Leadership Conversations

Conversation techniques and tools that can help strong managers become great leaders Often the very same skills and traits that enable rising stars to achieve success "tenacity, aggressiveness, self-confidence" become liabilities when promoted into a leadership track. While managers' conversations are generally transactional and centered on the task at hand, leaders must focus on people, asking great questions and aligning them with the vision for the future. Leadership mindsets and skills can be developed, and Leadership Conversations provides practical guidance for connecting with others in ways that transform each interaction into an opportunity for organizational and personal growth. Identifies four types of conversation every leader must master: building relationships, making decisions, taking action, and developing others Provides an action plan for boosting your personal leadership potential, as well for developing leadership skills in others Draws on the authors' rich experience coaching and working with leaders at a wide range of organizations, including NASA, the U.S. Navy, intelligence agencies, Boeing, Gillette, Bausch & Lomb, and Georgetown University Leadership Conversations is required reading for both high-potential managers looking to make it to the next level and leaders looking to develop their people.

Interviews with 13 women, in areas ranging from philanthropy to politics and from business to academia, present a thought-provoking look at differences and commonalities in the lives and leadership approaches of women committed to social change. Beyond personal details and anecdotes, conversations capture a variety of experiences and insights reflecting what it's like to be a woman and a major leader in America at the close of the 20th century. Hartman is a professor and director for the Institute of Women's Leadership at Douglass College, Rutgers University. Lacks a subject index. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR

Find out what your customers and employees are really thinking with this indispensable resource Scaling Conversations: How Leaders Access the Full Potential of People delivers invaluable strategies for how leaders can make their communications more inclusive and access the voices of those employees who rarely feel empowered to speak up. As constituent numbers scale, leaders have traditionally struggled to make communications a conversation with the entire organization, settling instead for small focus groups, talking at people in town halls, and delivering surveys after the fact. The result is exclusive, narrow decision-making that disengages and under-utilizes talent and human capital. And now, as the remote environment grows, the challenge and imperative for engaging conversations on a wider scale is even greater. Scaling Conversations provides the solution. Having led a remote team for over a decade and having worked with thousands of leaders across North America, Dave MacLeod teaches you how to: Scale your business by listening to the voices that really matter Access and maximize the human capital in your organization Make decisions that create unity and move the group forward Decrease employee turnover caused by poor communication Within these pages, you'll learn how to better facilitate conversations with a wider and more representative array of clients and employees, and not just the loudest ones in the town hall meeting or Slack channel. Perfect for any leader who's responsible for understanding what employees are really feeling and thinking, Scaling Conversations also belongs on the bookshelves of anyone who wants to learn how to discover what the “silent majority,” who are often drowned out by the loudest people in the room, actually believes.

#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 HBO Max docuseries Brené Brown: Atlas of the Heart! NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY BLOOMBERG 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 this new book, 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.

Some of the world’s foremost thought leaders consider the role of leadership, love, and power in the midst of political and social upheaval. In a world where organizations and leaders face conflicts and complexity at an alarming rate, where human cruelty sometimes dominates kindness in individuals and families, and where nations hover in the shadow of moral and financial collapse, how do we find courage to forge a strong and enduring path into the future? In this book, fourteen of the world’s foremost thought leaders consider the role of leadership, love, and power in the midst of political and social upheaval. Included are interviews with former president of the Philippines Corazon Aquino; servant-leaders Margaret Wheatley, Ken Blanchard, George Zimmer, and James Autry; and others. They engage the significant leadership questions of our time and reveal an uncommon and life-affirming path toward families, organizations, and nations imbued with generosity and meaning. Shann Ray Ferch is Professor of Leadership Studies at Gonzaga University and author of Forgiveness and Power in the Age of Atrocity: Servant-Leadership as a Way of Life. He is also the editor of the International Journal of Servant-Leadership. Larry C. Spears is CEO of the Spears Center for Servant-Leadership. His many books include The Spirit of Servant-Leadership, coedited with Ferch. Mary McFarland is Director of Jesuit Commons: Higher Education at the Margins.

Focus the power of your collaborative school community with powerful coaching conversations! Effective coaching conversations are powerful tools to rally your school-community stakeholders to work collaboratively toward transformation, and, ultimately, share in success. The Second Edition of this best-selling handbook includes new neuroscientific research that demonstrates the potential for change in schools and expands the approach to cover teacher/student interaction. In addition to learning techniques to engage and motivate, readers will also discover how to: Develop relational trust within the school to heighten personal growth and learning Utilize the power of committed listening, intentional conversations, and nonjudgmental feedback Create positive changes in how people think and interact

Speak with clarity, confidence, and courage! Many educators struggle with discussing difficult issues with colleagues. This insightful book helps readers effectively lead challenging conversations with supervisees, peers, and supervisors. Emphasizing initiative and preparation as keys to a successful conversation, the author’s step-by-step approach provides: Thought-provoking questions and first-person accounts that help build communications skills Advice on overcoming personal hesitation about expressing concerns Guidance on goal setting and choosing the best “what-where-and-when” for a productive discussion Sample scripts and other interactive tools to help educators prepare for the conversation and achieve positive outcomes

You want people to stretch their limits, but your conversations meant to help them often fall flat or backfire, creating more resistance than growth. Top leadership coach Marcia Reynolds offers a model for using the Discomfort Zone—the moment when the mind is most open to learning—to prompt people to think through problems, see situations more strategically, and transcend their limitations. Drawing on recent discoveries in the neuroscience of learning, Reynolds shows how to ask the kinds of questions that short-circuit the brain’s defense mechanisms and habitual thought patterns. Then, instead of being told, people see for themselves the insightful and often profound solutions to what is stopping their progress. The exercises and case studies will help you use discomfort in your conversations to create lasting changes and an enlivened workforce.