Organizational Leadership

People are the problem. They're always the problem. If a business person goes home frustrated, if they talk with their significant other about it, if they lay awake at night stewing about it, inevitably the problem is some person at work - a colleague, subordinate, or boss. Handling people issues is every leader's major headache. It's what takes up the majority of their time and - more important - the bulk of their head space. Every leader can and must develop this most important of all management skills.

Continuous improvement, understanding complex systems, and promoting innovation are all part of the landscape of learning challenges today's companies face. Amy Edmondson shows that organizations thrive, or fail to thrive, based on how well the small groups within those organizations work. In most organizations, the work that produces value for customers is carried out by teams, and increasingly, by flexible team-like entities.

Great leaders are always searching for new ideas and approaches to their work because they know they must continue to evolve in order to succeed in an ever-changing world. And, just like a gardener who knows not to blame their lettuce for failing to thrive, great leaders know that it’s the conditions of their workplace that affect how their people perform and grow. This book explores a variety of leadership topics that will help you meet challenges, respond to opportunities, and nurture a healthy workplace culture in new and innovative ways.

Retired four-star general Stan McChrystal has lived a life associated with the deadly risks of combat. From his first day at West Point, to his years in Afghanistan, to his efforts helping business leaders navigate a global pandemic, McChrystal has seen how individuals and organizations fail to mitigate risk. Why? Because they focus on the probability of something happening instead of the interface by which it can be managed.

In Bringing Out the Best in People: How to Apply the Astonishing Power of Positive Reinforcement, renowned thought leader and internationally recognized workplace expert Aubrey Daniels takes a look at today's rapidly changing work environment, providing a timely update to his seminal book on performance management.

"Work-life balance" isn't making anyone happy. The pandemic helped catalyze a cultural shift of workers redefining themselves beyond what they do for a living. Now, it's time for you to rethink your role as a leader in the nexus of work and life. In Work-Life Bloom: How to Nurture a Team That Flourishes, award-winning author Dan Pontefract contends that a thriving workplace isn't about employee engagement levels, nor is it predicated on your team members bringing their "best selves" to work. Instead, it requires you to support the people you manage so they can be their best in work and life.

Lead a winning team created on trust and success. Taking a page from Facebook, Eric Coryell has created a teamwork model that creates trust, success, and true accountability. How? By redefining your team's model to be customer-facing as opposed to reporting up! The strongest and most successful teams function through accountability and shared trust - two pillars that on paper, most teams claim to do but rarely accomplish when structured with traditional methods. With Eric's proven technique, you will see results and manage a team built on trust, shared success, and accountability.

Why do some people achieve great personal success, yet never succeed in building a business or making an impact in their organization? John C. Maxwell knows the answer. According to Maxwell, the greatest leadership principle that he has ever learned in over 35 years of leadership is that those closest to the leader will determine the success level of that leader. It’s not enough for a leader to have vision, energy, drive, and conviction. If you want to see your dream come to fruition, you must learn how to develop the leaders around you.

It is taken for granted in the knowledge economy that companies must employ the most talented performers to compete and succeed. Many firms try to buy stars by luring them away from competitors. But Boris Groysberg shows what an uncertain and disastrous practice this can be.

Positive organizational psychology, with its focus on the identification and development of strengths, is a natural ally to executive development and leadership coaching. However, this approach is only just beginning to come to the attention of organizations and consequently, the research base for strength-based coaching is in its early stages of development. Strength-Based Leadership Coaching in Organizations reviews strength-based approaches to positive leadership development and evaluates the evidence for their effectiveness, critically assesses their apparent distinctiveness and more.

Almost one in four American working adults has a job that pays less than a living wage. Conventional wisdom says that’s how the world has to work. Bad jobs with low wages, minimal benefits, little training, and chaotic schedules are the only way companies can keep costs down and prices low. If companies were to offer better jobs, customers would have to pay more or companies would have to make less. But in The Good Jobs Strategy, Zeynep Ton, a professor at the MIT Sloan School of Management, makes the compelling case that even in low-cost settings, leaving employees behind - with bad jobs - is a choice, not a necessity.

Exploring and explaining more than 80 of the world's most important theories and big ideas about trade, commerce, and management, this audiobook offers a fascinating look at the world of business past and present. A perfect primer on the fundamental tenets of the subject, The Business Book sheds light on some of history's most important milestone developments and the key business strategies used by leading thinkers and gurus from Henry Ford to Steve Jobs.

Choice. Power. Speed. Today's leaders continually face these forces. But with too many choices, too much power, and too much speed, leaders often make decisions in a heightened state of emotion (and drama). Hasty decisions are often poor ones, and in this climate there is no place to hide. Privacy is a thing of the past; the days of covering up or ignoring a problem are over. In today's transparent culture, the decision making of leaders is more vulnerable than ever - and it is more critical than ever to get it right.

Every year, millions of top performers are promoted to management-level jobs - only to discover that the tactics that got them promoted are not the tactics that will make them effective in their new role. In Welcome to Management, Ryan Hawk provides practical, actionable advice and tools designed to ensure that transition is a successful one.

Having recently stepped down as chairman and CEO of Best Buy, Hubert Joly shares the leadership principles illustrated by multiple vivid and concrete stories that underpinned the remarkable resurgence of Best Buy and that he believes are at the heart of business: pursue a noble purpose, put people at the center, embrace all stakeholders, and treat profit as an outcome.

We live, say Edgar and Peter Schein, in a culture of “tell". All too often we tell others what we think they need to know or should do. But whether we are leading or following, what matters most is we get to the truth. We have to develop a commitment to sharing vital facts and identifying faulty assumptions - it can mean the difference between success and failure. This is why we need Humble Inquiry more than ever.

Cheryl Bachelder joined an ailing restaurant chain and turned it into the darling of the industry - by daring to serve the people in her organization well. When Bachelder was named CEO of Popeyes in the fall of 2007, guest visits had been declining for years, restaurant sales and profit trends were negative, and the company stock price had dropped from $34 in 2002 to $13. The brand was stagnant, and relations between the company and its franchise owners were strained.

When it comes to running a business, the most important decisions a leader makes are not about products or locations - they're about people. For the past 33 years, Dee Ann Turner has been recruiting, training, and retaining some of the best employees in the restaurant business. Now she's ready to share her secrets on how to build, sustain, and grow an organizational culture that attracts world-class talent and consistently delights customers, no matter what your industry.

In Beyond High Performance, Jason Jaggard, along with the coaches of Novus Global and the faculty of the Meta Performance™ Institute, pull back the curtain to reveal the coaching tools they use to help the best get better. Their groundbreaking research shows there are two types of great leaders and teams: Those who achieve success once and then plateau or decline, and those who achieve success over and over again.

Through this essential and easy-to-digest reference book, international leadership expert John C. Maxwell gives you the bottom line on mentoring—what it is, why you should do it, and how you can do it most effectively....