The Top 3 Books on Leadership
First, The Leadership Challenge.
This is a book that challenges the view that a person is born a leader or a follower, that the personality traits are defined since birth and there is nothing to do about it, the authors disagree and prove their point consistently by correlating their own research with real life examples.
The authors asked many people of different backgrounds education levels and industries: "what values, personality traits or characteristics do you look for and admire in a leader?" Among the wide array of answers they managed to summarize the 4 that came up consistently, honest, forward-looking, inspiring, and competent The main characteristic is forward looking, it is the on that sets a leader apart from just being credible.
The authors study the peak performance practices of leaders, By analyzing hundreds of case studies on personal best leadership moments and finding common themes and practices.
They managed to encompass them in five main practices, Model the Way Inspire a Shared Vision Challenge the Process Enable others to act Encourage the heart Leaders imagine what is possible, they look ahead and share that vision with their teams or companies, they enroll them in that vision and inspire them to change the status quo and facilitate a process that leads to the desired goals, leaders delegate and trust others, they enable them to act by advising when people ask for help while avoiding to get in their way and keeping and open communication channel that harnesses honest feedback, praise and motivation.
The authors stress the importance for managers and future leaders to spend more time looking ahead and less time executing everyday tasks, Looking back in history before looking ahead is useful, by widening your time horizon and looking into the past before looking into the future, helps envision potential success further down the road.
The authors emphasize that leadership is not something a person is born with, they define leadership as a ser of skills that can be learned.
Second, Control Your Destiny or Someone Else Will.
This books talks about the massive changes and success accomplished by Jack Welch during his career as CEO of General Electric.
The circumstances in which Welch started his period as CEO are discussed in the first part of the book, things were going well in the beginning, there were no dramatic circumstances or crisis to solve, the company was doing well, but not as good as Welch thought they could, he changed the approach of the company and decided to sell the businesses that were not number one or two in their respective markets, this was a major change that prompted the sale of over 120 businesses in the first four years alone, an estimate of 300,000 people left GE during the first 10 years.
Another area of major overhaul was the approach to training and employee development undertaken by Welch, by continuous training and workshops that encompassed over 200,000 GE employees in a five year period.
The relentless pursuit of collaborative continuous improvement was one of Welch's signature management styles and a milestone to modern corporate management, his focus on creating world-class managers and value oriented inner processes are trademarks that will be studied for generations.
Third, Leadership is an Art.
Innovative Design and Innovative Leadership practices go hand in hand at Herman Miller as described by Max De Pree, former CEO of the manufacturer of modern furniture.
A book about exploring and harnessing the hidden potential in individuals so that it generates value for the company.
De Pree shares many compelling and touching passages that took place during his career, In which his theories of team involvement and employee appreciation are depicted, he takes a different approach to leadership, far from the military classical dominant approach, he talks about getting to know people, what interests them and how to motivate them to be excited about work and the company they work for, he says that a leaders first responsibility is to define reality and the last, to say thank you.
An excellent book on humanistic and team oriented leadership, one that has proven to be an important tendency for the upcoming years.
Books are a great tool to learn from people who have walked many different paths and gathered knowledge and experience from their lives, a dose of wisdom from which we can enrich our perspective, the books mentioned above are among my favorites on the fine art of leadership, one that deals with one of the most unpredictable subjects, the human mind, I hope they area as useful to you as they have been to me.
This is a book that challenges the view that a person is born a leader or a follower, that the personality traits are defined since birth and there is nothing to do about it, the authors disagree and prove their point consistently by correlating their own research with real life examples.
The authors asked many people of different backgrounds education levels and industries: "what values, personality traits or characteristics do you look for and admire in a leader?" Among the wide array of answers they managed to summarize the 4 that came up consistently, honest, forward-looking, inspiring, and competent The main characteristic is forward looking, it is the on that sets a leader apart from just being credible.
The authors study the peak performance practices of leaders, By analyzing hundreds of case studies on personal best leadership moments and finding common themes and practices.
They managed to encompass them in five main practices, Model the Way Inspire a Shared Vision Challenge the Process Enable others to act Encourage the heart Leaders imagine what is possible, they look ahead and share that vision with their teams or companies, they enroll them in that vision and inspire them to change the status quo and facilitate a process that leads to the desired goals, leaders delegate and trust others, they enable them to act by advising when people ask for help while avoiding to get in their way and keeping and open communication channel that harnesses honest feedback, praise and motivation.
The authors stress the importance for managers and future leaders to spend more time looking ahead and less time executing everyday tasks, Looking back in history before looking ahead is useful, by widening your time horizon and looking into the past before looking into the future, helps envision potential success further down the road.
The authors emphasize that leadership is not something a person is born with, they define leadership as a ser of skills that can be learned.
Second, Control Your Destiny or Someone Else Will.
This books talks about the massive changes and success accomplished by Jack Welch during his career as CEO of General Electric.
The circumstances in which Welch started his period as CEO are discussed in the first part of the book, things were going well in the beginning, there were no dramatic circumstances or crisis to solve, the company was doing well, but not as good as Welch thought they could, he changed the approach of the company and decided to sell the businesses that were not number one or two in their respective markets, this was a major change that prompted the sale of over 120 businesses in the first four years alone, an estimate of 300,000 people left GE during the first 10 years.
Another area of major overhaul was the approach to training and employee development undertaken by Welch, by continuous training and workshops that encompassed over 200,000 GE employees in a five year period.
The relentless pursuit of collaborative continuous improvement was one of Welch's signature management styles and a milestone to modern corporate management, his focus on creating world-class managers and value oriented inner processes are trademarks that will be studied for generations.
Third, Leadership is an Art.
Innovative Design and Innovative Leadership practices go hand in hand at Herman Miller as described by Max De Pree, former CEO of the manufacturer of modern furniture.
A book about exploring and harnessing the hidden potential in individuals so that it generates value for the company.
De Pree shares many compelling and touching passages that took place during his career, In which his theories of team involvement and employee appreciation are depicted, he takes a different approach to leadership, far from the military classical dominant approach, he talks about getting to know people, what interests them and how to motivate them to be excited about work and the company they work for, he says that a leaders first responsibility is to define reality and the last, to say thank you.
An excellent book on humanistic and team oriented leadership, one that has proven to be an important tendency for the upcoming years.
Books are a great tool to learn from people who have walked many different paths and gathered knowledge and experience from their lives, a dose of wisdom from which we can enrich our perspective, the books mentioned above are among my favorites on the fine art of leadership, one that deals with one of the most unpredictable subjects, the human mind, I hope they area as useful to you as they have been to me.
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