 Recommended Reading
Learning to Lead: A Workbook on Becoming a Leader – Warren Bennis and Joan Goldsmith – Addison Wesley, 1997.
Warren Bennis is one of the nation’s leading leadership consultants, having written numerous books and articles and advising four U.S. presidents. Joan Goldsmith is a management consultant, author, and former professor at Harvard. This practical book clearly explains the practical and personal underpinnings of true leadership. Full of helpful self-assessments and dozens of skill-building exercises you can do yourself, this book is an excellent vehicle for people to discover their leadership strengths and develop their authentic leadership skills.
Leadership Jazz – Max DePree – Doubleday, 1992.
Max DePree, Chairman of the Board of Herman Miller, Inc., also wrote Leadership is an Art, a 1989 bestseller which showed how the leader’s task is less a rigorous scientific discipline and more an art of genuine human expression. In Leadership Jazz, DePree addresses two tough challenges leaders face – mastering the difficult concepts of voice and touch. He writes, “A leader’s voice is the expression of one-s beliefs. A leader’s touch demonstrates competence and resolve.” The connection of voice and touch is like jazz, a “public performance, dependent on so many things – the environment, the volunteers playing in the band, the need for everyone to perform as individuals and as a group, the absolute dependence of the leader on the members of the band. What a summary of an organization!”
Leadership and the Art of Conversation – Kim Krisco – Prima Publishing, 1997.
This book is based on the premise that conversation is the most powerful – and underutilized – management and leadership tool. This book shows the reader how to use everyday “ordinary” conversations to boost productivity, inspire peak performance and achieve unprecedented success. The author maintains that you don’t have to be a great orator to be a leader, and provides sample scripts and real-life examples to help the reader master the art of leadership conversation quickly and easily.
Skyhooks for Leadership: A New Framework that Brings Together Five Decades of Thought from Maslow to Senge – John Shtogren, Editor – Amacom, 1999.
The term “skyhook” is borrowed from the field of mining. A skyhook is a bolt driven into the ceilings of mineshafts to keep them from caving in. In business, skyhooks are anchor points for human interaction that hold fast even when everything else is in flux. The leadership skyhooks consist of vision, trust, open communication, meaningful work, empowerment and self-determination, teamwork and involvement, and transformational style. This book is based on the enduring concepts of 19 business luminaries of the last five decades, including Peter Senge, Tom Peters, Abraham Maslow, Frederick Herzberg, James M. Kouzes, Barry Posner, and Rosabeth Moss Kanter.
On Becoming A Leader – Warren Bennis – Addison-Wesley Publishing, 1989.
A classic, providing something of a road map to success.
The 21 Indispensable Qualities of a Leader – John C. Maxwell – Thomas Nelson Publishers, 1999.
This book is a quick read that gets straight to the heart of leadership issues. It offers practical tools and insights into developing in yourself the qualities found in great leaders.
Leadership From The Inside Out – Kevin Cashman – Executive Excellence Pub., 1999.
This is a book about authentic leadership, which starts with knowing ourselves and then building our behaviors around this self-knowledge.
21st Century Leadership: Dialogues with 100 Top Leaders – Lynne Joy McFarland, Editor – The Leadership Press, 1994.
This book is based on the premise that effectiveness in leadership can no longer be centered in positions within a rigid hierarchical structure, but must be centered in interdependent relationships in which leadership and power are shared broadly. A book of dialogues and the best insights about charting a bold new future coming from leaders at the forefront of leadership today.
Leadership Magic, Practical Tools for Creating Extraordinary Organizations – Ben Valore-Caplan, Wordworks Press, 1999.
Practical tools, challenging exercises and meaningful reflections for leading high performance organizations.
Leading Minds: An Anatomy of Leadership – Howard Gardner – Basic Books, 1995.
Howard Gardner has written extensively on creativity and multiple intelligences. In this book, he selects 11 highly creative men and women leaders and defines the factors which make them exceptionally effective.
The Leader’s Guide: 15 Essential Skills – Randall D. Ponder – The Oasis Press, 1998.
This practical guide provides a valuable core set of knowledge and skills for today’s leader, presented in an easy-to-understand and step-by-step format.
On Leadership – John W. Gardner – The Free Press, 1990.
A classic. Leaders today accomplish their purposes through (or in spite of) large-scale organized systems. Such systems simply cannot function effectively unless leaders are dispersed throughout all segments and through all levels of the organization and society. There must be – in every segment and at every level – individuals capable of taking leader-like action to make their piece of the system work, individuals prepared to accommodate system-wide policy to ground-level realities, men and women who are not afraid to send word back up the line that newly-announced policies need amendment or reversal. In addition, leaders, at all levels, must work face-to-face in their organizations and communities, for that is where shared values are generated, and if they decay, that is where they decay.
The Lessons of Experience: How Successful Executives Develop on the Job – Morgan W. McCall, Jr., Michael M. Lombardo, and Ann M. Morrison – The Free Press, 1988.
Guidelines to make the most of career opportunities and practical insights for developing executive talent. The basic premise of this book is that the $40-50 billion (with a B) spent each year on management development could be spent more wisely. Most executive development takes place on the job, not in seminars, classrooms and MBA programs. Based on research and interviews with America’s most successful senior executives, The Lessons of Experience presents concrete ideas for creating, implementing, and improving your own executive development program. And make no mistake, ultimately, the primary responsibility for effective leadership development resides with executives themselves. For example, taking certain jobs, positions or assignments can accelerate your learning and movement upwards to leadership ranks.
Learning to Lead: The Art of Transforming Managers into Leader – Jay Conger – Jossey-Bass, 1992.
Provides an overview of leadership training programs (i.e, “ropes courses” and other personal growth approaches, feedback and assessment programs, skill building and conceptual understanding). Conger maintains that leaders are individuals who are deeply in touch with their gifts and passions, and that only by tapping into and realizing one’s passions can a person become a leader. While he found no one best method of training new leaders (all have advantages and disadvantages), the best leadership development programs help individuals get in touch with their talents and sense of purpose, so that they can formulate an inspiring vision for their own lives and motivate those who work for them.
Synchronicity: The Inner Path of Leadership – Joseph Jaworski – Berrett-Koehler, 1996.
An inspirational guide to shaping your own future. This book focuses on leadership as the release of human possibility, about breaking free of limits (either organizationally imposed or self-imposed).
Secrets Of A CEO Coach – D.A. Benton – McGraw Hill, 1999.
Debra Benton is an experienced, successful executive consultant who helps you see how effective leaders handle themselves.
How To Think Like A CEO – D.A. Benton – Warner Books, 1996.
The author identifies the 22 vital traits of effective CEO’s.
The Female Advantage – Sally Helgesen – Doubleday, 1995.
In a world where women are still called upon to prove themselves, the author helps us understand our unique strengths.
back to top
Enlightened Leadership: Getting to the Heart of Change – Ed Oakley and Doug Krug – Fireside Books, 1991.
This is a practical, hands-on guide to breaking through the barriers to organizational change. The authors show why most efforts at change fail, and provide leaders with proven methods for getting their people moving in the right direction.
The Fifth Discipline and The Fifth Discipline Fieldbook – Peter Senge – Currency, 1994.
Another classic, for leaders serious about building communities of common purpose, collective action and continuous learning in their organizations.
Generations at Work, Managing the Clash of Veterans, Boomers, Xers, and Nexters in Your Workplace – Ron Zemke, Claire Raines & Bob Filipczak – AMACOM, 2000.
A quick and insightful read…full of humor and practical tactics that can be applied to daily situations immediately.
The Leadership Challenge: How to Get Extraordinary Things Done in Organizations -- James M. Kouzes and Barry Z. Posner – Jossey-Bass, 1990.
One of the best books ever written on leadership. Based on interviews with hundreds of leaders and managers, Kouzes and Posner show how leadership can be learned and mastered by every one of us.
Credibility: How Leaders Gain and Lose It, Why People Demand It – James M. Kouzes and Barry Z. Posner – 1993.
This book is an inspiring and genuine guide to helping us understand the fundamental importance of credibility for building personal and organizational success and for fostering trust within our work, family and community organizations. The authors provide a human approach to leadership, focusing on issues that really matter – honesty, sensitivity and the need for community.
Leading Change – John Kotter – Harvard Business School Press, 1996.
One of the best books ever written on how to create major organizational change, John Kotter puts forth an eight-stage process, from establishing a sense of urgency, to creating a guiding coalition, to developing a vision and strategy all the way through anchoring the new change in the culture of the organization.
Stewardship, Choosing Service Over Self-Interest – Peter Block – Berrett-Koehler, 1993.
Challenges all managers and leaders of organizations to change their fundamental approach and beliefs about how to do their job.
Emotional Intelligence
Emotional Intelligence – Daniel Goleman – Bantam Books, 1995.
A fascinating, research-based examination of why individuals with high IQ flounder, while those of modest IQ do surprisingly well in life and leadership. Emotional intelligence (EI or EQ) includes self-awareness, self-discipline, and empathy, and add up to a different way of being smart. Emotional intelligence is not fixed at birth. It can be nurtured and strengthened throughout adulthood, with immediate benefits to our health, our relationships and our work. This book provides an excellent foundation for understanding good relationships.
Working with Emotional Intelligence – Daniel Goleman – Bantam Books, 1998.
Based on studies conducted in more than 500 organizations, Goleman addresses the skills that distinguish the star performers in every field. From entry-level jobs to top executive positions, the single most important factor is not IQ, advanced degrees, or technical expertise. It is emotional intelligence – self-awareness, self-confidence, self-control, commitment, integrity, the ability to communicate and influence, to initiate and adapt to change. The higher up the leadership ladder you go, the more vital all aspects of emotional intelligence become.
Emotional Intelligence at Work – Hendrie Weisinger, Ph.D., -- Jossey Bass, 1998.
Those who climb to leadership ranks most quickly are those who possesss a high degree of emotional intelligence – the ability to make your emotions work for you by using them in ways that produce the results you want. And the good news is that unlike IQ and other traditional measures of intelligence, EI can be developed and dramatically increased. Based on an extensive body of research, this book offers a hands-on guide people can use to amplify their own emotional intelligence.
Executive EQ: Emotional Intelligence in Leadership & Organizations – Robert K. Cooper, Ph.D. – Grosset/Putnam, 1996.
The best decisions, the most successful and dynamic businesses, and the most satisfying and successful lives all have a basic underpinning of a high Emotional Quotient (EQ). Leadership and credibility depend on the heart as much or more than the head, and this book examines how to apply and measure this principle in our working relationships.
Achieving Emotional Literacy: A Personal Program to Increase Your Emotional Intelligence – Claude Steiner, Ph.D. – Avon Books, 1997.
This book offers a step-by-step program for increasing emotional literacy.
LEADER AS COACH
Coaching: Evoking Excellence in Others – James Flaherty – Butterworth, 1999.
All of us, at one time or another, has wanted to help someone else improve at what he or she was doing. Parents watching their children grow, teachers working with students, supervisors and managers on the job, friends supporting each other ina common endeavor, and countless other examples. Truly transformational leaders, those who seek to transform followers into leaders in their own right, will gain a great deal from this book. It addresses the question of “How do I contribute to someone’s competence in a respectful, dignified, and effective way?”
Coaching for Performance – John Whitmore – Nicholas Brealey Publishing, 1992.
One of the first books on coaching as a leadership strategy, this book is well structured, well written and practical in a gentle fashion. It is a good model for those wishing to develop their own facilitating and coaching skills. It explores the philosophy of coaching while not insisting on it.
Coaching Skills: A Guide for Supervisors – Robert W. Lucas – McGraw Hill, 1994.
Down-to-earth, practical guide which covers issues such as why leaders should coach, identifying opportunities to coach, and offers a useful model for effective coaching. It addresses how to build stronger interpersonal relationships, how to be more effective in providing supportive feedback, and how to coach performers with special needs.
Coaching, Mentoring and Managing – William Hendricks, Editor – Career Press, 1996.
This book provides “breakthrough strategies to solve performance problems and build winning teams.” It addresses how to inspire peak performance, how to mentor employees, how to tap into the hidden strengths of each person on your team, and how to prevent team problems before they happen.
Masterful Coaching and the Masterful Coaching Fieldbook – Robert Hargrove – Jossey Bass, 1999 and 2000.
Hargrove has developed a six-step “transformational coaching” model designed to help you attract and retain the best talent in your industry, elicit maximum performance from your employees, and encourage employees to think and work better together.
Coaching for Commitment: Interpersonal Strategies for Obtaining Superior Performance from Individuals and Teams – Dennis C. Kinlaw – Jossey Bass, 1999.
Kinlaw demonstrates how to use coaching to build commitment among colleagues and direct reports. Committed employees have a clear understanding of core values and performance goals. They feel encouraged to exercise influence; they possess the competencies required to perform their tasks, and they sense that their performance is appreciated. Fostering this commitment is the key to maximum performance. This book helps leaders increase commitment throughout the organization.
Co-Active Coaching: New Skills for Coaching People Toward Success in Work and Life – Laura Whitworth, Henry Kimsey-House, and Phil Sandahl – Davies-Black, 1998.
This book describes the principles and components of “co-active coaching” – a coaching approach which emphasizes participation and collaboration. The book includes instructive coaching dialogues and examples, skill-building exercises, and a comprehensive coach’s “toolkit.”
Action Coaching: How to Leverage Individual Performance for Company Success – David L. Dotlich and Peter C. Cairo – Jossey Bass, 1999.
In this book, the authors seek to teach executives, managers and leaders how to become extraordinary coaches. Leaders in any organization today, they maintain, realize that their ability to coach others is fast becoming a key component of the job. A leader’s ability to help others perform better on an individual basis is crucial to both the leader’s career as well as the individual’s. This book goes a littler further than other books which focus simply on coaching skills by addressing specific organizational issues and how they are linked to the progress of individuals.
Stop Managing, Start Coaching! – Jerry W. Gilley and Nathaniel W. Boughton – McGraw-Hill, 1996.
Focus is on “performance coaching” – how to motivate, inspire and train employees so that they can perform to the best of their abilities.
The Heart of Coaching: Using Transformational Coaching to Create a High-Performance Culture – Thomas G. Crane – FTA Press, 1998.
Crane starts out the book by stating, “Yesterday’s management skills do not guarantee success in today’s or tomorrow’s organizations. To create a sustainable, competitive advantage for your organization,” he says, “you need a team-based, feedback-rich, high-performance culture that relies on coaching as the universal, connective practice.” The author maintains that “transformational coaching” is a fundamentally different way of approaching the process of leading others to enhance their performance. It fosters an egalitarian, mutually-supportive, high-trust partnership between people that transcends the traditional leader/follower relationship.
Leader as Coach, Strategies for Coaching and Developing Others, David Peterson, Ph.D. & Mary Dee Hicks, Ph.D. – Personnel Decisions International, 1996.
Practical approaches to individual and team development.
Topgrading, How Leading Companies Win by Hiring, Coaching and Keeping the Best
People – Bradford D. Smart, Ph.D. – Prentice Hall Press1999.
A handy manual for help in assessing and planning strategies for a variety of management issues.
back to top
The Seat Of The Soul – Gary Zukav – Fireside / Simon & Schuster, 1989.
This book will get you to thinking about your place in the universe and what works in life. A thought-provoking, inventory-taking book.
Laws Of Spirit, Simple Powerful Truths for Making Life Work – Dan Millman – HJKramer, 1995.
A creative story which illustrates wise and playful teachings about life and spirit.
Orbiting the Giant Hairball: A Corporate Fool’s Guide to Surviving with Grace –
Gordon MacKenzie – Penguin Putnam Publishers, 1996.
Gordon MacKenzie worked at Hallmark Cards for thirty years, where he inspired his colleagues to slip the bonds of Corporate Normalcy and rise to orbit – to a mode of dreaming, daring, and doing above and beyond the rubber-stamp confines of the administrative mind-set. In this deeply funny book, exuberantly illustrated in full color, he shares lessons on awakening and fostering creative genius. He teaches how to emerge from the “giant hairball” – that tangled, impenetrable mass of rules and systems based on what worked in the past and which can lead to mediocrity in the present.
The Seven Spiritual Laws of Success – Deepak Chopra – Amber-Allen Publishing, 1994.
Guiding principals for anyone attempting to create a productive and satisfying life or human organization.
The Heart Aroused: Poetry and the Preservation of the Soul in Corporate America – David Whyte – Currency Doubleday, 1994.
Poet David Whyte shows that the best way to respond to the current call for creativity in organizational life is to overcome our habitual fear and reticence and bring our full passionate, creative human souls, with all their urgencies and unnamed longings, right inside the office with us.
back to top
Contact Us Now to Get Started or Receive Your Free Leadership Analysis
P.S. The “CEO” in our name stands for coaching executives
and organizations, and we do this in partnership with our clients.
Call us today and learn how we can support you.
Copyright Laura A. Belsten, Ph.D. © 1999 – 2006
|
