture, the explosion of network marketing, home doctor visits, local gardening are all examples of mini-factories.Big, institutional, non-transparent, bureaucratic organizations are supporters of aristocracy. Freedom flourishes when the people are as independent, free, and as self-sufficient as possible.Mini-factories are the fertilizer of freedom and the enemies of aristocracy. And The Coming Aristocracy gives you insight, knowledge, and motivation to lead the mini-factory freedom shift in your own life.pixel The BookMini-factory owners think, act, and vote differently then either aristocrats or dependents — they do so as free men and women. They study the nature and anatomy of freedom and are actively engaged in its protection because they have the most to lose from the lack of it, as well as the most to gain from its thriving success. They are the new Founders engaged in the sustainable, bottom-up, inside-out Freedom Shift.

Financial Literacy for Managers


Richard A. Lambert - 2012
    Financial statements are a critical source of the information you need.In direct and simple terms, Richard A. Lambert, Miller-Sherrerd Professor of Accounting at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, demystifies financial statements and concepts and shows you how you can apply this information to make better business decisions for long-term profit. You will learn to use and interpret financial data; find out what we can learn from Pepsi, Krispy Kreme, General Motors, and other companies; learn how to evaluate investment strategies; and apply your financial know-how to develop a coherent business strategy.

The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference


Malcolm Gladwell - 2000
    Just as a single sick person can start an epidemic of the flu, so too can a small but precisely targeted push cause a fashion trend, the popularity of a new product, or a drop in the crime rate. This widely acclaimed bestseller, in which Malcolm Gladwell explores and brilliantly illuminates the tipping point phenomenon, is already changing the way people throughout the world think about selling products and disseminating ideas.Gladwell introduces us to the particular personality types who are natural pollinators of new ideas and trends, the people who create the phenomenon of word of mouth. He analyzes fashion trends, smoking, children's television, direct mail, and the early days of the American Revolution for clues about making ideas infectious, and visits a religious commune, a successful high-tech company, and one of the world's greatest salesmen to show how to start and sustain social epidemics.

Primal Leadership: Realizing the Power of Emotional Intelligence


Daniel Goleman - 2002
    Looks at the role of emotional intelligence in leadership, discussing the characteristics of a good leader and leadership styles, and outlines the steps to becoming an effective leader.

How The Mighty Fall: And Why Some Companies Never Give In


James C. Collins - 2009
    Collins' research project—more than four years in duration—uncovered five step-wise stages of decline:Stage 1: Hubris Born of SuccessStage 2: Undisciplined Pursuit of MoreStage 3: Denial of Risk and PerilStage 4: Grasping for SalvationStage 5: Capitulation to Irrelevance or DeathBy understanding these stages of decline, leaders can substantially reduce their chances of falling all the way to the bottom.Great companies can stumble, badly, and recover.Every institution, no matter how great, is vulnerable to decline. There is no law of nature that the most powerful will inevitably remain at the top. Anyone can fall and most eventually do. But, as Collins' research emphasizes, some companies do indeed recover—in some cases, coming back even stronger—even after having crashed into the depths of Stage 4.Decline, it turns out, is largely self-inflicted, and the path to recovery lies largely within our own hands. We are not imprisoned by our circumstances, our history, or even our staggering defeats along the way. As long as we never get entirely knocked out of the game, hope always remains. The mighty can fall, but they can often rise again.

The Speed of Trust: The One Thing that Changes Everything


Stephen M.R. Covey - 2006
    Covey's eldest son comes a revolutionary new path towards productivity and satisfaction. Trust, says Stephen M.R. Covey, is the very basis of the new global economy, and he shows how trust—and the speed at which it is established with clients, employees and constituents —is the essential ingredient for any high–performance, successful organization. For business leaders and public figures in any arena, The Speed of Trust offers an unprecedented and eminently practical look at exactly how trust functions in our every transaction and relationship—from the most personal to the broadest, most indirect interaction—and how to establish trust immediately so that you and your organization can forego the time–killing, bureaucratic check–and–balance processes so often deployed in lieu of actual trust.

The One Minute Manager


Kenneth H. Blanchard - 1981
    These very real results were achieved through learning the management techniques that spell profitability for the organization and its employees.The One Minute Manager is a concise, easily read story that reveals three very practical secrets: One Minute Goals, One Minute Praisings, and One Minute Reprimands. The audio also presents several studies in medicine and the behavioral sciences that clearly explain why these apparently simple methods work so well with so many people. By the audio's end you will know how to apply them to your own situation and enjoy the benefits.

Intellectuals and Society


Thomas Sowell - 2009
    It has not been by shaping the opinions or directing the actions of the holders of power that modern intellectuals have most influenced the course of events, but by shaping public opinion in ways that affect the actions of power holders in democratic societies, whether or not those power holders accept the general vision or the particular policies favored by intellectuals. Even government leaders with disdain or contempt for intellectuals have had to bend to the climate of opinion shaped by those intellectuals.Intellectuals and Society not only examines the track record of intellectuals in the things they have advocated but also analyzes the incentives and constraints under which their views and visions have emerged. One of the most surprising aspects of this study is how often intellectuals have been proved not only wrong, but grossly and disastrously wrong in their prescriptions for the ills of society—and how little their views have changed in response to empirical evidence of the disasters entailed by those views.

Team of Teams: New Rules of Engagement for a Complex World


Stanley McChrystal - 2015
    But when he took the helm in 2004, America was losing that war badly: despite vastly inferior resources and technology, Al Qaeda was outmaneuvering America’s most elite warriors. McChrystal came to realize that today’s faster, more interdependent world had overwhelmed the conventional, top-down hierarchy of the US military. Al Qaeda had seen the future: a decentralized network that could move quickly and strike ruthlessly. To defeat such an enemy, JSOC would have to discard a century of management wisdom, and pivot from a pursuit of mechanical efficiency to organic adaptability. Under McChrystal’s leadership, JSOC remade itself, in the midst of a grueling war, into something entirely new: a network that combined robust centralized communication with decentralized managerial authority. As a result, they beat back Al Qaeda. In this book, McChrystal shows not only how the military made that transition, but also how similar shifts are possible in all organizations, from large companies to startups to charities to governments. In a turbulent world, the best organizations think and act like a team of teams, embracing small groups that combine the freedom to experiment with a relentless drive to share what they’ve learned. Drawing on a wealth of evidence from his military career, the private sector, and sources as diverse as hospital emergency rooms and NASA’s space program, McChrystal frames the existential challenge facing today’s organizations, and presents a compelling, effective solution.

Turn the Ship Around!: A True Story of Turning Followers into Leaders


L. David Marquet - 2013
    As newly appointed captain of the USS Santa Fe, a nuclear-powered submarine, he was responsible for more than a hundred sailors, deep in the sea. In this high-stress environment, where there is no margin for error, it was crucial his men did their job and did it well.But the ship was dogged by poor morale, poor performance, and the worst retention in the fleet. Marquet acted like any other captain until, one day, he unknowingly gave an impossible order, and his crew tried to follow it anyway. When he asked why the order wasn't challenged, the answer was "Because you told me to." Marquet realized he was leading in a culture of followers, and they were all in danger unless they fundamentally changed the way they did things. That's when Marquet took matters into his own hands and pushed for leadership at every level. Turn the Ship Around! is the true story of how the Santa Fe skyrocketed from worst to first in the fleet by challenging the U.S. Navy's traditional leader-follower approach. Struggling against his own instincts to take control, he instead achieved the vastly more powerful model of giving control. Before long, each member of Marquet's crew became a leader and assumed responsibility for everything he did, from clerical tasks to crucial combat decisions. The crew became fully engaged, contributing their full intellectual capacity every day, and the Santa Fe started winning awards and promoting a highly disproportionate number of officers to submarine command.No matter your business or position, you can apply Marquet's radical guidelines to turn your own ship around. The payoff: a workplace where everyone around you is taking responsibility for their actions, where people are healthier and happier, where everyone is a leader.

Transforming Leadership


James MacGregor Burns - 2003
    The book became the basis for an emerging field of leadership studies that has been applied throughout the social sciences as well as in business and government. Now Burns has returned to the subject, offering a new vision of leadership-Transforming Leadership-that focuses on the ways that leaders emerge from being ordinary "transactional" brokers and deal-makers to become real agents of major social change who empower their followers.Through the course of the book, Burns illuminates the evolution of leadership structures, from the chieftains of tribal African societies, through Europe's absolute monarchies, to the blossoming of the Enlightenment's views of liberty that came to fruition in the American Revolution. Along the way he looks at key moments in leadership, and the great leaders who made them, including Cleopatra, Elizabeth I, James Madison, Napoleon, Mao, Gandhi, and Mikhail Gorbachev.Part One: ChangeChapter 1: The Mysteries of Leadership An introduction to Burns' concept of leadership-how leaders differ from tyrants, and transactional leaders from transforming leaders-and how this differs from other "Great Man" views of history.Chapter 2: Searching for the X-FactorLooking at his own studies of FDR and other leaders, Burns looks at how change emanates from society, and how this shapes community and society. Leadership is the "X-Factor" that brings change from concept to social reality.Part Two: LeadersChapter 3: Kings and Queens, Knights and Pawns Using the game of chess as a metaphor for leadership action in monarchical society, Burns looks at the leadership systems of African tribes, and how monarchy evolved to the absolute model in post-Renaissance Europe, with a portrait of Elizabeth I's successful leadership during a turbulent period in English history.Chapter 4: Leaders as Planners A look at transforming leadership outside the political arena, including the building of the Suez and Panama Canals and Charles Eliot and the making of Harvard University into a world-renown institution.Part Three: LeadershipChapter 5: The Transformation of American Leadership A look at the American Revolutionary Period, and how leaders like Jefferson, Hamilton, and Madison created the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution that first brought to political life the 18th century enlightenment ideals of "Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness"-from the foundation of America's political culture to the formation of America's political parties.Chapter 6: France: Trials of Leadership How the French Revolution, begun in the spirit of "Libety, Equality, and Fraternity" spun out of control because of the leadership failures of men like Robespierre-and how it ultimately resulted in the military strongman Napoleon coming to power, with dire consequences for Europe.Chapter 7: Leadership as Conflict Burns argues that conflict is an essential component to getting beyond transactional leadership into transforming leadership-that ideals and ideas must clash to yield continuing and meaningful social change. He looks through the historical prism of the 19th century Tory Party's "Loyal Opposition" in Britain (to view its success) and Gorbachev's Perestroika and Glasnost initiatives of the 1980s (and why they failed).Part Four: PeopleChapter 8: The Anatomy of Motivation A look at the human causes behind the necessity for social change, what the great thinkers have had to say about it from Rousseau to Marx, and how wants become needs that create demands for change.Chapter 9: Creative Leadership From da Vinci to Einstein, the genius intellect has been able to transform our understanding of the world through his or her creative vision. Burns argues that creativity is an essential part of building coalitions and finding solutions for the problems we face, and profiles Gandhi's creative leadership in India against the British Empire as a prime example, as well as how societies can encourage the creativity necessary to foster positive change.Chapter 10: The Leader-Follower Paradox Presents the Burns Paradox: If leadership and followership are dynamically intertwined, is there really any way to begin understanding their interaction? He argues that leadership begins with the followers, whose wants and needs become expressed through the intervention of leaders who can articulate them. Burns explores this further through the prism of FDR's New Deal program and re-election effort in 1936.Chapter 11: Conflict: The Arming of Leadership Burns argues that great leaders seek out conflict, and how leaders from Martin Luther King Jr. to Nelson Mandela have created enduring change by engaging forthrightly in political conflict.PARTTTTTT FIVE: TransformationChapter 12: The Power of Values Citing examples as diverse as Eleanor Roosevelt's championing of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the Avignon Papacy's enduring leadership of the Church following its exile from Rome, Burns shows how creating lasting values is the hallmark of enduring leadership.Chapter 13: The People, Yes? How intellectual and creative leaders must engage with the people to forge transformation in our society, including examples like the Tennessee Valley Authority.EPILOGUE: Global Poverty: Putting Leadership to WorkIn a provocative culmination of his examination of leadership, Burns proposes a leadership challenge to the foremost problem facing humanity in the 21st century: global poverty. He outlines an international UN-led initiative for a grass-roots campaign to promote development throughout the impoverished nations of the world, based on the successful model devised and operated to provide low-cost community healthcare in India.

The Leadership Secrets of Santa Claus: How to Get Big Things Done in YOUR "Workshop" All Year Long


Eric Harvey - 2003
    These are the leadership traits of the Santa Claus in each of us! This is truly the gift that keeps on giving!