Leadership Development Reading
I love to read. To learn, to expand, to adventure, to explore, to improve, to reconcile, to laugh, to cry, and so much more. A couple of colleagues recently asked me what I’m reading or what I recommend they read to develop their leadership. Here are 10 leadership development books that will help you own who you are, communicate more effectively, lead authentically, adapt to change, build trust, and understand and interact with humanity more compassionately and powerfully.
The Happiness Advantage: The Seven Principles of Positive Psychology that Fuel Success and Performance at Work, Shawn Achor Our most commonly held formula for success is broken. Conventional wisdom holds that if we work hard we will be more successful, and if we are more successful, then we’ll be happy. If we can just find that great job, win that next promotion, lose those five pounds, happiness will follow. But recent discoveries in the field of positive psychology have shown that this formula is actually backward: Happiness fuels success, not the other way around. When we are positive, our brains become more engaged, creative, motivated, energetic, resilient, and productive at work. This isn’t just an empty mantra. This discovery has been repeatedly borne out by rigorous research in psychology and neuroscience, management studies, and the bottom lines of organizations around the globe.
Life On Purpose: Six Passages to an Inspired Life, Brad Swift Cut decades off the process and take a major shortcut on the road to clarifying your true purpose by following the six steps, or passages outlined in Life On Purpose. Infuse purpose into every aspect of your life. In Life On Purpose you will find a step-by-step process for clarifying your life purpose and then designing your life to be a true and authentic reflection of that purpose.
Positive Intelligence, Shirzhad Chamine Shirzad Chamine reveals how to achieve one's true potential for both professional success and personal fulfillment. His groundbreaking research exposes ten well-disguised mental Saboteurs. Nearly 95 percent of the executives in his Stanford lectures conclude that these Saboteurs cause ""significant harm"" to achieving their full potential. With Positive Intelligence, you can learn the secret to defeating these internal foes. You can access two free assessments to determine your level of PQ and identify your saboteurs at http://positiveintelligence.com/assessments/
Daring Greatly, Brené Brown Every day we experience the uncertainty, risks, and emotional exposure that define what it means to be vulnerable, or to dare greatly. Whether the arena is a new relationship, an important meeting, our creative process, or a difficult family conversation, we must find the courage to walk into vulnerability and engage with our whole hearts. In Daring Greatly, Dr. Brown challenges everything we think we know about vulnerability. Based on twelve years of research, she argues that vulnerability is not weakness, but rather our clearest path to courage, engagement, and meaningful connection.
Leadership and Self-Deception: Getting Out of the Box, The Arbinger Institute This book weaves some powerful messages about leadership into a modern day story. It's not what you do that matters, but why you do it. Latching onto the latest leadership trend won't make people follow you if your motives are selfish. It shows how we deceive ourselves in subtle ways into thinking that we're doing the right thing for the right reason
Presence: Bringing Your Boldest Self to Your Biggest Challenges, Amy Cuddy By accessing our personal power, we can achieve ""presence,"" the state in which we stop worrying about the impression we're making on others and instead adjust the impression we've been making on ourselves. As Harvard professor Amy Cuddy's revolutionary book reveals, we don't need to embark on a grand spiritual quest or complete an inner transformation to harness the power of presence. Instead, we need to nudge ourselves, moment by moment, by tweaking our body language, behavior, and mind-set in our day-to-day lives.
Emotional Intelligence 2.0, Travis Bradberry & Jean Greaves The book contains proven strategies from a decade-long effort to accurately measure and increase emotional intelligence. Trusted by upper-echelon leaders inside companies worldwide, these strategies will enable you to capitalize on the skills responsible for 58% of performance in all types of jobs.
Unleashed! Expecting Greatness and Other Secrets of Coaching for Exceptional Performance, Gregg Thompson and Susanne Biro Understand what High Performance Coaching is (and is not!). Identify the qualities of an effective Leader Coach. Recognize their strengths as a coach and what is required in the coaching role. Better understand the coaching process. Identify their own self development work and personal growth curve. Better understand current leadership challenges. Search for opportunities to coach those they manage and lead for performance/ Participate in the personal growth of others while developing high performance coaching skills
Switch: How to Change Things When Change is Hard, Chip Heath and Dan Heath The Heath brothers (coauthors of Made to Stick) address motivating employees, family members, and ourselves in their analysis of why we too often fear change. Change is not inherently frightening…the trick is to find the balance between our powerful drives and our reason.
Smart Trust: Creating Prosperity, Energy & Joy in a Low-Trust World, Steven M. Covey After illustrating the global relevance of trust with his book The Speed of Trust, Stephen M. R. Covey again illuminates the hidden power of trust to change lives and impact organizations in Smart Trust. In a compelling and readable style, he and long-time business partner Greg Link share enlightening principles and anecdotes of people and organizations that are not only achieving unprecedented prosperity from high-trust relationships and cultures but—even more inspiring—also attaining elevated levels of energy and joy.
ENJOY!