Summary of Alan Willett's Leading the Unleadable


Book Description

Please note: This is a companion version & not the original book. Sample Book Insights: #1 It’s not just a matter of making decisions on a daily basis. The very essence of being a leader and how you lead is a choice. You must actively choose to embrace the many good things that come with leadership, and choose not just the call to leadership, but exceptional leadership. #2 The essence of being a leader is a choice. You must actively choose to embrace the many good things that come with leadership, and choose not just the call to leadership, but exceptional leadership. #3 Leadership is a choice. You must actively choose to embrace the many good things that come with leadership, and choose not just the call to leadership, but exceptional leadership. #4 The essence of being a leader is a choice. You must actively choose to embrace the many good things that come with leadership, and choose not just the call to leadership, but exceptional leadership.




Leading the Unleadable


Book Description

Every manager has to deal with difficult employees. However, what separates the great managers is their ability to turn them into productive team players. Control freaks. Narcissists. Slackers. Cynics. Their outbursts, irrational demands, gripes, and countless other disruptions need to be dealt with, and you are the unlucky one with that job description. This book turns this seemingly difficult chore into a straight-forward process that gently, yet effectively, improves behaviors. It all begins with understanding a core truth: most people actually want to contribute results, not cause headaches. When the manager resets to that fundamental principle, the potential for change can reveal itself in even the most hopeless situations. Written by tech industry expert Alan Willett, Leading the Unleadable explains how to: Master the necessary mindset Explain the problem calmly in a short feedback session Get a commitment to change, then follow up Coach others to replicate the process Develop the situational awareness required to spot future trouble before it hits Are you a great manager? Of course you believe you are. So don’t just put up with your difficult employees. Anyone can do that. Turn them into the tremendous team players everyone wants them to be!




Bad Apples


Book Description

Unlike other career books, this book offers managers a team-focused approach to neutralizing a not-so-pleasant—or productive—working atmosphere. Instead of isolating the one problem employee, relevant teams are considered as part of the solution. The result? Solutions stick and there's less likelihood of the bad apple ruining the bunch. Complete with situational advice and case studies taken straight from the trenches, this simple and straightforward guide teaches managers how to: Calm down combatants Motivate wasters Silence gossips De-arm backstabbers Convince passive-aggressives to open up Teach narcissists the importance of the team This book helps managers decide what the right course of action is—whether it means chastising negative behavior, encouraging positive outlooks, separating certain folks, creating teams for success, giving employees warnings, and/or firing the ones who are pretty much rotten through and through. This book is essential reading for any manager looking to ensure a pleasant, productive—and fruitful—work environment.




The Art of Strategic Leadership


Book Description

Develop the qualities of strategic leadership and become an active contributor to the short- and long-term success of your organization Today's organizations face two daunting challenges: 1. How to create new sources of competitive advantage to sustain long-term growth, and 2. How to engage leaders at every level of the organization so that they are more proactive and forward-looking in their area of responsibility. The Art of Strategic Leadership uses a unique approach to examine what it means to be a strategic leader. Instead of focusing on the skills, behaviors, and tools found in typical books on strategic leadership, the authors shed light on the attributes and qualities necessary to lead strategic change and help transform a business. Strategic leadership is what modern leadership is all about. Organizations expect leaders to anticipate and be proactive more than ever before. In this book, the authors draw on their vast experience working directly with leaders at all levels and use an intriguing narrative to explain this inside-out approach to understanding strategic leadership. The narrative follows the journey of how one manager discovered these critically important qualities. You will experience first-hand how these values and attributes manifest in the lives of realistic leaders; how they orchestrate long-term strategic change needed for the organization to compete and survive and actively shape the future while delivering short-term results. The Art of Strategic Leadership provides the content that will help you informally assess and reflect on your own strategic leadership qualities—those that are strengths and those that indicate areas you need to develop. It will guide you as you incorporate these values and qualities into your own leadership style and become a more effective catalyst for change. This book will help you in the following ways: Develop a more proactive, forward-thinking approach to leadership Approach strategy from both short- and long-term perspectives Adopt the core values and principles of a strategic leader Model the qualities exhibited by powerful leaders Strategic leaders serve as powerful examples to others in the organization. Their qualities and traits spread rapidly to those around them, empowering people at every level to take a more active role in meeting the demands of the future. The Art of Strategic Leadership will help you deepen and broaden your understanding of the core qualities of strategic leadership, leaving you better equipped to lead yourself and your team to a better place and create greater value for customers, owners, and employees.




Powerful Phrases for Dealing with Difficult People


Book Description

How to Manage Work Relationships in a Constructive Way that Leads to Success. Learning how to maintain strong, harmonious work relationships is essential. Unfortunately, at some point in your career, you'll have to work with people whose personalities or habits make every interaction with them a trial. Communications expert Renee Evenson has written the definitive phrasebook on how to confront the situations that can arise when dealing with difficult personalities and bring about a positive outcome. Powerful Phrases for Dealing with Difficult People is packed with practical and easy-to-use tactics such as: 325 powerful phrases to communicate effectively, as well as powerful actions to take in support of those phrases. 30 common personality traits, behaviors, and workplace scenarios along with the phrases that work best with each. Nonverbal communication actions to back up your words. Sample dialogues that demonstrate how phrasing improves interactions. A five-step process for moving from conflict to resolution. "Why This Works" sections that provide detailed explanations. Often, an employee who can interact well with others and feels comfortable handling conflict will be promoted over an employee who possesses greater job or technical knowledge. From egotistical bosses to meeting monopolizers, you'll learn how to develop the skills to handle any type of conflict with anyone.




Too Proud to Lead


Book Description

A fascinating investigation into how leaders' confidence can transform into hubris, which has the devastating potential to lead not only to their own downfall, but also to the collapse of entire organizations. While confidence is a vital attribute for any successful business leader, it is often taken too far – they fall into the pitfalls of hubris and, like Icarus, find themselves flying too close to the sun. Laying out the dangers of arrogant overconfidence for both individuals and organizations, this book explores both the economic and psychological costs of this destructive behaviour, and boldly argues for a new, revolutionary approach to leadership. Written by three world-renowned experts, Too Proud to Lead provides readers with the essential arsenal of tools for understanding, identifying, anticipating and coping with hubris, in both themselves and in their workplace. Supported by fascinating case studies and enlightening analysis, this is a much-needed antidote to the hubris plague spreading through the leadership of today.




Managing the Unmanageable


Book Description

In an increasingly globally diverse workforce, it's vitally important that leaders understand their team inside and out. This takes a new toolbox of skills for the 21st century. "Managing the Unmanageable" will give readers practical tips and proven techniques to show them how to develop new strategies for attracting and retaining the most talented employee before they become unmanageable, learn key words that will allow them to clearly communicate with every generation on their team, and much more.




Managing Difficult People


Book Description

"Managing Difficult People" helps readers identify and deal with personality types such as the bully, the complainer, the know-it-all, the silent type, the social butterfly, the rookie, the manipulator, and more.




The Effective Manager


Book Description

The how-to guide for exceptional management from the bottom up The Effective Manager is a hands-on practical guide to great management at every level. Written by the man behind Manager Tools, the world's number-one business podcast, this book distills the author's 25 years of management training expertise into clear, actionable steps to start taking today. First, you'll identify what "effective management" actually looks like: can you get the job done at a high level? Do you attract and retain top talent without burning them out? Then you'll dig into the four critical behaviors that make a manager great, and learn how to adjust your own behavior to be the leader your team needs. You'll learn the four major tools that should be a part of every manager's repertoire, how to use them, and even how to introduce them to the team in a productive, non-disruptive way. Most management books are written for CEOs and geared toward improving corporate management, but this book is expressly aimed at managers of any level—with a behavioral framework designed to be tailored to your team's specific needs. Understand your team's strengths, weaknesses, and goals in a meaningful way Stop limiting feedback to when something goes wrong Motivate your people to continuous improvement Spread the work around and let people stretch their skills Effective managers are good at the job and "good at people." The key is combining those skills to foster your team's development, get better and better results, and maintain a culture of positive productivity. The Effective Manager shows you how to turn good into great with clear, actionable, expert guidance.




Humble Leadership


Book Description

The more traditional forms of leadership that are based on static hierarchies and professional distance between leaders and followers are growing increasingly outdated and ineffective. As organizations face more complex interdependent tasks, leadership must become more personal in order to insure open trusting communication that will make more collaborative problem solving and innovation possible. Without open and trusting communications throughout organizations, they will continue to face the productivity and quality problems that result from reward systems that emphasize individual competition and “climbing the corporate ladder”. Authors Edgar Schein and Peter Schein recognize this reality and call for a reimagined form of leadership that coincides with emerging trends of relationship building, complex group work, diverse workforces, and cultures in which everyone feels psychologically safe. Humble Leadership calls for “here and now” humility based on a deeper understanding of the constantly evolving complexities of interpersonal, group and intergroup relationships that require shifting our focus towards the process of group dynamics and collaboration. Humble Leadership at all levels and in all working groups will be the key to achieving the creativity, adaptiveness, and agility that organizations will need to survive and grow.