Thinking to stay ahead of change In a complex business climate, people need to make informed decisions and learn how to think flexibly. A leader's most important asset is the ability to sense changes in the environment and adapt to them quickly. The Prepared Mind of a Leader presents an original and effective way to think more flexibly about innovation, strategy, change, and problem solving. It helps leaders anticipate challenges and prepare for both the intended and unintended consequences of change by laying out a program for developing, maintaining, and mobilizing eight key skills: Observing, Challenging, Reflecting, Reasoning, Imagining, Deciding, Learning, and Teaching. These skills provide a framework that the thoughtful leader or manager can use to approach issues of strategy, innovation, and more. Chapters feature interactive tools that will help readers develop each of the key skills. Bill Welter (Bartlett, IL) is President of Adaptive Strategies, a consulting firm focused on helping clients in a wide range of industries to deal with change. Jean Egmon (Wilmette, IL) is Director of the Complexity in Action Network and on the faculty at the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University.

Thinking to stay ahead of change In a complex business climate, people need to make informed decisions and learn how to think flexibly. A leader's most important asset is the ability to sense changes in the environment and adapt to them quickly. The Prepared Mind of a Leader presents an original and effective way to think more flexibly about innovation, strategy, change, and problem solving. It helps leaders anticipate challenges and prepare for both the intended and unintended consequences of change by laying out a program for developing, maintaining, and mobilizing eight key skills: Observing, Challenging, Reflecting, Reasoning, Imagining, Deciding, Learning, and Teaching. These skills provide a framework that the thoughtful leader or manager can use to approach issues of strategy, innovation, and more. Chapters feature interactive tools that will help readers develop each of the key skills. Bill Welter (Bartlett, IL) is President of Adaptive Strategies, a consulting firm focused on helping clients in a wide range of industries to deal with change. Jean Egmon (Wilmette, IL) is Director of the Complexity in Action Network and on the faculty at the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University.

We are in a time of accelerating disruptive change. In a VUCA world - one characterized by volatility, uncertainty, complexity, and ambiguity - traditional leadership skills won't be enough, noted futurist Bob Johansen argues. Drawing on the latest forecasts from the Institute for the Future - the first futures think tank ever to outlive its forecasts - this powerful book explores the external forces that are shaking the foundations of leadership and unveils ten critical new leadership skills. How adroit are you at dilemma flipping - turning problems that can't be solved into opportunities? Can you develop bio - empathy - the ability to learn from and apply the principles of nature in your leadership? Are you able to practice immersive learning - dive into very different - from - you physical and online worlds and learn from them? Johansen provides role models, tools, and advice to help you develop these and seven other future leadership skills. In addition, Johansen deals with two new forces that are shaping the future. The first is the ''digital natives'' - people fifteen years and younger who have grown up in a digital world. The second is cloud - based supercomputing, which will enable extraordinarily rich new forms of connection, collaboration, and commerce. In this thoroughly updated and expanded second edition, Johansen is joined by the prestigious Center for Creative Leadership. CCL's contributions help readers understand the new leadership skills by linking them to existing skills, and they provide analytics and exercises so readers can more fully develop these new skills.

In The Thoughtful Leader, Jim Fisher provides an invigorating, inclusive and positive framework for teaching current and aspiring leaders in all walks of life.

Leadership Principles for Lasting Success Leadership makes great companies, but few of us truly understand how to turn ourselves and others into great leaders. One company—the Jesuits—pioneered a unique formula for molding leaders and in the process built one of history’s most successful companies.In this groundbreaking book, Chris Lowney reveals the leadership principles that have guided the Jesuits for more than 450 years: self-awareness, ingenuity, love, and heroism. Lowney shows how these same principles can make each of us a dynamic leader in the twenty-first century.

National Bestseller “Students talk about Stewart D. Friedman, a management professor at the Wharton School, with a mixture of earnest admiration, gratitude and rock star adoration.” —New York Times In this national bestseller, Stew Friedman gives you the tools you need to achieve “four-way wins”—improved performance in all domains of life: work, home, community, and self. Friedman, celebrated professor and founding director of the Wharton School’s Leadership Program and its Work/Life Integration Project, explains how three simple yet potent principles—be real, be whole, and be innovative—can help you, no matter what your age or what you do for work, become a better leader and have a richer life. In this engaging adaptation of his hands-on Wharton course, he offers step-by-step instruction to help you create positive, sustainable change in your world. This proven, programmatic method teaches you how to produce stronger results at work, find clearer purpose, feel less stressed, strengthen connections with the people who matter most to you, contribute further to important causes, and gain greater support for your vision of your future. If you’re ready to learn to lead in all parts of your life—this is the book for you. For a full array of Total Leadership tips and tools, visit totalleadership.org. Also look for Stew Friedman’s book, Leading the Life You Want, which builds on Total Leadership by profiling well-known leaders—from Bruce Springsteen to Michelle Obama—who exemplify its principles and demonstrate how success in your work is accomplished not at the expense of the rest of your life, but as the result of meaningful attachments to all its parts.

In a world quickly becoming more virtual, human relations skills are being lost -- along with the skill of leadership. There is a vacuum of leadership in many of our major institutions: government, education, business, religion, the arts. This crisis has arisen in part because many of those institutions have been reinvented with the technological revolution we are experiencing. Scientific progress in general, and technological progress in particular, has been seen as a solution to many of our problems, and technology can distribute the answers to those problems far more quickly and efficiently across the globe. But in the midst of this technological boom, people are becoming isolated from each other. What's needed is a new type of leader -- one who can inspire and motivate others in the new virtual world while never losing sight of the timeless leadership principles. In this book, readers can learn all the secrets of leadership mastery: * Gain the respect and admiration of others using little-known secrets of the most successful leaders. * Get family, friends, and co-workers to do what you ask because they want to do it, not because they have to. * Respond effectively when under crisis using proven techniques for thinking clearly and reducing anxiety under pressure. A valuable tool that stands next to the classic How to Win Friends and Influence People, Leadership Mastery offers a proven formula for success.

Develop the qualities of strategic leadership and become an active contributor to the short- and long-term success of your organization Today's organizations face two daunting challenges: 1. How to create new sources of competitive advantage to sustain long-term growth, and 2. How to engage leaders at every level of the organization so that they are more proactive and forward-looking in their area of responsibility. The Art of Strategic Leadership uses a unique approach to examine what it means to be a strategic leader. Instead of focusing on the skills, behaviors, and tools found in typical books on strategic leadership, the authors shed light on the attributes and qualities necessary to lead strategic change and help transform a business. Strategic leadership is what modern leadership is all about. Organizations expect leaders to anticipate and be proactive more than ever before. In this book, the authors draw on their vast experience working directly with leaders at all levels and use an intriguing narrative to explain this inside-out approach to understanding strategic leadership. The narrative follows the journey of how one manager discovered these critically important qualities. You will experience first-hand how these values and attributes manifest in the lives of realistic leaders; how they orchestrate long-term strategic change needed for the organization to compete and survive and actively shape the future while delivering short-term results. The Art of Strategic Leadership provides the content that will help you informally assess and reflect on your own strategic leadership qualities—those that are strengths and those that indicate areas you need to develop. It will guide you as you incorporate these values and qualities into your own leadership style and become a more effective catalyst for change. This book will help you in the following ways: Develop a more proactive, forward-thinking approach to leadership Approach strategy from both short- and long-term perspectives Adopt the core values and principles of a strategic leader Model the qualities exhibited by powerful leaders Strategic leaders serve as powerful examples to others in the organization. Their qualities and traits spread rapidly to those around them, empowering people at every level to take a more active role in meeting the demands of the future. The Art of Strategic Leadership will help you deepen and broaden your understanding of the core qualities of strategic leadership, leaving you better equipped to lead yourself and your team to a better place and create greater value for customers, owners, and employees.

We are all subjective—it's human nature. We overreact to situations; we judge people too quickly and unfairly; we take something personally when it was not really meant that way. As a result, we lose relationships, reputation, money, and peace of mind. And in our ever-more-complex world, leaders must make decisions faster and with more conflicting information; widespread insecurity makes people territorial and risk-averse; and the consequences of every action are played out on a disproportionately large stage. Imagine how much more prepared Mitt Romney could have been for his landslide loss on election night, if his advisors had acknowledged the facts staring them in the face. To succeed, we must consciously seek to increase our objectivity—seeing and accepting things as they are without projecting our mental models, fears, background, and personal experiences onto them. This way, we not only avoid costly cognitive errors, but open ourselves to engage new cultures, new markets, and new opportunities. In The Objective Leader, Thornton draws on her original research, as well as her years of experience as a manager and entrepreneur, to offer proven strategies for identifying limiting and unproductive ways of thinking and creating powerful new mental models that ensure continued success.