Leadership Pocketbook

Written for leaders at all levels - strategic, organisational and team level - the Leadership Pocketbook explains how to inspire, influence, deal with change and achieve objectives. Illustrated throughout, the book adopts a practical approach, setting out the principles of leadership, the role of the leader, the skills required for effective leadership and the key challenges facing leaders in today's business environment. This 2nd edition sees the addition of a new section about leaders and social responsibility. "Contemporary business leaders must be aware of the major forces shaping society today and understand how their organisations need to respond and contribute to these challenges", author Fiona Dent writes. She is Director of Faculty Development at Ashridge where she is also Programme Director for the Influencing Strategies and Skills Programme. A focus of the book, described by the author as 'perhaps the most necessary skill for any leader', is self-awareness - to know yourself, to realise what your leadership strengths and weaknesses are and when you must continue to develop. "With admirable clarity, Fiona Dent distils the salient leadership issues and skills. Every potential leader and every leader with potential should find a place for this book in their pocket or bag." Philip Hodgson, Director of Leadership Programmes, Ashridge "A practical, easy to use guide for all levels of leadership. It covers a broad range of topics in sufficient detail to make it usable both for fresh learning and for reference." Richard Nicholson, Management Development Manager, Novartis Pharmaceuticals UK Ltd

Written for leaders at all levels - strategic, organisational and team level - The Leadership Pocketbook explains how to inspire, influence, deal with change and achieve objectives. Illustrated throughout, the book adopts a practical approach, setting out the principles of leadership, the role of the leader, the skills required for effective ......

This third edition of the Head of Department's Pocketbook will support middle leaders in both primary and secondary schools in carrying out their jobs confidently and efficiently. Authors Brin Best and Will Thomas know from experience that managing diverse teams in a climate of inflated performance expectations is no easy task. They devote a section of the Pocketbook to leadership and management, encompassing vision, goals and creativity, as well as challenging adult behaviours, up-skilling, influencing and motivating colleagues. A later chapter called 'Raising Student Achievement' looks at excellence in the classroom and includes material on enriching and supporting learning, data use and lesson planning. Effective documentation and raising the profile of your department or curriculum area are also explored. Whether you're new to middle leadership or a seasoned hand, you'll find the self-evaluation checklist at the end of the book a useful professional development tool.

Models that explain what happened, that predict what will happen and that reveal how to get results are described in The Management Models Pocketbook - a practical resource for trainers, coaches and facilitators, and a ready-reference for managers. The range of models described, 10 in total, includes John Adair's action centred leadership model, Bruce Tuckman's team development and behaviour model, Eric Berne's parent-adult-child theory of transactional analysis and John Boyd's OODA decision-making model. There are models too covering delegation, motivation and communications. For each model described, author Mike Clayton outlines the problem that the model addresses, explains how it works (first an overview followed by a more detailed explanation) and uses examples to demonstrate how it works in practice. A diagrammatic view of each model and references to related models add to the practical approach. According to the 5-star review on Amazon: 'This is a brilliant book. The author has clearly and simply explained the models and how they apply to everyday business. A must for every training professional.'

As the director of the Creating Working Relationships Programme at Ashridge, one of Europe's top 20 business schools, Fiona Dent knows how important it is for individuals to work together effectively. In her latest pocketbook (she has also written our popular title on leadership) she describes how to create, develop and sustain constructive working relationships. 'Whatever your level in the organisation, profession, role or nationality', she says, 'much of your success will depend on how you interact with those around you.' The book describes how to create, build and sustain relationships. It identifies the key features that make a relationship work (eg openness and honesty, empathy, respect and trust) and those that don't (eg jealousy, arrogance, conflict of interest and misunderstanding). The focus is on helping readers recognise their own approaches to relationships at work, thereby enabling them to identify and understand the differences in other people's approaches and modify their own behaviour accordingly. This modification, combined with good interpersonal and communication skills, lies at the heart of relationship-building.

Many if not most teams in the modern workplace fall well short of harnessing their collective capability, maintains Erik de Haan, resulting in loss of performance and poor results. For the author of the Team Coaching Pocketbook and director of the Ashridge Centre for Coaching, this is a depressing thought yet he's quick to point out that poor performance is readily managed if team members are minded to reflect intelligently on how they operate and have the skills to do so. "This is where team coaching can be beneficial", says de Haan. "It helps teams think through what they are doing and why, how they can integrate individual skill sets and how they can innovate." Written by an expert in his field, this is a practical, insightful guide to team coaching which will benefit both coaching specialists and team leaders

"We cannot manage time. All we can do is learn how to use the time that we have, as well as we can", says Dr Mike Clayton, author of the all-new Time Management Pocketbook. Illustrated throughout, the book begins by explaining how to plan your time, how to balance the advantages of feeling in control against the necessity of remaining flexible, and how to adapt to changes. It then deals with ways of working that will make you more productive and looks at strategies for tackling one of the biggest problems you face: the challenge of 'too much'. A summary of the eight most popular time management systems in use comprises the penultimate section of the book. The author does admit, though: "I'm no fan of systems. Instead, I prefer broad principles, and a well-stocked box of tools to apply to different situations. To me, a system is a principle applied rigidly. And at some point, it won't apply. That's why I filled this Pocketbook with ideas to try; not just a single system." The book concludes by looking at how organisations can treat time as a strategic asset, systematically making better use of it for the greatest possible return

The Manager's Pocketbook is aimed at team leaders, supervisors and people managers of all levels. The 5th edition of this popular title in the Pocketbook Series will be published in March 2014. Using the acronym POLCA, the pocketbook teaches the five essential management skills: 'P' for 'planning'; 'O' for 'organising'; 'L' for 'leading'; 'C' for 'coaching/correcting'; and, 'A' for 'achieving'. There is a separate chapter on each of these five skills, preceded by an overview of the manager's role. The Manager's Pocketbook is extensively illustrated and concisely presented, reflecting the lively, right-brained approach that author John Townsend has developed throughout his long career in helping managers excel and deal with the many challenges they face.