Bootstrap Leadership

Arneson was named one of Americas top leadership consultants by Leadership Excellence magazine in 2008 Enables leaders at all levels to design a complete self-directed leadership development program Concise, accessible, practical and flexible Leadership training can be inconsistent in the best of times. In tough economic times its often one of the first things that even the most progressive companies cut back on. And you cant necessarily depend on finding that mentor youve been looking for either. Now more than ever, if youre going to advance your career you need to lift yourself up by your own bootstraps. But not entirely: Steve Arneson is here to give you a boost. In Bootstrap Leadership Arneson, one of Americas top leadership coaches, offers a complete blueprint for designing your own personal leadership development program. In fifty brief, to-the-point chapters he provides practical ideas and techniques that have been proven successful in his work with executives at Fortune 500 companies like AOL, PepsiCo and Capital One. Surprisingly, most of these ideas cost nothing to implement, nor do they require any elaborate equipment or infrastructure-theyre open to anyone with sufficient initiative, drive and ambition. The chapters are entirely self-contained and can be read in any order and at any pace. You can read one a week and youll have a comprehensive year-long self-improvement program (with two weeks off for vacation). Or you can choose a chapter that speaks to a particular challenge youre facing at work or one that just seems intriguing. Theres a self-assessment at the beginning of the book to suggest specific chapters that fit your developmental needs. No one is going to just hand that next promotion. You have to earn it by developing and demonstrating your leadership skills. And ultimately its not just about you-true leaders make everyone around them better. Bootstrap Leadership shows you how.

Arneson was named one of America’s top leadership consultants by Leadership Excellence magazine in 2008 Enables leaders at all levels to design a complete self-directed leadership development program Concise, accessible, practical and flexible Leadership training can be inconsistent in the best of times. In tough economic times it’s often one of the first things that even the most progressive companies cut back on. And you can’t necessarily depend on finding that mentor you’ve been looking for either. Now more than ever, if you’re going to advance your career you need to lift yourself up by your own bootstraps. But not entirely: Steve Arneson is here to give you a boost. In Bootstrap Leadership Arneson, one of America’s top leadership coaches, offers a complete blueprint for designing your own personal leadership development program. In fifty brief, to-the-point chapters he provides practical ideas and techniques that have been proven successful in his work with executives at Fortune 500 companies like AOL, PepsiCo and Capital One. Surprisingly, most of these ideas cost nothing to implement, nor do they require any elaborate equipment or infrastructure—they’re open to anyone with sufficient initiative, drive and ambition. The chapters are entirely self-contained and can be read in any order and at any pace. You can read one a week and you’ll have a comprehensive year-long self-improvement program (with two weeks off for vacation). Or you can choose a chapter that speaks to a particular challenge you’re facing at work or one that just seems intriguing. There’s a self-assessment at the beginning of the book to suggest specific chapters that fit your developmental needs. No one is going to just hand that next promotion. You have to earn it by developing and demonstrating your leadership skills. And ultimately it’s not just about you—true leaders make everyone around them better. Bootstrap Leadership shows you how.

Leadership the Hard Way presents a method of living andworking that can truly facilitate the learning of leadership. Theirmethod shows how to go against the current, fight conventionalwisdom, and embrace the unexpected. It is about trusting oneselfand valuing intuition, principles, and imagination as much as hardskills and analysis. Frohman combines his counterintuitive ideaswith experiences from his own background?from escaping the Nazis asa child to becoming a leading innovator in the semiconductorindustry?to show how readers can build their own leadershipabilities. A leader?s values and personality, he ultimatelyreveals, are the only sure source of stability in a world ofcontinuous change.

Is your leadership a competitive advantage, or is it costing you? How do you know? Are you developing your leadership effectiveness at the pace of change? For most leaders today, complexity is outpacing their personal and collective development. Most leaders are in over their heads, whether they know it or not. The most successful organizations over time are the best led. While this has always been true, today escalating global complexity puts leadership effectiveness at a premium. Mastering Leadership involves developing the effectiveness of leaders—individually and collectively—and turning that leadership into a competitive advantage. This comprehensive roadmap for optimal leadership features: Breakthrough research that connects increased leadership effectiveness with enhanced business performance The first fully integrated Universal Model of Leadership—one that integrates the best theory and research in the fields of Leadership and Organizational Development over the last half century A free, online self-assessment of your leadership, using the Leadership Circle Profile, visibly outlining how you are currently leading and how to develop even greater effectiveness The five stages in the evolution of leadership—Egocentric, Reactive, Creative, Integral, and Unitive—along with the organizational structures and cultures that develop at each of these stages Six leadership practices for evolving your leadership capability at a faster pace A map of your optimal path to greater leadership effectiveness Case stories that facilitate pragmatic application of this Leadership Development System to your particular situation This timeless, authoritative text provides a systemic approach for developing your senior leaders and the leadership system of your organization. It does not recommend quick fixes, but argues that real development requires a strategic, long-term, and integrated approach in order to forge more effective leaders and enhanced business performance. Mastering Leadership offers a developmental pathway to bring forth the highest and best use of yourself, your life, and your leadership. By more meaningfully deploying all of who you are every day, individually and collectively, you will achieve a leadership legacy consistent with your highest aspirations.

Many leaders use stories as a tool, but the author says most have no idea what tale their own leadership is telling. Tobin shows how, by thinking of your career as a narrative-with a plot, characters, and an arc-you can increase your awareness of yourself as a leader and become more effective, insightful, and inspiring. Using story as both a metaphor and a process for self-development, he offers activities and questions that help you better understand your own leadership and how others perceive it. What is the plot of your leadership story-your overall goals and purpose? Who are the main characters and what roles do they play? How have the settings of your story influenced it? What are the conflicts that you need to resolve to move toward the ending you intend? He gives advice on framing your message, finding ways to communicate it, and understanding the role others play in furthering that message. --

Get leadership-fit and see results in yourself and others. Leadership and fitness are both journeys of self-discovery. Both require self-awareness, passion, and commitment. Both have the potential to inspire others. And for both, results come only with effort. To achieve great heights, you must be willing to take the first step, put in the work, and overcome the inevitable obstacles. In Peak Leadership Fitness: Elevating Your Leadership Game, leadership coach and fitness expert Timothy J. Tobin invites you to share the lessons he’s learned at the intersection of physical and leadership fitness. With the encouraging style of a trainer-coach, Tobin shares his four fitness principles: You never know what you’re capable of until you take that first step. You must put in the effort. You learn more about yourself when times are tough. What you consume matters. Tobin describes the foundations for leadership fitness, including motivation and mindset, and details his steps to becoming leadership-fit. From taking your pulse to seeking recovery by building endurance, Tobin employs fitness metaphors while remaining aware of the critical difference between personal fitness and leadership—the stakes are much higher with leadership. This book was written for today’s and tomorrow’s leaders facing today’s challenges—time constraints, overcrowded leadership development landscape, and uncertainty about where to start. It is grounded in learning and development and leadership research and illustrated with true-to-life vignettes, sample leadership fitness plans, templates, and tip sheets. Tobin points out the opportunities for leadership development that are all around you—you just need to know where to look and how to integrate the activities into your regular routine. Train smart; train often. Build good habits. Develop yourself and others. You’ve got this!

The scientific field of leadership and followership is fast evolving and has seen several interesting developments over recent years. The early heroic views of leadership are slowly turning into more nuanced perspectives, including the understanding that leadership and followership are mutually dependent on each other. Likewise, there is a growing awareness that the focus on the positive side of leadership and followership can be fruitfully complemented by a focus on the darker sides of these constructs. According to the latest research plenty of “grey areas” exist, where further insights into leadership and followership are needed. We seek to emphasize the different shades of dark leadership by taking leaders, followers, and their interaction in specific contexts into account. Accordingly, many of the findings presented in this Research Topic align with a deviation away from the idea of the omnipotent leader. Not only leaders’ dark traits such as narcissism and psychopathy, but also followers’ Machiavellianism emerged as hindering factors for positive organizational functioning. Other results presented in this Research Topic will be fruitful to explain what drives leaders towards dark-side behaviors, the consequences of dark-side leader behaviors (e.g., different types of destructive leadership), and how followers respond to them (e.g., follower attributions of perceived abusive supervision). Contributions to this Research Topic are also pushing the boundaries of current theorizing, shedding further light on the “shades of grey," when it comes to the possibly unintended negative consequences of leadership and followership. In sum, the dark sides of leadership and followership are a natural part of an organizational reality that many employees face day in and day out. The aim of this Research Topic is to encourage an integrative view of leadership and followership and their dark sides, for a better understanding of complex organizational systems and implications for better practice.