The Inner Work of Leaders


Book Description

Two prominent psychologists profile 65 individuals whose life experiences andrelationships have been shaped into a guiding force for leading and living inthis bold and fresh approach to leadership.




Unleashing Your Inner Leader


Book Description

Leverage your brand of leadership for maximum results Unleashing Your Inner Leader: Executive Coach Tells All presents the premise that there is a powerful leader inside each of us. The focus is on real life exercises and case studies to help you discover, release, and leverage your inner leader: to reach heights in your career that you never thought possible. The book discusses the individual’s impact on the organization and which professional behaviors most frequently demonstrate leadership competencies. Conduct a “forensic intervention” to find out what is going awry in your professional development, or what has gone wrong in the past, and craft a strategy to overcome obstacles, gain unmistakable clarity about yourself, and focus your abilities to match organizational needs. Great leaders start their assessments from the inside out, and their passion is so strong that it permeates their organizations and builds the culture, regardless of rank. They inspire their teams by sharing the spotlight and encouraging coworkers to excel, operating with clean authenticity to maximize results. Unleashing Your Inner Leader helps you recognize where you fall on the leadership spectrum, and provides practical advice for shaping your brand of leadership to capitalize on your authentic capability and potential. You’ll find expert insight as an executive business coach guides you to: Evaluate your strengths, values, and personal impact to craft a vision for the world around you Discover what’s holding you back from maximum effectiveness Tap into your undiscovered potential, and inspire your team to excellence Recognize what it will take to move you and your organization to the next level It is often very difficult for leaders to see their own greatness, unlock it, and use it in a practical way to get results. Be the spark that ignites your team, and steer your own development toward becoming an impactful leader with Unleashing Your Inner Leader.




Synchronicity


Book Description

Using his own story, the international bestselling author shows readers how 3 changes in mindset can help them shape their future. Synchronicity is an inspirational guide to developing the most essential leadership capacity for our time: how we can collectively shape our future. Through the telling of his life story, Jaworski posits that a real leader sets the stage on which “predictable miracles,” seemingly synchronistic in nature, can—and do—occur. He shows that this capacity has more to do with our being—our total orientation of character and consciousness—than with what we do. Leadership, he explains, is about creating—day by day—a domain in which human beings continually deepen their understanding of reality and are able to participate in shaping the future. He describes three basic shifts of mind required if we are to create and discover an unfolding future—shifts in how we see the world, how we understand relationships, and how we make commitments—and offers a new definition of leadership that applies to all types of leaders. “A deeply personal and moving narrative that opens up new vistas on compassion, commitment, and connectedness—and hence on leadership.” —James MacGregor Burns, Pulitzer Prize–winning presidential biographer and Woodrow Wilson Professor of Government, Emeritus, Williams College “An insightful, profound, and readable contribution to understanding the personal side of leadership.” —Rosabeth Moss Kanter, Ernest L. Arbuckle Professor of Business Administration, Harvard Business School, and author of SuperCorp “An unusually thoughtful exploration of the “inner” aspects of leadership, particularly in the business arena.... Eschewing easy answers and ten-point plans to success, presenting the insights he has garnered from forward-looking thinkers including David Bohm and Rupert Sheldrake, Jaworski offers a searching and wise brief that deserves to be read in boardrooms everywhere.” —Publishers Weekly




Centered Leadership


Book Description

What enables some talented people to rise to the top and live their full ambitions at work and in life, while others stop short? In 2007, Joanna Barsh led a team at McKinsey & Company to answer that very question. In the process, they uncovered what distinguishes leaders who are successful from those who achieve true greatness, developing an approach called Centered Leadership. They drew on research from across the academic fields of leadership, organization behavior, neuroscience, evolutionary psychology and positive psychology. In addition, Barsh interviewed over 160 leaders from many fields – including business, government and the arts – and from many countries. With quantitative research, the team learned that these leaders have mastered practices to find their balance in the midst of chaos and lead from their most resourceful selves, unleashing the potential of others. In 2009, Johanne Lavoie joined to lead development of programs that help executives build these capabilities. Their research and development work continues as more and more leaders experience Centered Leadership. In the business bestseller, How Remarkable Women Lead, Barsh described Centered Leadership’s five capabilities and the research that underpins it. Here, with colleague Johanne Lavoie, Barsh provides a practical, actionable field guide for implementation. In Centered Leadership, Barsh and Lavoie will guide you through the Centered Leadership program. You’ll find the interactive tools, exercises, and practices that have helped the men and women participants in Centered Leadership programs gain the skills, courage and confidence to lead. And, along the way, you’ll read inspiring stories of remarkable men and women leaders who demonstrate the power of these skills in action. Those early in their careers will learn how to use these skills to explore their passions and accelerate their professional development. Those forming families will be able to use them to reconcile manage work and life to get the most out of both. And those who have already achieved success will be able use these practices to reach their next leadership horizon. No matter what stage you are currently at in your career, or what level of leadership you aspire to, this book will equip you with the tools to unlock your own Centered Leader and achieve more positive impact at work and outside it.




The Inner Work


Book Description

The Inner Work will take you on a hero's journey through the uncharted depths of your subconscious mind to understand your shadows and unlock the greatness of your full potential. Through the uprooting of limiting beliefs and transcendence of themes of consciousness which perpetuate suffering, true freedom and lasting happiness will finally be revealed. By process of radical self-analysis and a practical three-step method, The Inner Work invites you to let go of your struggle with life. If you are a human, and you want to be happy, this book is for you.




Leadership, New and Revised


Book Description

It has been more than a decade since the first edition of Peter Koestenbaum's landmark book Leadership: The Inner Side of Greatness was published. Since that time world events have caused a dramatic shift in how we think about our lives and our work. Now we grapple with the fundamental questions. How can we live a courageous life and manage anxiety? Is it possible to reach greater heights of ethics and responsibility? Peter Koestenbaum, the preeminent business philosopher, has been a trusted mentor to business leaders worldwide. In this thoroughly revised edition of his classic book he shares his wisdom about the fundamental nature of leadership and shows what it takes to become an exceptional and passionate leader in today's complex world. At the very heart of the book is his Leadership Diamond model— a paradigm that challenges managers to transform their thinking and approach everything with fresh effectiveness in order to reap richer results and become great leaders. Throughout the book, Koestenbaum encourages managers to give meaning to their lives through the quality of their work. He offers an insightful look at the characteristics great leaders have in common— vision, reality, ethics, and courage— and identifies the strategies all managers can use to achieve and sustain both personal and organizational greatness. This new edition expands on Kosetenbaum's leadership theories and is filled with updated examples-such as an analysis of the Enron scandal-that reflect the challenges of today's business environment. The book also includes a wealth of new intervention tools, techniques, and strategies, and an expanded section contains reflections on moral and cultural issues that emphasize the importance of authenticity in leadership. More than ever, Leadership: The Inner Side of Greatness is the book managers need to learn what they must be to become truly effective leaders.




Leadership from the Inside Out


Book Description

You can serve God and his people for a lifetime and do it with passion and joy. You do not have to become another casualty in the growing number of leaders who have compromised their integrity, character, and ministry because they failed to lead an examined and accountable life. The road forward is clearly marked. Leaders must make a decision to humbly and consistently examine their inner lives and identify areas of needed change and growth. Also, wise leaders commit to listen to the voices of those who will love them enough to speak the truth and point out problems and potential pitfalls. Kevin Harney writes, “The vision of this book is to assist leaders as they discover the health, wisdom, and joy of living an examined life. It is also to give practical tools for self-examination.” Sharing stories and wisdom from his years in ministry, Harney shows you how to maintain the most powerful tool in your leadership toolbox: YOU. Your heart, so you can love well. Your mind, so you can continue to learn and grow. Your ears, your eyes, your mouth ... consider this your essential guide to conducting your own complete interior health exam, so you can spot and fix any problems, preserve the things that matter most, and grow as a source of vision, strength, and hope to others.




Inner Work


Book Description

Much of the workday, in mindshare and time, is dedicated to outer work: meetings with co-workers, interactions with customers, or working on a deck or other tangible deliverables. For most of us, this is the very definition of "work": external, externally-focused activity. Inner Work puts forth an assertion that is novel today, but that successful leaders have known for millennia: inner work--the practice of thoughtful attention to the inner experience of yourself and others--is "work" as well, and of crucial importance; not just as a question of wellness or employee satisfaction, but as the engine of a potential transformation in the efficacy (and, yes, happiness) of most organizational workplaces. Inner Work draws on a legacy of thought that spans both the Western and Eastern traditions to frame leadership, creativity, and work as an inner experience. For thousands of years across geographies and cultures, humans have understood that leadership and productivity depend on an individual's inner balance and understanding. The importance of these lessons in a knowledge economy is well understood today--from Netflix to Zappos to Google to Valve, leading companies are constantly seeking to create value by empowering employees to unlock their own potential. And for the individual--leader, employee, or both--the need is even more urgent and plain: how can you create more value in your work for your human life? Inner Work is a book about self-exploration; it's also a toolkit for how to improve. Its assertion is that, by looking into ourselves with rigor and integrity, we each have the power to achieve both these goals. This is a book that will help leaders and employees create value for themselves and their organizations by actively exploring their own inner processes, values, and mental models: the tools we use, constantly, to operate in the world.




The Progress Principle


Book Description

What really sets the best managers above the rest? It’s their power to build a cadre of employees who have great inner work lives—consistently positive emotions; strong motivation; and favorable perceptions of the organization, their work, and their colleagues. The worst managers undermine inner work life, often unwittingly. As Teresa Amabile and Steven Kramer explain in The Progress Principle, seemingly mundane workday events can make or break employees’ inner work lives. But it’s forward momentum in meaningful work—progress—that creates the best inner work lives. Through rigorous analysis of nearly 12,000 diary entries provided by 238 employees in 7 companies, the authors explain how managers can foster progress and enhance inner work life every day. The book shows how to remove obstacles to progress, including meaningless tasks and toxic relationships. It also explains how to activate two forces that enable progress: (1) catalysts—events that directly facilitate project work, such as clear goals and autonomy—and (2) nourishers—interpersonal events that uplift workers, including encouragement and demonstrations of respect and collegiality. Brimming with honest examples from the companies studied, The Progress Principle equips aspiring and seasoned leaders alike with the insights they need to maximize their people’s performance.