Leadership doesn’t have to be a top-down proposition. In fact, the best leaders influence those who are below and above them, as well as people external to the organization, such as customers and partners. This 360 degrees of influence is what separates the good leader from the great leader.
Founder of the global executive coaching firm GuruMaker, Harrison Monarth makes a living helping top figures in business and politics hone their influencing, communication, persuasion, impression management, and media skills. He teaches leaders how to operate without relying on spin or manipulation.
Now, in 360 Degrees of Influence, Monarth provides everything you need to gain the trust and respect of those around you—no matter where they’re positioned in the organizational hierarchy—and expand your influence well beyond your immediate environment. Providing valuable insight into human emotion and behavior, Monarth reveals the secrets to becoming the most psychologically astute person in the room—so you can be the most influential leader in the room. Learn how to:
Assess your current influencing power
Overcome resistance to your ideas and proposals
Know what people are thinking and feeling—even better than they do
Avoid the most common decision-making pitfalls
Create an influence strategy tailored to your organization’s hierarchy
In addition to sharing insight he has gleaned during years of coaching leading executives, Monarth includes practice exercises, checklists, self-evaluations, and worksheets to help you tackle the challenge of influence and leadership head on.
Right now, one of your own counterparts might be exerting influence over you and your boss. You can do the same thing. Apply the lessons of 360 Degrees of Influence to place yourself in the best possible position to lead the leaders.
GREATNESS is a motivational book whose target audience is found in business and self-help. It is a life book, aimed at inspiring others to achieve their personal and professional best. Opening with an in-depth discussion of the nature of Greatness-what it is, what it is not, and why it is worth pursing-each subsequent chapter of the book consists of a detailed story illustrating one aspect of Greatness with examples from the sports greats that Don has interviewed over the years. This will be followed by a discussion and other related examples. There are also practical tips and plans for assisting the reader in implementing new habits, routines, practices, and philosophies of Greatness into his or her daily life. As each characteristic is outlined, the reader is challenged to look for areas in his or her professional and personal lives that can be improved by embracing these lessons.
As Don often says during his speeches, "Though these characteristics are culled from some of the greatest winners in sports, not a single one requires you to be able to touch your toes! These iconic figures in sports have provided a classroom for us to learn about their pursuit of Greatness. You don't have to be good at sports - heck, you don't even have to like sports - to benefit from their lessons."
It is the strong belief of those who Don has talked to over the years that greatness is available to all of us. Not in the same way or on the same field, mind you. But we all have the capacity to achieve greatness if we'll give the same dedication to these characteristics as do the winners presented and interviewed in GREATNESS.
One of the nation's biggest music labels briefly signed Taylor Swift to a contract but let her go because she didn't seem worth more than $15,000 a year. At least four book publishers passed on the first Harry Potter novel rather than pay J. K. Rowling a $5,000 advance. And the same pattern happens in nearly every business.
Anyone who recruits talent faces the same basic challenge, whether we work for a big company, a new start-up, a Hollywood studio, a hospital, or the Green Berets. We all wonder how to tell the really outstanding prospects from the ones who look great on paper but then fail on the job. Or, equally important, how to spot the ones who don't look so good on paper but might still deliver extraordinary performance.
Over the past few decades, technology has made recruiting in all fields vastly more sophisticated. Gut instincts have yielded to benchmarks. If we want elaborate dossiers on candidates, we can gather facts (and video) by the gigabyte. And yet the results are just as spotty as they were in the age of the rotary phone.
George Anders sought out the world's savviest talent judges to see what they do differently from the rest of us. He reveals how the U.S. Army finds soldiers with the character to be in Special Forces without asking them to fire a single bullet. He takes us to an elite basketball tournament in South Carolina, where the best scouts watch the game in a radically different way from the casual fan. He talks to researchers who are reinventing the process of hiring Fortune 500 CEOs.
Drawing on the best advice of these and other talent masters, Anders reveals powerful ideas you can apply to your own hiring.
Build your mental "muscles" to achieve any business goal
People with inborn talent may be good at what they do--but only the mentally tough reach the highest plateaus in their field. And here's the best news of all: mental toughness is something anyone can learn. Director of mental training for the St. Louis Cardinals and a top-tier executive coach, Jason Selk knows everything there is to know about developing the mental toughness required for achieving any goal in you set for yourself. In fact, the techniques he outlines in this book are the same ones he used to help the Cardinals defeat the heavily favored Detroit Tigers in the 2006 World Series. Based on the vision of legendary basketball coach John Wooden, Selk's program is a simple as it is effective. But that doesn't mean it's easy. You have to put effort into your drive to success; it's the only way to build up your mental "muscles." So Selk provides hands-on daily exercises for breaking old, self-defeating patterns of behavior and replacing them with the kind can-do attitude and positive behavior that would make Coach Wooden proud. Executive Toughness outlines the three fundamentals for achieving any goal: ACCOUNTABILITY--admit to mistakes, correct them, and, most importantly, learn from them FOCUS--on your strengths, on winning, on reaching your goal ...for only 100 seconds per day OPTIMISM--don't just believe you can succeed, know you can succeed Executive Toughness takes you through the steps of making these critical behaviors part of your everyday routine. Practice your accountability, focus, and optimism, and you'll be on the path to attaining your goals; make them part of your mental "DNA," and there will be no turning back--ever. A complete regimen from a leading expert on developing the mindset for attaining goals, Executive Toughness is your workout for ultimate success in your career and in your life. Jason Selkthe author of 10-Minute Toughness, Director of Mental Training for the St. Louis Cardinals, and an executive coach.
Solving the Leadership Jigsaw Puzzle. You have a key leadership job to fill. You want the very best person. What exactly does this really mean?
How often have you seen someone with great credentials and terrific buzz take an important job, but before long people are wondering “what exactly were we thinking?”
Getting the best person is less about finding an individual superstar and more about deeply understanding what your organization needs, the kind of person who will fit into your culture and bring the right experience and skills to get the job done.
Based on decades of experience at Spencer Stuart, the gold standard in executive search, Jim Citrin and Julie Daum cut through conventional wisdom and “rules of thumb,” whether the job that needs filling is that of CEO or a key leader in marketing, technology, finance, or human resources.
Landmark original research from the United States, the UK, Germany, France, and the Netherlands provides evidence for how an organization can diagnose its needs and decide on who is the right leader for a specific situation at a particular point in time, and whether an outsider or insider would best fit the bill.
Eye-opening case studies, including how the New York Public Library worked its way through the maze of pressures—rapidly changing technologies, diverse, demanding constituencies, changing demographics and economic forces—to find the president who could best carry on its mission in the twenty-first century; how Starwood Hotels assessed the value of experience versus potential in choosing a CEO; the person who failed in one circumstance but achieved extraordinary success in others.
Steering clear of the red herrings of age, experience, and ethnicity
Avoiding the biggest traps of leadership selection, such as “his charisma was intoxicating,” and “we thought we really knew him.”
In a competitive environment as challenging as today’s, the one difference, as Sheryl Sandberg, the COO of Facebook notes, “Between companies that change the world and those that don’t is having the right people.” You Need a Leader—Now What? is the must-have guide for navigating the terrain.
Millions of employees parked in cubicles dream about starting their own businesses. And in today’s economy, countless unemployed professionals are becoming entrepreneurs out of necessity. They may have good skills and ideas, but do they really understand what it takes to build a profitable venture?
As owner and co-founder of the award-winning It’sYourBiz.com (formerly SBTV.com, or Small Business Television), Susan Solovic has years of experience in the small business trenches. In It’s Your Biz she shows prospective entrepreneurs how to sidestep the pitfalls that doom more than half of all new businesses while dramatically improving their odds of success.
The book strips away the usual dreamy calls to “pursue your passion,” supplying the kind of candid, real-world advice readers truly need.
It’s only because they like me. I was in the right place at the right time. I just work harder than the others. I don’t deserve this. It’s just a matter of time before I am found out. Someone must have made a terrible mistake.
If you are a working woman, chances are this internal monologue sounds all too familiar. And you’re not alone. From the high-achieving Ph.D. candidate convinced she’s only been admitted to the program because of a clerical error to the senior executive who worries others will find out she’s in way over her head, a shocking number of accomplished women in all career paths and at every level feel as though they are faking it—impostors in their own lives and careers.
While the impostor syndrome is not unique to women, women are more apt to agonize over tiny mistakes, see even constructive criticism as evidence of their shortcomings, and chalk up their accomplishments to luck rather than skill. They often unconsciously overcompensate with crippling perfectionism, overpreparation, maintaining a lower profile, withholding their talents and opinions, or never finishing important projects. When they do succeed, they think, Phew, I fooled ’em again.
An internationally known speaker, Valerie Young has devoted her career to understanding women’s most deeply held beliefs about themselves and their success. In her decades of in-the-trenches research, she has uncovered the often surprising reasons why so many accomplished women experience this crushing self-doubt.
In The Secret Thoughts of Successful Women, Young gives these women the solution they have been seeking. Combining insightful analysis with effective advice and anecdotes, she explains what the impostor syndrome is, why fraud fears are more common in women, and how you can recognize the way it manifests in your life. With her empowering, step-by-step plan, you will learn to take ownership of your success, overcome self-doubt, and banish the thought patterns that undermine your ability to feel—and act—as bright and capable as others already know you are.
Supercharge your business effectiveness with iPad 2–in the office, on the road, everywhere!
Got an iPad 2? Put it to work! If you’re a manager, entrepreneur, or professional… a consultant, salesperson, or freelancer… this book will make you more efficient, more effective, and more successful!
It’s packed with easy, nontechnical business solutions you can use right now—each presented with quick, foolproof, full-color instructions. Securely connect your iPad 2 to your network; sync your email, contacts, calendar, Office documents, and smartphone; make the most of iPad 2’s latest productivity apps; capture up-to-the-minute news and financial data; even discover powerful specialized apps for your job and your industry.
You already know how much fun your iPad 2 is, now discover how incredibly productive it can be, too!
Based on more than forty interviews with Jobs conducted over two years—as well as interviews with more than a hundred family members, friends, adversaries, competitors, and colleagues—Walter Isaacson has written a riveting story of the roller-coaster life and searingly intense personality of a creative entrepreneur whose passion for perfection and ferocious drive revolutionized six industries: personal computers, animated movies, music, phones, tablet computing, and digital publishing.
At a time when America is seeking ways to sustain its innovative edge, and when societies around the world are trying to build digital-age economies, Jobs stands as the ultimate icon of inventiveness and applied imagination. He knew that the best way to create value in the twenty-first century was to connect creativity with technology. He built a company where leaps of the imagination were combined with remarkable feats of engineering.
Although Jobs cooperated with this book, he asked for no control over what was written nor even the right to read it before it was published. He put nothing off-limits. He encouraged the people he knew to speak honestly. And Jobs speaks candidly, sometimes brutally so, about the people he worked with and competed against. His friends, foes, and colleagues provide an unvarnished view of the passions, perfectionism, obsessions, artistry, devilry, and compulsion for control that shaped his approach to business and the innovative products that resulted.
Driven by demons, Jobs could drive those around him to fury and despair. But his personality and products were interrelated, just as Apple’s hardware and software tended to be, as if part of an integrated system. His tale is instructive and cautionary, filled with lessons about innovation, character, leadership, and values.
