How many times have you been in someone’s office and they
have several business books propped up on subjects like leadership, motivating
people, or teams? Generally they have light dust on them and haven’t been
cracked open since the person first touched them. Don’t get me wrong, I have a passion
for books and learning - I’m a reading nut. If you are going to keep a book
around shouldn’t it be one that you reach for more than once?
If I were to have one desk book it would be Discover The Joy Of Leadership – A Practical
Guide to Resolving Your Management
Challenges by William G. Steiner. Willy’s book is a mastery of leadership
tips, tools, stories, and real life examples of the challenges of being a
leader. Each chapter can be read individually as a quick reference to work
through any situation or questions you may run into as you move throughout your
day.
Willy views leadership like a house supported by building
blocks. Image the house roof as the pinnacle of leadership with 4 blocks supporting
below consisting of time, communication, relationships, and change. Each block
is integral to leading teams. An imbalance in the house can wreak havoc if
there is any instability. You and I both know that we run into situations daily
that can bring instability or may weaken teams. Each of these 4 blocks is
broken down into sections in the book so that you have a resource at your
fingertips whenever you run into a blockage.
First, Discover The
Joy Of Leadership effectively reviews some of the top leadership thoughts
we have today. Some of them bring the message home through stories offering a
wealth of insight and ideas. For instance, as a leader you need to know your “why”
and how your purpose will drive your personal leadership. We are reminded of
the great Peter Drucker and some of his key principles. What do we have in
common as leaders and how do you peek beneath the surface to learn what is
really happening in your area? The leadership
section has so many valuable chapters to absorb in the short time we all have
as busy people.
Willy examines all aspects of time. We are all given the
same amount of time and how we use it and approach it is up to us. We learn how
to bucket our time, chunk it for productivity, make it our ally, gain control
over your minutes, and beat the clock. Most importantly we are offered
solutions to shorter meetings, being productive, mastering your email, and
making time for the critical pieces such as your people. Who doesn’t need help
with time?
Communication can be destructive if managed poorly. You
only have to look at what emails and texting have done to us in the past
several years. We don’t pay attention. We try to shorten everything and we
assume we understand. We fail to master the process of communication. You will
not have impact if you are a poor communicator. More importantly, listening is
becoming a lost art. It’s almost sad that there are actually classes on how to
be a better listener with steps on how to listen with intent. One of my
favorite chapters was the listening challenge and how to use silence to your
benefit when communicating. Willy offers some great insight and advice in these
chapters – one’s that I will review repeatedly.
If there is one thing that most people are scared of is
change. The mere word sends shivers down the spine of those that need consistency
and order. Unfortunately, change is only intruding in our lives more every day.
We need to work with and face the fear. This house block needs to fluctuate, but
be managed. Willy introduces some change management models, myths about change,
and how you can fight misconceptions.
Leaders need to understand the need for change and be able to
communicate it. See how the building blocks of our house are intertwined?
Relationships are often the most difficult challenge we
all face in our personal and professional lives. We can control systems,
work flows, and technology, but people can really throw us off. There are so
many intricacies with people. Who are our allies? What about our adversaries?
How do we balance personalities and conflicts so that we can build trust and
more importantly, engage employees? Again, the relationship block of our
leadership house needs the support of the other factors of communication, time,
and managing change. Discover The Joy Of
Leadership arms us with some tools and strategies to work with people to
build relationships.
Even the most effective leaders need support. Often when
we are scratching our heads with indecision we need a quick guide as to which
path to take or how to attack a problem. If you have Williams G. Steiner’s book
Discover the Joy Of Leadership on
your desk you will know exactly where to go.
It is very informative and interesting post. Glad to read this article. Thank you so much for sharing this useful information. Visit Here: Oracle Financial Group
ReplyDeletePlace 바카라사이트 bets on whether or not the quantity shall be within the high half of the board (1 – 18), or within the lower half of the board (19 – 36). Based on the situation of the numbers on the format, the variety of chips required to "full" a quantity could be determined. A full wager locations all the inside bets on a certain quantity. Full full bets are most frequently wager by excessive rollers as maximum bets. Any of the above bets could also be} mixed, e.g. "orphelins by 1 and nil and the neighbors by 1". The "...and the neighbors" is commonly assumed by the croupier.
ReplyDelete