Leadership Psychology

The biggest threat facing modern business is the sheer complexity of an uncertain future. That, and the fact that everyone is busy. Too busy for progress. Workplace cultures have become cursed with efficiency. And so when it comes to developing strategy, we default to our defaults. We favor quick fixes, easy templates, and familiar approaches, developing 'robust plans' that do little to mitigate strategic risk or generate new value. The result? The future comes, and businesses die.

A charismatic, heart-warming business memoir that's filled with life lessons on overcoming obstacles, Copy This! is a book for every business owner looking to grow a company, every manager helping his team perform, every visionary trying to launch a new idea, and for every mother and father of a child suffering from dyslexia or Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder.

When a group of people gather together to generate ideas for solving a problem or achieving a goal, sometimes the best ideas are passed over. Worse, a problematic suggestion with far less likelihood of success may be selected instead. Why would a group dismiss an option that would be more effective? Leadership and communications expert John Daly has a straightforward answer: It wasn't sold to them as well. If the best idea is yours, how can you increase the chances that it gains the support of the group? In Advocacy: Championing Ideas and Influencing Others, Daly explains in full detail how to transform ideas into practice.

For decades, alarms have sounded about declining engagement. Yet companies continue to struggle with toxic cultures, and the low productivity and unhappiness that go with them. Why is "culture" so difficult to improve? What makes so many good employees check out? Neuroscientist Paul Zak shows that innate brain functions hold the answers. It all boils down to trust. When someone shows you trust, a feel-good jolt of oxytocin surges through your brain and triggers you to reciprocate.

Relying on extensive research and interviews, and carefully examined personal experience, The Likeability Trap delivers an essential examination of the pressure put on women to be amiable at work, home, and in the public sphere, and explores the price women pay for internalizing those demands. Rather than advising listeners to make themselves likeable, Menendez empowers them to examine how they perceive themselves and others and explores how the concept of likeability is riddled with cultural biases.

Distilling the primary lessons of Ferguson's phenomenal success as manager at Manchester United and showing how you can apply them to you own personal goals, this book explains Ferguson's approach to people management, changing mind-sets, visualisation, building confidence and embracing change - all techniques at the heart of turning Manchester United into a winning machine.

Science confirms the distinction between the biological brain and the conscious mind. Each day, a game of mind versus matter plays out on a field defined by the problems we must solve. Most are routine, and don't demand a more mindful approach. It's when we're faced with more difficult challenges that our thinking becomes vulnerable to brain patterns that can lead us astray.

Leadership is a set of abilities with which a lucky few are born. They're the natural relationship builders, master negotiators and persuaders, and agile and strategic thinkers. The good news for the rest of us is that those abilities can be developed. In The Leader's Brain: Enhance Your Leadership, Build Stronger Teams, Make Better Decisions, and Inspire Greater Innovation with Neuroscience, Wharton Neuroscience Initiative Director Michael Platt explains how.

We have hundreds of conversations every week, yet rarely think about the words we use. But the way we describe ourselves and the world around us profoundly shapes our decisions, emotions and action. The Power of Words delves into our minds, showing us how a simple shift in our language can lead to personal growth and positive change. Drawing from his extensive research in neuroscience and his role as one of the directors of the Human Brain Project, Mariano Sigman reveals that our minds are much more malleable than we think.

Despite Jesus' prayer that all Christians "be one", divisions have been epidemic in the body of Christ from the beginning to the present. We cluster in theological groups, gender groups, age groups, ethnic groups, educational, and economic groups. We criticize freely those who disagree with us, don't look like us, don't act like us, and don't even like what we like. With a personal touch and the trained eye of a social psychologist, Cleveland brings to bear the latest studies and research on the unseen dynamics at work that tend to separate us from others.

We already know from scientific research that mindfulness practices enhance mental health and improve clarity and focus. Finding the Space to Lead shows how this training has specific value for leaders. This is not a new leadership system to add to the burden of already overworked people. It brings the concepts of mindfulness into the everyday life of anyone in a leadership role, through specific exercises that address practical issues.

Are you a good boss - or a great one? Get more of the management ideas you want, from the authors you trust, with HBR's 10 Must Reads on Managing People (Vol. 2). We've combed through hundreds of Harvard Business Review articles and selected the most important ones to help you master the innumerable challenges of being a manager.

In "Dark Psychology and Gaslighting Manipulation for the Corporate World," Dr. James Jordan leads you into the shadowy worlds of psychological manipulation and devious strategies that exist within the contemporary business environment. This ground-breaking book reveals the techniques for manipulating emotions that aspirational people use to go up the corporate ladder, get control, and hold onto their authority.

Enchantment, as defined by bestselling business guru Guy Kawasaki, is not about manipulating people. It transforms situations and relationships. It converts hostility into civility and civility into affinity. It changes the skeptics and cynics into the believers and the undecided into the loyal. Enchantment can happen during a retail transaction, a high-level corporate negotiation, or a Facebook update.

Art Thinking combines the mind-sets of art and the tools of business to protect space for open-ended exploration and manage risks on your way to success. Art Thinking takes you from "Wouldn't it be cool if...?" to realizing your highest aims, helping you build creative skills you can apply across all facets of business and life. Warm, honest, and unexpected, Art Thinking will help you reimagine your work and life-and even change the world-while enjoying the journey from point A.

In this bold, enlightening book, social psychologist and professor Daniel M. Cable takes leaders into the minds of workers and reveals the surprising secret to restoring their zest for work. Disengagement isn't a motivational problem, it's a biological one. Humans aren't built for routine and repetition. We're designed to crave exploration, experimentation, and learning - in fact, there's a part of our brains, which scientists have coined "the seeking system", that rewards us for taking part in these activities. But the way organizations are run prevents many of us from following our innate impulses. As a result, we shut down.

Our views of the world are shaped by the stories told by our self-selected communities. Whether seeking out groups that share our tastes, our faith, our heritage, or other interests, since the dawn of time we have taken comfort in defining ourselves through our social groups. But what happens when we only socialize with our chosen group, to the point that we lose the ability to connect to people who don't share our passions? What happens when our tribes merely confirm our world view, rather than expand it?

In the current digital age, it is becoming increasingly more difficult to stay focused. Smartphones, tablets, smart watches, and other devices constantly vie for our attention. In both business and life, we are constantly bombarded with tweets, likes, mentions, and a constant stream of information. The inability to pay attention impacts learning, parenting, prioritizing, and leading. Noise: Living and Leading When Nobody Can Focus teaches managers and leaders how to help themselves and others sharpen their focusing skills.

How many people does the ideal team contain? How do groups bond, earn trust and forge shared identities? How can leaders build environments adaptable enough to respond to shocks and still enable people to thrive together? How can you feel close to people if your only point of contact is a phone or a computer? In The Social Brain leading experts from the worlds of evolutionary psychology and business management come together to offer a primer on great team working. They explain what size groups work and how to shape them according to the nature of the task at hand.

The idea of leadership failure and derailment has been brushed under the carpet for far too long, and only now are statistics appearing on the sheer numbers who fail. Backstabbers and Bullies provides the latest psychiatric and clinical perspectives on dark-side behavior, including: recognizing and coping with overconfident, narcissistic, and psychopathic leaders; causes of leadership derailment and failure; corrupt corporate cultures; and the criminal personality.