{"id":1455,"date":"2010-01-17T17:20:49","date_gmt":"2010-01-17T22:20:49","guid":{"rendered":"\/news_blogs\/john\/?p=1455"},"modified":"2024-12-03T16:49:59","modified_gmt":"2024-12-03T21:49:59","slug":"the-leadership-challenge","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cccc.org\/news_blogs\/john\/2010\/01\/17\/the-leadership-challenge\/","title":{"rendered":"The Leadership Challenge"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">If you could only recommend&nbsp;two leadership books to someone, which books would they be? I&#8217;d like to know what they are, and I&#8217;m sure the other readers would too, so please jump into the discussion and share your recommendations. This week we&#8217;ll look at our best recommendations for a leadership book written from a <em>non-faith<\/em> perspective. In next week&#8217;s <a title=\"Post - Shepherds After My Own Heart\" href=\"\/news_blogs\/john\/2010\/01\/23\/shepherds-after-my-own-heart\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">post<\/a>,&nbsp;we&#8217;ll consider the best books written about <em>Christian<\/em> leadership.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">My #1 Leadership Book Recommendation<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.amazon.ca\/gp\/product\/0470651725\/ref=as_li_tf_il?ie=UTF8&amp;camp=15121&amp;creative=330641&amp;creativeASIN=0470651725&amp;linkCode=as2&amp;tag=wwwccccorg-20\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/ws-na.amazon-adsystem.com\/widgets\/q?_encoding=UTF8&amp;ASIN=0470651725&amp;Format=_SL250_&amp;ID=AsinImage&amp;MarketPlace=CA&amp;ServiceVersion=20070822&amp;WS=1&amp;tag=wwwccccorg-20\" alt=\"\"\/><\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/ir-ca.amazon-adsystem.com\/e\/ir?t=wwwccccorg-20&amp;l=as2&amp;o=15&amp;a=0470651725\" alt=\"\"\/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">When I get asked&nbsp;to recommend a leadership book,&nbsp;there is one&nbsp;that I never fail to mention: <a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.ca\/gp\/product\/0787984922?ie=UTF8&amp;tag=wwwccccorg-20&amp;linkCode=as2&amp;camp=15121&amp;creative=330641&amp;creativeASIN=0787984922\">The Leadership Challenge<\/a><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" style=\"border: none !important; margin: 0px !important;\" src=\"http:\/\/www.assoc-amazon.ca\/e\/ir?t=wwwccccorg-20&amp;l=as2&amp;o=15&amp;a=0787984922\" alt=\"\" width=\"1\" height=\"1\" border=\"0\"> by Kouzes and Posner. Here&#8217;s why.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>I think of leadership on\u00a0three levels (organizational, team and personal) and this book covers the whole territory.\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li><strong>Organizational leadership<\/strong> is primarily about culture-setting, vision-casting and change management, which the book addresses under the headings\u00a0<em>Model the Way,<\/em> <em>Inspire a Shared Vision <\/em>and <em>Challenge the Process.<\/em><\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>Team Leadership<\/strong> is about empowerment and encouragement, which the book discusses as <em>Enable Others to Act<\/em> and <em>Encourage the Heart<\/em>.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>Personal leadership<\/strong> is about you being sure of what you stand for and acting accordingly.\u00a0<em>Model the Way<\/em> starts out with a chapter called <em>Find Your Voice,<\/em>\u00a0in which the leader clarifies his or her personal values and then expresses them in their actions.\u00a0 Leadership will be seen as authentic when their actions align with their stated values.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>While there are a lot of things a leader needs to do (see my <a title=\"What does a leader do?\" href=\"\/news_blogs\/john\/2009\/08\/07\/what-does-a-leader-do\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">post<\/a> on this topic), if you did nothing but these leadership practices, you would provide extremely well-balanced leadership. Five practices. That&#8217;s it.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><em>The Leadership Challenge<\/em>\u00a0is based on the fact that leadership is not about position, but about relationship.\u00a0 Christians will relate well to this basic premise because Christianity is at its core a religion of relationships, with God and with each other.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>The book makes the case that\u00a0leadership can be learned, so it is possible to grow and mature in your leadership role.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Kouzes and Posner have spent more than twenty-five years\u00a0studying leadership and this book is grounded in their solid, credible research. The first edition came out in the late 1980&#8217;s and their research has stood the test of time. Now in its fourth edition, the five leadership practices have been validated over and over again.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>The book is full of grand concepts of leadership, but always provides the nuts and bolts of how to apply the key ideas. There are plenty of real-world illustrations.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>But the book is more than just a book. If you want, you can go online and complete a 360\u00b0 leadership evaluation, the <a title=\"LPI website\" href=\"http:\/\/www.leadershipchallenge.com\/professionals-section-lpi.aspx\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Leadership Practices Inventory<\/a>. You can sign up at no cost and then buy a\u00a0one-off assessment, or you can have your whole leadership team do the assessment. The report is an inexpensive way of evaluating how your leadership is perceived and will help you design your own professional\u00a0development plan. The senior leader will probably not do a 360\u00b0 review unless the board chair works closely enough with the leader to see the leader at work on a regular basis. So the senior leader will just have team members reporting.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>There are no gimmicks to leadership the Kouzes and Posner way, but neither\u00a0are the\u00a0leadership practices particularly difficult. There is hope for any person in leadership that they can do better than they are now. The five key leadership practices are all common sense and therefore anyone can do them.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>The book is extremely readable. I bought the book at the Gordon-Conwell bookstore in Charlotte during a residency there and opened it up while waiting for my flight home. I\u00a0had the book\u00a0finished by the time I got back to Waterloo. It was an easy and fun read.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Kouzes and Posner have written several other books for those who want more of the quality of leadership development that this book provides.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">So now it&#8217;s your turn. What is your favourite recommendation for a book on leadership from a non-faith perspective? Why do you recommend it so highly?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>If you could only recommend two leadership books to someone, which books would they be? I&#8217;d like to know what they are, and I&#8217;m sure the other readers would too, so please jump into the discussion and share your recommendations. This week we&#8217;ll look at our best recommendations for a leadership&#8230; <a href=\"https:\/\/cccc.org\/news_blogs\/john\/2010\/01\/17\/the-leadership-challenge\/\" class=\"linkbutton\">More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":30869,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ts_fic_featured_image_caption":"Chess pieces on a chess board. Photo by <a href=\"\/photographer\/techny57-34972\">John Frenzel<\/a> from <a href=\"https:\/\/freeimages.com\/\">FreeImages<\/a>","footnotes":""},"categories":[624,623,221],"tags":[53,4,579,56,41],"series":[],"class_list":["post-1455","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-great-leadership-healthy","category-healthy","category-leadership-organizational","tag-evaluation","tag-favourite-reads","tag-attractive-leadership","tag-leadership-responsibility","tag-awareness"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cccc.org\/news_blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1455","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cccc.org\/news_blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cccc.org\/news_blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cccc.org\/news_blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cccc.org\/news_blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1455"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/cccc.org\/news_blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1455\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cccc.org\/news_blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/30869"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cccc.org\/news_blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1455"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cccc.org\/news_blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1455"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cccc.org\/news_blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1455"},{"taxonomy":"series","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cccc.org\/news_blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/series?post=1455"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}