Book picks similar to
LEAD . . . for God'Sake!: A Parable for Finding the Heart of Leadership by Todd G. Gongwer
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The 4 Disciplines of Execution: Achieving Your Wildly Important Goals
Chris McChesney - 2011
A #1 Wall Street Journal bestseller with more than 500,000 copies sold, The Four Disciplines of Execution will radically change your business.Do you remember the last major initiative you watched die in your organization? Did it go down with a loud crash? Or was it slowly and quietly suffocated by other competing priorities? By the time it finally disappeared, it’s likely no one even noticed. What happened? Often, the answer is that the “whirlwind” of urgent activity required to keep things running day-to-day devoured all the time and energy you needed to invest in executing your strategy for tomorrow. The 4 Disciplines of Execution can change that forever. The 4 Disciplines of Execution (4DX) is a simple, repeatable, and proven formula for executing your most important strategic priorities in the midst of the whirlwind. By following the 4 Disciplines—Focus on the Wildly Important; Act on Lead Measures; Keep a Compelling Scoreboard; Create a Cadence of Accountability—leaders can produce breakthrough results, even when executing the strategy requires a significant change in behavior from their teams. 4DX is not theory. It is a proven set of practices that have been tested and refined by hundreds of organizations and thousands of teams over many years. When a company or an individual adheres to these disciplines, they achieve superb results, regardless of the goal. 4DX represents a new way to think and work that is essential to thriving in today’s competitive climate. The 4 Disciplines of Execution is one book that no business leader can afford to miss.
Mindfulness and Christian Spirituality: Making Space for God
Tim Stead - 2017
But what exactly does this practice offer to Christians?In Mindfulness and Christian Spirituality, Tim Stead explores how practicing mindfulness can help Christians better live out their faith. Stead explains what mindfulness is and what is beneficial about it. He also reflects on how it can impact what and how we believe and seeks to find how mindfulness enables our Christian faith to work for us. Mindfulness practices that are designed to help readers make space for God in their everyday lives are included.
Humble Inquiry: The Gentle Art of Asking Instead of Telling
Edgar H. Schein - 2013
But all too often when we interact with people—especially those who report to us—we simply tell them what we think they need to know. This shuts them down. To generate bold new ideas, to avoid disastrous mistakes, to develop agility and flexibility, we need to practice Humble Inquiry.Ed Schein defines Humble Inquiry as “the fine art of drawing someone out, of asking questions to which you do not know the answer, of building a relationship based on curiosity and interest in the other person.” In this seminal work, Schein contrasts Humble Inquiry with other kinds of inquiry, shows the benefits Humble Inquiry provides in many different settings, and offers advice on overcoming the cultural, organizational, and psychological barriers that keep us from practicing it.
Scary Close: Dropping the Act and Finding True Intimacy
Donald Miller - 2015
Impressing people wasn't helping him connect with anyone. He'd built a life of public isolation, yet he dreamed of meaningful relationships. So at forty years old he made a scary decision: to be himself no matter what it cost.Scary Close is an audiobook about the risk involved in choosing to impress fewer people and connect with more, about the freedom that comes when we stop acting and start loving. It is a story about knocking down old walls to create a healthy mind, a strong family, and a satisfying career. And it all feels like a conversation with the best kind of friend: smart, funny, true, important.Scary Close is Donald Miller at his best.
A Failure of Nerve: Leadership in the Age of the Quick Fix
Edwin H. Friedman - 2007
He was the first to tell us that all organizations have personalities, like families, and to apply the insights of family therapy to churches and synagogues, rectors and rabbis, politicians and teachers.Failure of Nerve is essential reading for all leaders, be they parents or presidents, corporate executives or educators, religious superiors or coaches, healers or generals, managers or clergy. Friedman's insights about our regressed, seatbelt society, oriented toward safety rather than adventure, help explain the sabotage that leaders constantly face today.Suspicious of the quick fixes and instant solutions that sweep through our culture only to give way to the next fad, he argues for strength and self-differentiation as the marks of true leadership. His formula for success is more maturity, not more data; stamina, not technique; and personal responsibility, not empathy.This book was unfinished at the time of Friedman's death, and originally published in a limited edition. This new edition makes his life-changing insights and challenges available to a new generation of readers.
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.
Perfect Phrases for Managers and Supervisors (Perfect Phrases Series)
Meryl Runion - 2004
. . Every Time Communication is the single most important skill for excelling as a manager. What you say and how you say it sets the tone for your department and your entire organization. Perfect Phrases for Managers and Supervisors, second edition, has been completely revised to help you communicate in today‘s workplace, where collaboration, cooperation, and personalization are critical to building an efficient, productive work environment. Learn the most effective language for: Setting a tone of mutual trust and respect Dealing with difficult employees and delicate problems Conducting interviews and performance reviews Empowering your people Disciplining workers or terminating employment
Switch On Your Brain: The Key to Peak Happiness, Thinking, and Health
Caroline Leaf - 2007
Caroline's revelation will change the way you think.
This book is the owner's manual for how our brains work."--Matthew and Laurie Crouch, Trinity Broadcasting Network"Caroline Leaf has given us a real jewel, translating modern brain science into language accessible to everyone."--David I. Levy, MD, neurosurgeon, author of Gray Matter"[Caroline] explains how our choices work scientifically, but in a practical way that makes something that is really hard to do much easier and more tangible."--Christine Caine, founder of the A21 Campaign; director of Equip and Empower Ministries; author of Undaunted"We encourage you to act on the wisdom found in Switch On Your Brain and begin the incredible journey of thinking God's way."--Robert and Debbie Morris, pastors of Gateway Church; authors of The Blessed Life, The Blessed Marriage, and The Blessed Woman"Dr. Leaf's teaching is not only life changing but life saving as it makes the renewing of the mind so real. I am so very grateful for the wisdom contained within these pages."--Darlene Zschech, singer-songwriter; author of The Art of Mentoring"Each of us is full of untapped potential when it comes to our ability to think and process our way through life. I pray that Caroline's years of research and passion in this realm of unfolding science will be a blessing to you."--Bobbie Houston, senior pastor, Hillsong Church
Things You Think About When You Bite Your Nails: A Fear and Anxiety Workbook
Amalia Andrade - 2020
About how it works, how it takes hold over us, and how it dogs us from childhood (the monsters under the bed) to adulthood (careers, relationships, accidentally sending that risky text to the wrong person--all the things that make us want to bite our nails). But this is also a book about that monster our fear can warp into when it grows too powerful, a phenomenon we are all too familiar with and that more and more of us are struggling against: anxiety.Author and illustrator Amalia Andrade had her own battle with anxiety, and not only did she make it out the other side, she learned sometimes it's the very thing that almost sinks you that can save you. Through the lessons, exercises, and often hilarious personal stories Amalia shares in these pages, together you will learn how to make those feelings your friends and turn your fears into superpowers.A PENGUIN LIFE TITLE
Finding Your Way in a Wild New World: Reclaim Your True Nature to Create the Life You Want
Martha N. Beck - 2011
It’s a journey to the thing that so fulfills you that, if someone told you, “It’s right outside—but watch out—it could kill you!” you’d run straight toward it, through the screen door without even opening it. Life coach and bestselling author of Finding Your Own North Star Martha Beck guides you to find out how you got to where you are now and what you should do next with clear, concrete instructions on tapping into the deep, wordless knowledge you carry in your body and soul. There are certain people who sense that they are called to do something fulfilling and significant, but who often get caught in self-destructive, unproductive cycles. This is the book that will lead you to unleash your incredible creative energy—and fulfill your life’s purpose.With her inimitable ability to translate inner life into accessible, witty, sparkling prose, Beck draws from ancient wisdom and modern science to help readers consciously embrace their skills and create the life they really want. What she’s found is that these people with great passion, empathy, and creative potential often sense a higher calling—in a society where that calling isn’t even recognized as real. They often have within them a quiet power that could change the world; they lack only the tools. Beck offers real, actionable methods to tap into that power. She shows how to find your inner identity and your external “tribe” of like-minded people. She demonstrates the four simple tools for transformation: Wordlessness, Oneness, Imagination, and Creation. With clear step-by-step instructions and guided reflections, Beck shows how to drop into the wordless state of communion with nature and self, how to experience for yourself the oneness between yourself and the universe, how to be empowered by the spark of inspiration, and, finally, how to take action and realize creative potential to make a lasting impact on the world.Compassionate and inspirational, Finding Your Way in a Wild New World is a revolutionary journey of self-discovery that leads to miraculous change.***From Finding Your Way in a Wild New World:The mother rhino paws nervously, and I feel the impact tremor in the ground beneath my own feet. She is huge. She is nervous. She could kill me as easily as I clip my fingernails. But my mind is filled only with wonder, distilled into two basic questions.Question 1: How the hell did I get here?Question 2: What the hell should I do now?Both issues seem equally mysterious. . . . But it all seems to clear now— it was my true nature that brought me face to face with a rhinoceros. . . . I’m finding out what it feels like to reclaim my true nature. It’s one of the most wonderful things I’ve ever experienced. And, because ecstasy loves company, I want you to experience it too. The wild new world of the twenty-first century is the perfect setting for reclaiming your true nature. And your life will work much, much better if you let it direct your choices. It will bring you freedom, peace, and delight; give you the optimal chance of making a good living; and help you create the best possible effect on everything around you. I’m not certain exactly how it will play out in your case, but here’s what I do know: it’s time you met your rhinoceros.
Principle-Centered Leadership
Stephen R. Covey - 1991
Covey has taught to many of the world's top executives and most influential leaders. Align your organization's resources and structures to increase long-term performance and create a high-trust culture - the ultimate competitive advantage.
Leading with Soul: An Uncommon Journey of Spirit
Lee G. Bolman - 2001
Far ahead of its time, the book bravely revealed the path to leadership to be a very personal journey requiring a knowledge of self and a servant-leader mentality. Now, in this new and revised edition, authors Bolman and Deal address such currrent issues as the changing nature of work, the new face of today's workforce, and the greater need for an infusion of soul in the workplace. They also include real-life stories from readers of the first edition, and answer key questions that those readers raise. As vital as ever, this revisted narrative of an executive and his quest for deeper meaning continues to point the way to a more fulfilling work experience.
13 Things Mentally Strong People Don't Do: Take Back Your Power, Embrace Change, Face Your Fears, and Train Your Brain for Happiness and Success
Amy Morin - 2014
That resilience inspired her to write 13 Things Mentally Strong People Don't Do, a web post that instantly went viral, and was picked up by the Forbes website.Morin's post focused on the concept of mental strength, how mentally strong people avoid negative behaviors--feeling sorry for themselves, resenting other people's success, and dwelling on the past. Instead, they focus on the positive to help them overcome challenges and become their best.In this inspirational, affirmative book, Morin expands upon her original message, providing practical strategies to help readers avoid the thirteen common habits that can hold them back from success. Combining compelling anecdotal stories with the latest psychological research, she offers strategies for avoiding destructive thoughts, emotions, and behaviors common to everyone.Like physical strength, mental strength requires healthy habits, exercise, and hard work. Morin teaches you how to embrace a happier outlook and arms you to emotionally deal with life's inevitable hardships, setbacks, and heartbreaks--sharing for the first time her own poignant story of tragedy, and how she summoned the mental strength to move on. As she makes clear, mental strength isn't about acting tough; it's about feeling empowered to overcome life's challenges.
Finish: Give Yourself the Gift of Done
Jon Acuff - 2017
I’ve started a million things, but I never finish them. Why can’t I finish?According to studies, 92 percent of New Year’s resolutions fail. You’ve practically got a better shot at getting into Juilliard to become a ballerina than you do at finishing your goals. For years, I thought my problem was that I didn’t try hard enough. So I started getting up earlier. I drank enough energy drinks to kill a horse. I hired a life coach and ate more superfoods. Nothing worked, although I did develop a pretty nice eyelid tremor from all the caffeine. It was like my eye was waving at you, very, very quickly. Then, while leading a thirty-day online course to help people work on their goals, I learned something surprising: The most effective exercises were not those that pushed people to work harder. The ones that got people to the finish line did just the opposite— they took the pressure off. Why? Because the sneakiest obstacle to meeting your goals is not laziness, but perfectionism. We’re our own worst critics, and if it looks like we’re not going to do something right, we prefer not to do it at all. That’s why we’re most likely to quit on day two, “the day after perfect”—when our results almost always underperform our aspirations. The strategies in this book are counterintuitive and might feel like cheating. But they’re based on studies conducted by a university researcher with hundreds of participants. You might not guess that having more fun, eliminating your secret rules, and choosing something to bomb intentionally works. But the data says otherwise. People who have fun are 43 percent more successful! Imagine if your diet, guitar playing, or small business was 43 percent more successful just by following a few simple principles. If you’re tired of being a chronic starter and want to become a consistent finisher, you have two options: You can continue to beat yourself up and try harder, since this time that will work. Or you can give yourself the gift of done.
How to Think: A Survival Guide for a World at Odds
Alan Jacobs - 2017
As a celebrated cultural critic and a writer for national publications like The Atlantic and Harper's, Alan Jacobs has spent his adult life belonging to communities that often clash in America's culture wars. And in his years of confronting the big issues that divide us--political, social, religious--Jacobs has learned that many of our fiercest disputes occur not because we're doomed to be divided, but because the people involved simply aren't thinking.Most of us don't want to think, Jacobs writes. Thinking is trouble. Thinking can force us out of familiar, comforting habits, and it can complicate our relationships with like-minded friends. Finally, thinking is slow, and that's a problem when our habits of consuming information (mostly online) leave us lost in the spin cycle of social media, partisan bickering, and confirmation bias.In this smart, endlessly entertaining book, Jacobs diagnoses the many forces that act on us to prevent thinking--forces that have only worsened in the age of Twitter, "alternative facts," and information overload--and he also dispels the many myths we hold about what it means to think well. (For example: It's impossible to "think for yourself.")Drawing on sources as far-flung as novelist Marilynne Robinson, basketball legend Wilt Chamberlain, British philosopher John Stuart Mill, and Christian theologian C.S. Lewis, Jacobs digs into the nuts and bolts of the cognitive process, offering hope that each of us can reclaim our mental lives from the impediments that plague us all. Because if we can learn to think together, maybe we can learn to live together, too.