In his new book Step Up and Lead, Frank Viscuso--author, speaker, and career deputy chief--shares the secrets of effective fire service leadership, introduces the traits and skills essential for successful fire service leaders, and discusses the importance of customer service. Designed to help you reach the top of your profession, this new book is considered must-read material for anyone who is ready to step up and lead!
Through powerful stories and proven principles, Step Up Your Teamwork teaches how to create momentum, prepare for success, prevent collapse, and turn a group of individuals into a high-functioning team. Frank Viscuso encourages each person to tap into individual talents, skills, and abilities and recognize how to use these skills to improve the team as a whole. The book discusses various proven firefighting team-building methods you can implement immediately.
A New Vision of Inclusive Leadership What makes someone a leader? Someone you vote for, work for, or listen to for their expertise? With Step Up, equality advocate Ash Beckham challenges us to embrace a different vision of leadership—to stop focusing on external authorities and start reclaiming our own ability to create change. “What we need most is everyday leaders,” she writes. “We need people who step up and be the change they wish to see in the world. Anyone can do it. You can do it.” Whether your path involves activism, political engagement, or simply being a positive voice in your workplace, home, and community, Beckham’s Step Up provides essential guidance on cultivating the eight pillars of everyday leadership: - Empathy—the art of relating to others with compassion for our shared humanity, regardless of whether we agree - Responsibility—how we can raise our awareness and consciously choose to behave in ways that heal instead of harm - Courage—understanding the nature of fear so we can move beyond our comfort zone one step at a time - Grace—how keeping our higher purpose always in sight helps us stop reacting with fear or anger - Individuality—learning to value and celebrate our uniqueness, including the parts of ourselves we often reject - Humility—ways to keep the ego in check and open the door to honest, collaborative relationships - Patience—guidance for disarming our tendency to rush ahead so we can act with greater deliberation and forethought - Authenticity—how we can embody our deepest truths and lead by example in any situation For each pillar, Beckham shares engaging stories of her own journey from isolation and anger to a place of greater openness and connection—supported by scientific research and everyday practices to mindfully change the way you relate to yourself and the people in your life. Step Up is a powerful call to action—to speak when it feels easier to be silent, to do good without being self-righteous, and to create a world of inclusion where everyone has a voice and everyone belongs.
Don’t let a bad boss or manager hold you back from being successful! Every day millions of people with high potential are frustrated and held back by incompetent leaders. New York Times bestselling author and leadership expert John C. Maxwell knows this because the number one question he gets asked is about how to lead when the boss isn’t a good leader. You don’t have to be trapped in your work situation. In this book, adapted from the million-selling The 360-Degree Leader, and now distilled down for busy professionals, Maxwell unveils the keys to successfully navigating the challenges of working for a bad boss. In How to Lead When Your Boss Can’t (or Won’t), Maxwell teaches you how to: position yourself for current and future success, take the high road with a poor leader, avoid common pitfalls, work well with teammates, and develop influence wherever you find yourself. Practicing the principles taught in this book will result in endless opportunities—for your organization, your career, and your life. You can learn how to lead when your boss can’t (or won’t).
"In [this book], authors Jan A. G. Kise and Barbara K. Watterston guide aspiring and current women leaders through a twelve-week developmental journey. Women are underrepresented in educational leadership positions, and the negative connotations sometimes associated with women holding power roles can discourage them from becoming leaders. Through activities, reflection prompts, and real-life stories and scenarios, this book helps women navigate these challenges to find their own leadership identity." -- Back cover.
#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • Brené Brown has taught us what it means to dare greatly, rise strong, and brave the wilderness. Now, based on new research conducted with leaders, change makers, and culture shifters, she’s showing us how to put those ideas into practice so we can step up and lead. Don’t miss the five-part Max docuseries Brené Brown: Atlas of the Heart! ONE OF BLOOMBERG’S BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR Leadership is not about titles, status, and wielding power. A leader is anyone who takes responsibility for recognizing the potential in people and ideas, and has the courage to develop that potential. When we dare to lead, we don’t pretend to have the right answers; we stay curious and ask the right questions. We don’t see power as finite and hoard it; we know that power becomes infinite when we share it with others. We don’t avoid difficult conversations and situations; we lean into vulnerability when it’s necessary to do good work. But daring leadership in a culture defined by scarcity, fear, and uncertainty requires skill-building around traits that are deeply and uniquely human. The irony is that we’re choosing not to invest in developing the hearts and minds of leaders at the exact same time as we’re scrambling to figure out what we have to offer that machines and AI can’t do better and faster. What can we do better? Empathy, connection, and courage, to start. Four-time #1 New York Times bestselling author Brené Brown has spent the past two decades studying the emotions and experiences that give meaning to our lives, and the past seven years working with transformative leaders and teams spanning the globe. She found that leaders in organizations ranging from small entrepreneurial startups and family-owned businesses to nonprofits, civic organizations, and Fortune 50 companies all ask the same question: How do you cultivate braver, more daring leaders, and how do you embed the value of courage in your culture? In Dare to Lead, Brown uses research, stories, and examples to answer these questions in the no-BS style that millions of readers have come to expect and love. Brown writes, “One of the most important findings of my career is that daring leadership is a collection of four skill sets that are 100 percent teachable, observable, and measurable. It’s learning and unlearning that requires brave work, tough conversations, and showing up with your whole heart. Easy? No. Because choosing courage over comfort is not always our default. Worth it? Always. We want to be brave with our lives and our work. It’s why we’re here.” Whether you’ve read Daring Greatly and Rising Strong or you’re new to Brené Brown’s work, this book is for anyone who wants to step up and into brave leadership.
Many strategic change efforts fail. And virtually all of them are harder than they need to be. Why is this? And what can we do to make change more likely to stick? Dr. Elsbeth Johnson, a former equity analyst and London Business School Professor now teaching at MIT, has spent a decade researching how to deliver strategic change in practice. Based on asking managers what they needed from leaders, rather than just asking leaders what they did, her resulting Step Up, Step Back approach challenges some of our most fundamental beliefs about how to lead change – and indeed, about what we even consider to be 'leadership'. The Step Up, Step Back approach suggests leaders need to step up and do more than they typically do in the early stages of the change – in specific ways and at specific times; and then step back and do less than they typically do in the later stages of the change – again, in specific ways, at specific times. The result is not only change that sticks, but empowered, motivated managers who can get on with delivering change, without needing ongoing input or cover from leaders. Using real-world examples of how to apply the science in practice, Step Up, Step Back gives you a roadmap for how to deliver strategic change in your organization.
"In Common Valor, Frank Viscuso describes the firefighting world as only a firefighter can. Viscuso captures the human emotion and drama from firefighters who have endured a wide range of firefighting and rescue scenarios. He goes way beyond the stories that the public may hear about. With Common Valor, you live it. From these dramatic descriptions, you feel yourself right there, up close with the rescuers. From seeing fellow firefighters die to being caught in a flashover and living to tell about it, Common Valor captures the true spirit and camaraderie of firefighters." —Harvey Eisner If you are a firefighter, or hope to be one someday, you need to read Common Valor. This book captures the true spirit of firefighting and all the emotions that accompany what has been called both the greatest and most stressful job on earth.
We live and lead in an increasingly volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous world. But paradoxically, Kevin Cashman contends that leaders today must not merely act more quickly but pause more deeply. He details a catalytic process to guide you to step back in order to lead forward in three critical growth areas: personal leadership, development of others, and fostering of cultures of innovation. You and your organization will learn to move from management speed and transaction to leadership significance and transformation.
