J-B Warren Bennis

An inspirational and practical guide for anyone who wants to incorporate the dynamic skills of entrepreneurs into their own lives and work. A new generation of "life entrepreneurs" is emerging people who apply their vision, talents, creativity, and energy not only to their work but to their entire lives, changing the world for themselves and those around them. In this book, successful entrepreneurs Christopher Gergen and Gregg Vanourek draw on numerous interviews with fifty-five leading entrepreneurs worldwide as well as the wisdom of multiple thought leaders to provide vivid examples, moving vignettes, concrete frameworks, and practical strategies for revving up our work and play through entrepreneurial leadership. This book starts by providing strategies for integrating life, work, and purpose and ends by capturing the implications of the current entrepreneurial boom for our workplaces, learning institutions, communities, and families.

Although it was first published more than thirty-five years ago, Up the Organization continues to top the lists of best business books by groups as diverse as the American Management Association, Strategy + Business (Booz Allen Hamilton), and The Wharton Center for Leadership and Change Management. 1-800-CEO-READ ranks Townsend's bestseller first among eighty books that "every manager must read." This commemorative edition offers a new generation the benefit of Robert Townsend's timeless wisdom as well as reflections on his work and life by those who knew and worked with him. This groundbreaking book continues to remind us not to get mired in all those sacred organizational routines that stifle people and strangle both profits and profitability. He shows a way to humanize business and a way to have fun while making it all work better than it ever worked before.

In Transparency, the authors—a powerhouse trio in the field of leadership—look at what conspires against "a culture of candor" in organizations to create disastrous results, and suggest ways that leaders can achieve healthy and honest openness. They explore the lightning-rod concept of "transparency"—which has fast become the buzzword not only in business and corporate settings but in government and the social sector as well. Together Bennis, Goleman, and O'Toole explore why the containment of truth is the dearest held value of far too many organizations and suggest practical ways that organizations, their leaders, their members, and their boards can achieve openness. After years of dedicating themselves to research and theory, at first separately, and now jointly, these three leadership giants reveal the multifaceted importance of candor and show what promotes transparency and what hinders it. They describe how leaders often stymie the flow of information and the structural impediments that keep information from getting where it needs to go. This vital resource is written for any organization—business, government, and nonprofit—that must achieve a culture of candor, truth, and transparency.

In this second edition of his bestselling book, author Art Kleiner explores the nature of effective leadership in times of change and defines its importance to the corporation of the future. He describes a heretic as a visionary who creates change in large-scale companies, balancing the contrary truths they can't deny against their loyalty to their organizations. The Age of Heretics reveals how managers can get stuck in counterproductive ways of doing things and shows why it takes a heretical point of view to get past the deadlock and move forward.

One of the country's most trusted leaders offers time-tested and real world advice for leading in economic hard times From business giant Bill George, the acclaimed author of Wall Street Journal's bestseller True North, comes the just-in-time guide for anyone in a leadership position facing today's unprecedented economic challenges. The former CEO of Medtronic draws from his own in-the-trenches experience and lessons from leaders (representing an array of companies) who have weathered tough economic storms. With straight talk and clear directions, George shows leaders specifically what they must do to become strong leaders and survive any crisis. His seven lessons include: Face Reality, Starting with Yourself, Never Waste a Good Crisis, and Be Aggressive: This is Your Best Chance to Win in the Market. “Seven Lessons for Leading in Crisis” is a survival kit for anyone in a leadership position. • A concise handbook for applying proven leadership lessons in tough times • Written by Bill George one of America's most trusted business leaders • Offers realistic actions leaders can take to put their companies on the right long-term path “Seven Lessons for Leading in Crisis” gives leaders a solid strategy for staying the course.

IN THIS FOLLOW-UP BOOK to the best-selling Driven, Harvard professor Paul Lawrence applies his four-drive theory of human behavior to the realm of leadership, explaining how leadership-like all human behavior-can be understood as a function of the balance, or lack of balance, of four basic human drives: the drive to acquire, to defend, to comprehend, and to bond. We achieve an optimal state of leadership when all four drives are cultivated and balanced. In this next-step resource, Lawrence uses historical examples and current leadership crises to explain how the balance of the four drives results in one of three types of leadership: • Good leadership: The best leaders, followers, and stakeholders fulfill the four drives in a balanced manner. • Misguided leadership: These leaders, followers, and stakeholders fulfill one or some of their four drives while ignoring or suppressing the others. • Evil leadership: Defines leaders who are missing the drive to bond and have influence over others and only fulfill their drives to acquire, defend, and comprehend. Driven to Lead explains the biological underpinnings of leadership behavior and offers a compelling discussion of the history of leadership. It examines the critical turning points in the leadership of political institutions, the rise of the corporation as the leading economic institution, and the leadership of religious, artistic, and scientific organizations. Based on theories that are universal, testable, and actionable, Driven to Lead brings to light a general theory of human behavior that can be used to cultivate good leadership and leaders who have a balance of the four drives.

A fresh, effective, and enduring way to lead-starting with your next interaction Most leaders feel the inevitable interruptions in their jam-packed days are troublesome. But in TouchPoints, Conant and Norgaard argue that these-and every point of contact with other people-are overlooked opportunities for leaders to increase their impact and promote their organization's strategy and values. Through previously untold stories from Conant's tenure as CEO of Campbell Soup Company and Norgaard's vast consulting experience, the authors show that a leader's impact and legacy are built through hundreds, even thousands, of interactive moments in time. The good news is that anyone can develop "TouchPoint" mastery by focusing on three essential components: head, heart, and hands. TouchPoints speaks to the theory and craft of leadership, promoting a balanced presence of rational, authentic, active, and wise leadership practices. Leadership mastery in the smallest and otherwise ordinary moments can transform aimless activity in individuals and entropy in organizations into focused energy-one magical moment at a time.

A proven system for rallying all of an organizations' employees around a new vision and ideas for making the vision stick When something at work isn't going smoothly, managers struggle with what part of the problem to tackle first. Do they start with cost reduction? Or should they go for process improvements first? The authors-who have helped hundreds of companies and individuals change and improve-say spend time and money adjusting the systems in which people operate, rather than targeting people and their performance directly. The authors show that it's in fact possible to change everything at once-with a focus on making such transformations permanent and repeatable. • Brand-new Introduction • Filled with illustrative examples from Northrup Grumman, BHP-Billiton, Reebok, Harvard Business School, and many others • Two experts in the field show how to make major transformations happen The book outlines a process for engaging all employees to buy-in to an improved vision of an organization's new and improved future.

An update of the classic book that reveals the 6 keys to successful management. In this new edition of his best-selling book, Robert Benfari explains that the best mangers are not born that way but share a mix of characteristics that can be analyzed, understood, and most importantly changed. He identifies the six characteristics of successful managers (Psychological Type, Needs/Motivation, Use of Power, Conflict Style, Our Basic Values, and Our Reaction to Stress) and uses these building blocks to show how anyone can use personality-specific strategies for resolving conflicts, solving problems, managing stress, handling difficult situations at work, and positively influencing others. • Includes a proven pathway for becoming an effective manager • Contains new information on management style and leadership, human nature and neuroscience, and the dark side of management • Includes a self-assessment for each of the six building blocks to successful management This research-based book offers the tools leaders need to improve their management style and succeed in the workplace.

In The Art of Waking People Up authors Kenneth Cloke and Joan Goldsmith draw on more than thirty years of practical experience with hundreds of organizations-- from Fortune 500 companies to government agencies, schools, and nonprofits-- to reveal new ways of giving and receiving feedback that maximize personal and organizational change and foster lifelong learning. They show how organizations can develop the systems, processes, techniques, and relationships that affirm, rather than undermine, the intelligence and humanity of their employees. This important resource is filled with the necessary tools, interventions, and strategies managers can use to encourage their employees to speak, hear, absorb, and use the information they need to improve the way they work.

In The Art of Waking People Up authors Kenneth Cloke and Joan Goldsmith draw on more than thirty years of practical experience with hundreds of organizations- from Fortune 500 companies to government agencies, schools, and nonprofits- to reveal new ways of giving and receiving feedback that maximize personal and organizational change and foster lifelong learning. They show how organizations can develop the systems, processes, techniques, and relationships that affirm, rather than undermine, the intelligence and humanity of their employees. This important resource is filled with the necessary tools, interventions, and strategies managers can use to encourage their employees to speak, hear, absorb, and use the information they need to improve the way they work.

The hands-on guide for fostering relentless innovation within your company Gerard Tellis, a noted expert on innovation, advertising, and global markets, makes the compelling case that the culture of a firm is the crucial driver of an organization's innovativeness. In this groundbreaking book he describes the three traits and three practices necessary to create a culture of relentless innovation. Organizations must be willing to cannibalize successful products, embrace risk, and focus on the future. Organizations build these traits by providing incentives for enterprise, empowering product champions, and encouraging internal markets. Spelling out the critical role of culture, the author provides illustrative examples of organizations with winning cultures and explores the theory and evidence for each of the six components of culture. The book concludes with a discussion of why culture is superior to alternate theories for fostering innovation. • Offers a groundbreaking take on innovation that is driven by a company's culture • Shows what it takes to create a culture of innovation within any organization • Based on a study of 770 companies across 15 countries, the origin of 90 radical innovations spanning over 100 years, and the evolution of 66 markets spanning over a 100 years • Provides numerous mini cases to illustrate the workings of culture • Written by Gerard Tellis director of the Center for Global Innovation This must-have resource clearly shows the role of culture in driving relentless innovation and how to foster it within any organization.

Moral Leadership brings together in one comprehensive volume essays from leading scholars in law, leadership, psychology, political science, and ethics to provide practical, theoretical policy guidance. The authors explore key questions about moral leadership such as: • How do leaders form, sustain, and transmit moral commitments? • Under what conditions are those processes most effective? • What is the impact of ethics officers, codes, training programs, and similar initiatives? • How do standards and practices vary across context and culture? • What can we do at the individual, organizational, and societal level to foster moral leadership? Throughout the book, the contributors identify what people know, and only think they know, about the role of ethics in key decision-making positions. The essays focus on issues such as the definition and importance of moral leadership and the factors that influence its exercise, along with practical strategies for promoting ethical behavior. Moral Leadership addresses the dynamics of moral leadership, with particular emphasis on major obstacles that stand in its way: impaired judgment, self-interest, and power. Finally, the book explores moral leadership in a variety of contexts?business and the professions, nonprofit organizations, and the international arena.

Leadership the Hard Way presents a method of living and working that can truly facilitate the learning of leadership. Their method shows how to go against the current, fight conventional wisdom, and embrace the unexpected. It is about trusting oneself and valuing intuition, principles, and imagination as much as hard skills and analysis. Frohman combines his counterintuitive ideas with experiences from his own background – from escaping the Nazis as a child to becoming a leading innovator in the semiconductor industry – to show how readers can build their own leadership abilities. A leader’s values and personality, he ultimately reveals, are the only sure source of stability in a world of continuous change.

Have you ever been led by someone who cared for you like family, and dared you to achieve more than you ever thought possible for yourself, your organization, and even society? Award-winning author of Hostage at the Table, George Kohlrieser, along with his co-authors Susan Goldsworthy and Duncan Coombe, explain how becoming a secure base leader releases extraordinary potential in others. Part of the Warren Bennis leadership series Care to Dare shows you how to become a Secure Base Leader so that you release your followers from the fears that get in the way of their performance. It shows you how you can unleash astonishing potential by building the trust, delivering the change, and inspiring the focus that underpins sustainable high performance. From extensive interviews with executives from all over the world, as well as from surveys with more than a thousand executives, the book reveals the nine characteristics that Secure Base Leaders display on a daily basis. The research shows that a primary difference between a successful leader and a failed leader is the presence or absence of secure bases in his or her life. Care to Dare will take you on a journey where you will discover your own secure bases, past and present, and determine how you can be a secure base for other people in your life at work and at home.

An unmatched exercise in leadership and self-discovery, written by a bestselling author and the preeminent thought leader on authentic leadership today In the newly revised “Emerging Leader Edition of the True North Fieldbook”, seasoned executive and Harvard Business School Executive Fellow Bill George delivers an eye-opening discussion of how to find your leadership purpose: your True North. Through a series of reflective exercises, you'll become a better leader by reconnecting with what makes you effective and unique. In the guide, the author walks you through your own life story, sharpening your personal narrative through an intimate process of personal discovery. You'll discover the same lessons taught to MBA students at Harvard Business School and senior executives in many Fortune 100 companies. “The Emerging Leader Edition of the True North Fieldbook” also offers: • New and updated case studies and content from up-and-coming leaders about navigating crises • Strategies for encouraging diversity and inclusivity without engaging in tokenism • Ways to generate a customized, behaviorally anchored Leadership Development Plan that supports immediate action and impact A can't-miss roadmap to authentic leadership efficacy, the “True North Fieldbook” will open your eyes to the once-in-a-lifetime leadership opportunities that await you.