Workplace Leadership

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.

What should our post-COVID work world look like? In Connected Capitalism, David Weitzner shows us how to draw from the classic teachings of Judaism in order to positively transform our workplaces and our working lives. He outlines a philosophy that will empower the disenchanted to build a stable future in a world of crony capitalism, global pandemics, racial injustice, and social disconnect. Weitzner, a professor of management who chooses to look beyond management and mindfulness, envisions a workplace based on the ancient Jewish practices of mitzvah.

What if a company did everything in its power to create a culture in which everyone could overcome their own internal barriers to change and use errors and vulnerabilities as prime opportunities for personal and company growth? Robert Kegan and Lisa Laskow Lahey have found and studied such companies - deliberately developmental organizations. A DDO is organized around the conviction that organizations will best prosper when they are more deeply aligned with people's strongest motive, which is to grow.

Paul Falcone, author of 101 Difficult Conversations to Have with Employees and renowned HR and leadership expert, gives you powerful scripts and templates you can apply immediately to your employee reviews and development conversations. This handy quick-guide turns a task many managers dread—giving performance reviews—into a positive opportunity to hone your leadership skills and guide your employees to the path for success.

Francesca Gino has been studying rebels in life and in the workplace for more than 15 years. She has discovered that rebels - those who practice "positive deviance" at work - are harder to manage, but they are good for the bottom line: their passion, drive, curiosity, and creativity raise the entire organization to a new level. And she has found that at home, rebels are more engaged partners, parents, and friends. Packed with strategies for embracing rebellion at work and in life, Rebel Talent encourages all of us to rebel against what’s comfortable, so that we can thrive.

A few rare leaders have learned to embrace a new organizational shape and mindset: Constellations. Organizations designed as constellations are dynamic and flexible networks of distinct yet interwoven individuals. Each member of the team feels like a singular star and is also connected to others to form something greater. That is how Visa reimagined how we pay for things, how Wikipedia beat the richest company in the world and how Barack Obama and his grassroots team revolutionized political campaigning. These leaders did what most leaders dread - they gave away power.

As organizations of all kinds move increasingly toward shared and rotating leadership, they are calling on the circle model to form sustainable teams and adopt circle-driven group processes such as World Caf, Open Space, and Art of Hosting. Meetings in the round have become the preferred tool for moving individual commitment into group action. This book lays out the structure of circle conversation, based on the original work of the co-authors who have studied and standardized the essential elements that constitute circle practice.

In True North: Emerging Leaders Edition, renowned leadership expert Bill George and Millennial tech entrepreneur Zach Clayton issue the challenge to emerging leaders—from Gen X to Millennials and Gen Z—to lead their organizations authentically through never-ending crises to make this world a better place for everyone. This edition is filled with stories from successful leaders such as Merck's Ken Frazier to PepsiCo's Indra Nooyi, and emerging leaders like OneTrust's Kabir Barday on how they overcame great challenges to build highly successful organizations.

What really sets the best managers above the rest? It's their power to build a cadre of employees who have great inner work lives—consistently positive emotions; strong motivation; and favorable perceptions of the organization, their work, and their colleagues. The worst managers undermine inner work life, often unwittingly.

How do you find talent with a creative spark? To what extent can you predict human creativity, or is human creativity something irreducible before our eyes, perhaps to be spotted or glimpsed by intuition, but unique each time it appears? Obsessed with these questions, renowned economist Tyler Cowen and venture capitalist and entrepreneur Daniel Gross set out to study the art and science of finding talent at the highest level: the people with the creativity, drive, and insight to transform an organization and make everyone around them better.

With so many forces of change buffeting the business world today, a scary state of flux has replaced any sense of certainty, stability, and familiarity, delivering a wake-up call to make crucial changes happen, make them happen quickly, and make them stick. Traditional approaches to change management fall into one of two categories, but neither of these models offer a full picture to what really happens in an organization. Siobhan McHale offers a third option: organizations are complex ecosystems that require a Hive Mind or Group Intelligence (GQ) to bring about meaningful and lasting change.

In a quick, easy listen, you can take the main principles from Measure What Matters: How Google, Bono, and the Gates Foundation Rock the World with OKRs! John Doerr spells out the recipe for efficiency in corporations by using objectives and key results. A seasoned pro, Doerr traces on his history with OKRs and uses several examples from case studies by people who have implemented his system of utilizing OKRs.

Dream, Believe, Dare, Do. Though four simple words, this carefully crafted credo lies at the heart of Walt Disney's enviable empire and has led The Walt Disney Company to prosperity for decades. As foremost experts on Disney, authors Bill Capodagli and Lynn Jackson return with an updated and expanded third edition of The Disney Way to show how organizations can incorporate this four-pillared credo to support any business, drive any team, and guide any leader to create immeasurable success.

"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.

From fifty years working with leaders globally, I state with full confidence that leadership has never been more difficult. The perfect storm is here, created by the coalescence of climate and human-created catastrophes. As leaders dedicated to serving the causes and people we treasure, confronted by this unrelenting tsunami, what are we to do?

In The Employee Advantage, behavioral economist Stephan Meier explains why organizations must value their employees as much as—if not more than—their customers: those that pivot toward an employee-centric model will be more profitable, innovative, and appealing to top talent.

This comprehensive road map for optimal leadership features: breakthrough research that connects increased leadership effectiveness with enhanced business performance; the first fully integrated Universal Model of Leadership; the five stages in the evolution of leadership - Egocentric, Reactive, Creative, Integral, and Unitive - along with the organizational structures and cultures that develop at each of these stages; six leadership practices for evolving your leadership capability at a faster pace; a map of your optimal path to greater leadership effectiveness; and more!

With nearly four decades of experience with the good, bad, and ugly of the board universe, Brian Hayward hones in on practical ways to develop the thinking and behaviour necessary for anyone taking this seat. Through real-life examples, and stories featuring Paul McCartney, Kalahari bushmen, Robert Maxwell, camels, Buddhist parables, and the Boeing 737 Max, listeners will see how chairing a board requires leadership competency of its own (distinct from being a director).

Decades before the business world discovered the power of authentic staff engagement, Green Mountain Coffee Roasters cofounder Bob Stiller was busy creating a company with a mission to build an engaged workforce focused on innovation. Green Mountain Coffee Roasters went public, moved to selling wholesale exclusively, invested in Keurig, and became one of the few coffee companies to ever reach $1 billion in sales. In Better and Better, Stiller explains how he did it.

The authors discuss the current research on unconscious bias and insider-outsider dynamics and focus on how to translate that current research into best practice for leaders. SET for Inclusion follows the stories of three diverse characters in a large modern organization - a top executive, a middle manager, and an individual contributor. Each of these characters is working to make inclusiveness real, to provide tangible benefits for them as individuals and for the organization.