Lead Your Team To Win

Have you, as head of your team, felt frustrated when team members seem distracted and unable to work because of personal issues? Have you, as a team member, wanted a second opinion for your big idea, but were afraid of being laughed at, or—worse—having your idea stolen? Have you been in a work situation where you felt trust was broken, and you were left with few options for repairing it? These issues stymie productivity and strain relationships in offices around the globe; professional business coach Maxine Attong offers a radical, but proven solution: the office “safe space.” Enter this space—where trust is paramount—and find your way forward, free from the worries of being judged, ridiculed, shamed, or stolen from. A safe space offers: an empathetic leader willing to listen as you share what’s preventing you from focusing on the day’s task; a fellow team member willing to help you hammer out an idea you have for streamlining an office procedure; or a team leader willing to listen to your frustrations over a coworker, yet remaining neutral and sworn to secrecy. Attong developed this “safe space” concept through more than twenty years of work with organizations in the gas and oil, financial, manufacturing, and service industries. When team members feel safe, Attong believes, they will take risks, make decisions, and put forth their best efforts despite what is happening in their personal lives. A team with all members able to perform at their peak will be a winning team—one that achieves excellence and propels its people forward to even greater victories. This book leads the way to those victories.

"One of the ten best leadership books so far this year."--Bloomberg Following up the popular peak performance book Organize Tomorrow Today, a new plan to motivate, set priorities and lead any team to optimal achievement Watch a triumphant speech after a sports championship or business milestone and you'll almost always hear some variation of this catchphrase: "It couldn't have happened without the great team we have." It doesn't matter if you're the owner of a 10,000-employee Fortune 500 company or running a small business, you're a part of a team. With a combined 50 years of experience building, managing, advising, and troubleshooting teams in both the business and sports worlds, Jason Selk and Tom Bartow now reveal the common DNA that links the highest performing teams. In Lead Any Team to Win, Selk and Bartow show how it takes collective mental toughness to win, developed only through a clear understanding of the goals, limitations, roles and personalities on your team. Great leaders respect and embrace channel capacity, Selk and Bartow explain, which means they don't overload their teams with blizzards of tasks and responsibilities. They bust the "focus" and "relationship" fallacies, as those words are meaningless for teams unless they are byproducts of activities that really matter. And Selk and Bartow teach how to manage expectations, since doing so creates a level of respect between the leader and the team--and among the team members--that is a catalyst for peak achievement.

The world's elite athletes and coaches achieve high performance through inspiring leadership, mental toughness, and direction-setting strategic choices. Harvard Business Review has talked to many of these high performers throughout the years to learn how their success translates to the world of business. If you read nothing else on management lessons from the world of sports, read these 10 articles by athletes, coaches, and leadership experts. We've combed through our archive and selected the articles that will best help you drive performance. This book will inspire you to: Improve on your weaknesses, not just your strengths Take care of your body for sustained mental performance Increase your confidence and manage your energy before an important event Turn a struggling team around Understand the limits of performance metrics Focus on long-term goals to overcome setbacks Understand where the analogy of sports and business doesn't work This collection of articles includes "Ferguson's Formula," by Anita Elberse with Sir Alex Ferguson; "Life's Work: An Interview with Greg Louganis"; "The Making of a Corporate Athlete," by Jim Loehr and Tony Schwartz; "The Tough Work of Turning a Team Around," by Bill Parcells; "How an Olympic Gold Medalist Learned to Perform Under Pressure: An Interview with Alex Gregory"; "Mental Preparation Secrets of Top Athletes, Entertainers, and Surgeons," an interview with Daniel McGinn by Sarah Green Carmichael; "SoulCycle's CEO on Sustaining Growth in a Faddish Industry," by Melanie Whelan; "Life's Work: An Interview with Kareem Abdul-Jabbar"; "Major League Innovation," by Scott D. Anthony; "Looking Past Performance in Your Star Talent," by Mark de Rond, Adrian Moorhouse, and Matt Rogan; "Life's Work: An Interview with Mikhail Baryshnikov"; "How the Best of the Best Get Better and Better," by Graham Jones; "Life's Work: An Interview with Joe Girardi"; "Why There Is an I in Team," by Mark de Rond; "Life's Work: An Interview with Andre Agassi"; and "Why Sports Are a Terrible Metaphor for Business," by Bill Taylor.

Are you a born leader? Does your team have confidence in you? Whether you need to develop leadership skills or brush up on ones you have been neglecting, follow this step-by-step guide to effective team leadership. How to Lead a Winning Team is packed full with real-life examples of good leadership from the world of international sports, as well as world business. Tips and tricks, as well as, checklists and case studies will give you all the skills you need to lead and empower a high performance team. Get the very best from all people. Develop a set of leadership skills. Lead a winning team.

"One of the ten best leadership books so far this year."--Bloomberg Following up the popular peak performance book Organize Tomorrow Today, a new plan to motivate, set priorities and lead any team to optimal achievement Watch a triumphant speech after a sports championship or business milestone and you'll almost always hear some variation of this catchphrase: "It couldn't have happened without the great team we have." It doesn't matter if you're the owner of a 10,000-employee Fortune 500 company or running a small business, you're a part of a team. With a combined 50 years of experience building, managing, advising, and troubleshooting teams in both the business and sports worlds, Jason Selk and Tom Bartow now reveal the common DNA that links the highest performing teams. In Lead Any Team to Win, Selk and Bartow show how it takes collective mental toughness to win, developed only through a clear understanding of the goals, limitations, roles and personalities on your team. Great leaders respect and embrace channel capacity, Selk and Bartow explain, which means they don't overload their teams with blizzards of tasks and responsibilities. They bust the "focus" and "relationship" fallacies, as those words are meaningless for teams unless they are byproducts of activities that really matter. And Selk and Bartow teach how to manage expectations, since doing so creates a level of respect between the leader and the team--and among the team members--that is a catalyst for peak achievement.

To succeed in today’s hypercompetitive economy, managers must master creating a productive work environment for employees while still making numbers. Tense, overextended workplaces force managers to choose between results and relationships. Executives set aggressive goals, so managers drive their teams to deliver, resulting in burnout. Or, employees seek connection and support, so managers focus on relationships and fail to make the numbers. However, managers need to achieve both. In Winning Well, managers will learn how to: Stamp out the corrosive win-at-all-costs mentality Focus on the game, not just the score Reinforce behaviors that produce results Sustain energy and momentum Be the leader people want to work for To prevent burnout and disengagement, while still achieving the necessary success for the company, managers must learn how to get their employees productive while creating an environment that makes them want to produce even more. Winning Well offers a quick, practical action plan for making the workplace productive, rewarding, and even fun.

Important new insights on team leadership and motivation, along with powerful tools and techniques taken from the world of sports How do the sports world's most successful coaches instill their teams with esprit de corps, a collaborative mindset, and an unbeatable desire to win? More importantly, what can business leaders and managers learn from their example? This book answers these and a host of key questions about what it takes to be a successful leader in business or in sports. Drawing upon their unique experiences working with top sports coaches, as well as some of the world's leading corporate executives, authors Dino Ruta and Paolo Guenzi offer important new insights into team leadership and motivation, as well as new tools for optimizing teamwork and inspiring teams to reach for and achieve new heights of glory. Develops a bold new team leadership model for managers at all levels, team leaders, project managers and facilitators, as well as sport coaches Arms you with powerful tools and techniques adapted from the world of sport for optimizing teamwork, driving motivating and instilling an unstoppable desire to win An indispensable source of insight and ideas for executives and managers in companies of all sizes, and an important supplement for postgraduate management programs

Today’s best leaders know how to lead up, a necessary strategy when a supervisor is micromanaging rather than macrothinking, when a division president offers clear directives but can’t see the future, or when investors demand instant gain but need long-term growth. Through vivid, compelling stories, Michael Useem reveals how upward leadership can transform incipient disaster into hard-won triumph. For example, U.S. Marine Corps General Peter Pace reconciled the conflicting priorities of six bosses by keeping them well informed and challenging their instructions when necessary. Useem also explores what happens when those who should step forward fail to do so—Mount Everest mountaineers might have saved themselves from disaster during a fateful ascent if only they had questioned their guides’ flawed decisions. Leading Up is a call to action. It asks us to get results by helping our superiors lead and by building on the best in everybody’s nature, and it offers a pragmatic blueprint for doing so.