Return on Character
Return on Character

Author: Fred Kiel

Publisher: Harvard Business Review Press

Published: 2015-03-17

Total Pages: 297

ISBN-13: 1625271328

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Does the character of our leaders matter? You may think this question was answered long ago. Countless business authors and analysts have assured us that great leadership demands great character. Time and again, we’ve seen that truth play out, as once-thriving organizations falter and fail under the guidance of leaders behaving badly. Why, then, do so many executives remain skeptical about the true value of leadership character? A winning strategy and a sound business model are what really matter, they argue; character is just the icing on the cake. What’s been missing from this debate is hard evidence: data that shows not only that leadership character matters for organizational success, but how it matters; and concrete evidence that it leads to better business results. Now, in this groundbreaking book, respected leadership researcher, adviser, and author Fred Kiel offers that evidence—solid data that demonstrates the connection between character, leadership excellence, and organizational results. After seven years of rigorous research based on a landmark study of more than 100 CEOs and over 8,000 of their employees’ observations, Kiel’s findings show that leaders of strong character achieved up to five times the ROA for their organizations as did leaders of weak character. Return on Character goes on to reveal: • How leadership character is formed, how it creates value, and how that value spreads throughout the organization • How low-character leaders undermine the success of even the best business plans • How leaders at any level can develop the habits of strong character and “unlearn” the habits of poor character The book also provides a character-building methodology—step-by-step advice and techniques for assessing your own character habits and improving your performance and that of your organization. Return on Character provides the blueprint for building your own leadership character and creating a character-driven organization that achieves superior business results.

What Makes an Effective Executive (Harvard Business Review Classics)
What Makes an Effective Executive (Harvard Business Review Classics)

Author: Peter F. Drucker

Publisher: Harvard Business Review Press

Published: 2017-01-03

Total Pages: 64

ISBN-13: 1633692558

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In his sixty-five-year consulting career, Peter F. Drucker, widely regarded as the father of modern management, identified eight practices that can make any executive effective. Leadership is not about charisma or extroversion. It’s about these practices: Effective executives ask, “What needs to be done?” They also ask, “What is right for the enterprise?” They develop action plans. They take responsibility for decisions. They take responsibility for communicating. They focus on opportunities rather than problems. They run productive meetings. And they think and say “we” rather than “I.” Since 1922, Harvard Business Review has been a leading source of breakthrough ideas in management practice. The Harvard Business Review Classics series now offers you the opportunity to make these seminal pieces a part of your permanent management library. Each highly readable volume contains a groundbreaking idea that continues to shape best practices and inspire countless managers around the world.

Developing Corporate Character
Developing Corporate Character

Author: Alan L. Wilkins

Publisher: Jossey-Bass

Published: 1989-01-10

Total Pages: 262

ISBN-13:

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Alan Wilkins explains how an organization with strong character can more successfully adapt to change, develop new skills, and ensure a successful future without sacrificing established values or strengths. He offers step-by-step instructions on how to determine the readiness of an organization to change--and how to identify directions and strategies most likely to succeed. And he reveals the signs that indicate the erosion of corporate character and suggests specific management practices to overcome such problems.

Developing Leadership Character
Developing Leadership Character

Author: Mary Crossan

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2015-12-22

Total Pages: 209

ISBN-13: 1317578090

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This book focuses on the element of leadership that has largely been neglected in the literature: character. Often thought to be a subjective construct, the book demonstrates the concrete behaviors associated with different character dimensions in order to illustrate how these behaviors can be developed, and character strengthened. Based on research involving over 300 senior leaders from different industries, sectors and countries, Crossan, Seijts, and Gandz developed a model for leadership character that focuses on eleven dimensions. The book begins by setting the context for the focus on character in business, asking what character is and whether it can be learned, developed, molded or changed. Next, the book focuses on each dimension of leadership character in turn, exploring its elements and the ways in which it can be applied in a business setting. The book concludes with a summary of the key insights, an exploration of the interactions between the character dimensions, and a call to the reader to reflect on how to develop one’s own and others’ leadership character. Bridging theory and management practice, Developing Leadership Character will interest students and practitioners alike. Readers will benefit not only from a new, robust theoretical framework for leadership character, but will also learn how character can be developed further.

Chief Of Staff
Chief Of Staff

Author: Tyler Parris

Publisher:

Published: 2015-11-28

Total Pages: 176

ISBN-13: 9780996867900

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How do the best leaders navigate complexity in today's business? They use a chief of staff. Tyler Parris interviewed scores of CEOs, board members, chiefs of staff, and HR execs globally and wrote Chief of Staff: The Strategic Partner Who Will Revolutionize Your Organization to help leaders create the role, make it successful, and evolve it.

The Effective Executive
The Effective Executive

Author: Peter Drucker

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2018-03-09

Total Pages: 198

ISBN-13: 1136017534

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The measure of the executive, Peter Drucker reminds us, is the ability to 'get the right things done'. Usually this involves doing what other people have overlooked, as well as avoiding what is unproductive. He identifies five talents as essential to effectiveness, and these can be learned; in fact, they must be learned just as scales must be mastered by every piano student regardless of his natural gifts. Intelligence, imagination and knowledge may all be wasted in an executive job without the acquired habits of mind that convert these into results. One of the talents is the management of time. Another is choosing what to contribute to the particular organization. A third is knowing where and how to apply your strength to best effect. Fourth is setting up the right priorities. And all of them must be knitted together by effective decision-making. How these can be developed forms the main body of the book. The author ranges widely through the annals of business and government to demonstrate the distinctive skill of the executive. He turns familiar experience upside down to see it in new perspective. The book is full of surprises, with its fresh insights into old and seemingly trite situations.

The Right Leader
The Right Leader

Author: Nat Stoddard

Publisher: John Wiley & Sons

Published: 2009-02-24

Total Pages: 352

ISBN-13: 0470344504

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A trailblazing approach to choosing executives who both match the needs and fit the cultures of the organizations they will lead Leadership failures damage or even destroy companies every day. To reduce the costs of leadership failure, the author has developed a revolutionary process for selecting executives based on his years of consulting for some of America's largest corporations. The Right Leader details this new approach and how it eliminates the leadership failures that plague so many companies around the world today. When executives don't address the right needs, or can't lead the organization because of a poor fit with the corporation's cultures, the company loses competitive advantage, talented people, and momentum. The Right Leader introduces the revolutionary Match-Fit Model and explains how it reduces the risks and costs of executive failure by changing the factors that are considered and by taking into account the cultural dynamics at play in any organization. Nat Stoddard (New York, NY) is Chairman of Crenshaw Associates, a New York-based consulting firm specializing in career and transition management for senior executives. Claire Wyckoff (New York, NY) is an accomplished writer and editor, who has held executive positions in both the corporate and nonprofit sectors.