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15 Best Leadership Books a Leader Should Read

26/03/2015 /

According to John Coleman, ‘broad reading habits are often a defining characteristic of our greatest leaders’. Actually reading has shown to lead many benefits in leadership development: it improves communication, emotional intelligence and organizational effectiveness and reduces stress.

Unfortunately, nowadays business people seems to be reading less, maybe because they are not sufficiently convinced of the importance of reading, they don’t know what they should read or because they think they don’t have the time.

In this article on Lifehack, Joe Vennare identifies some 15 best leadership books  especially would-be leaders need to read to define leadership and how applied it, communicate and motivate teamwork, and keep going on.

The Bus Metaphor

24/03/2015 /

The right people in the right seats on the bus: this is the metaphor from the first Jim Collins best-seller ‘Good to Great’. In that book – published in 2001 – the author identifies what leaders need to do, in order to see their teams and organizations excel. And he uses the power of an image to communicate the following concept.

According to Collins, leaders who are able to transform their organizations begin not by setting a direction, but by getting the right people on the bus – and the wrong people off the bus.

Actually great leaders understand the following three simple truths:

1. If you begin with “who,” rather than “what”, you can more easily adapt to a changing world.

2. If you have the right people on the bus, the problem of how to motivate and manage people largely goes away, because they will be self-motivated by the inner drive to produce the best results and to be part of creating something great.

3. If you have the wrong people, it doesn’t matter whether you discover the right direction; you still won’t have a great company.

Assembling the team is the first crucial point. Then a leader has to develop a vision (the direction of the bus), to remove obstacles to high performance (that is, maybe people are not exactly in the right seats and need to be assigned to the right role) and to help people with diverse talents and interests building trust in each other.

It is an hard work, but leaders need it to accomplish objectives with the right people.

Bus

Image source: http://bit.ly/16TU0QU

 

Fail to Succeed

21/03/2015 /

I’ve missed over 9,000 shots in my career.
I’ve lost almost 300 games.
26 times I’ve been trusted to take the game-winning shot and missed.
I’ve failed over and over and over again in my life.
And that is why I succeed – Michael Jordan

image

Image source: Flickr – Ryan Fung (CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)

 

Five Inspiring Habits of Effective Leaders

19/03/2015 /

Becoming an effective leader is not a one-time thing. It takes time to learn and practice leadership skills until they become a part of us.

Taking time to analyze the habits of effective leaders is an important exercise allowing us to recognize both the good and the bad characteristics, in order to shape our leadership style.

Below are just five habits we can emulate:

1. Taking calculated risks;

2. Fostering a positive work culture;

3. Encouraging innovation;

4. Leading by example;

5. Remaining graceful under pressure.

Read more on: http://bit.ly/1KIhTtB

Leader

Image source: http://bit.ly/16RQplZ

 

Top Team Building Activities

17/03/2015 /

Team building activities are essential in creating a productive team, since they serve to increase communication among team members in a positive working environment. Actually staff are most productive when they are happy within they role, and feel that they are making a valued contribution to the team’s goals.

Team building does not have to be painful, annoying or even embarrassing. There are many valuable team building exercises that can be effective in uniting groups, developing individual skills and collective strengths.

There are four main types of team building activities, which includes:

1. communication activities and icebreakers;

2. problem solving and/or decision making activities;

3. adaptability and/or planning activities;

4. building trust.

If you want to learn more on team building activities, read here: http://www.huddle.com/blog/team-building-activities/

teamwork concept on blackboard

Image source: http://bit.ly/1uEy4E9

Professional Challenges in Modern Times

12/03/2015 /
The dilemma of gratification at work: changing job or making changes?
Work wise, keeping up professional satisfaction can be very challenging in modern times. Perhaps, the problem is not the fact that our job is uninteresting, but it is our attitude towards it that makes it tedious.
The article written by Tiana Tucker suggests that we can make our job much more appealing by finding new challenging tasks.
15036695694_7fa98afceb
Image source: Flickr – www.brevestoriadelcinema.org (CC BY 2.0)

 

How to Learn a New Language in Six Months

10/03/2015 /

Chris Lonsdale is a psychologist from New Zealand who runs a company in Hong Kong. After spending many years assessing all of the research available on language learning, he was able to formulate five principles and seven actions that will allow any adult to learn a new language and speak it fluently in six months.

Discover Lonsdale’s approach in his TED Talk.

Being diplomatic at work

05/03/2015 /

Mary Wroblewski, in her article How to become a diplomatic employee published by The Global Post, suggests 9 steps to reach such an ambitious goal.

Step 1 – Listen carefully and respectfully to your co-workers, especially those whose ideas differ from your own.

Step 2 – Refrain from criticizing your coworkers. If you disagree with a coworker about an idea or decision, don’t tell him you think he’s wrong or question his competence.

Step 3 – Avoid participating in workplace gossip or other behaviors that might pit one side of the workplace against another.

Step 4 – Demonstrate compassion, support and encouragement to coworkers who disagree with a particular strategy or agenda.

Step 5 – Build a consensus by soliciting feedback and ideas.

Step 6 – Recognize when conditions deteriorate and take proactive measures.

Step 7 – Maintain your composure when tempers flare.

Step 8 – Acknowledge your mistakes when they occur.

Step 9 – Share credit with others for accomplishments.

Read here the full article: http://bit.ly/1uDPX6b

6231641551_541c96e583Image source: Flickr – highersights (CC. by 2.0)

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