The Secret: What Great Leaders Know and Do | Ken Blanchard & Mark Miller

Main Theme: What Great Leaders Know and Do.
For People Who: Are Interested In Timeless Leadership Principles

Being “the boss” does not make you a leader. While people may follow your title for a short while, eventually those followers will fall aside because they’ll realize you’re not taking them anywhere. They may even come to realize that you, as the boss, are not interested in serving them, but getting them to do what you want, when you want it.  The Secret is a fantastic little fable that follows the leadership development of Debbie Brewster. She is a struggling leader, who sees herself primarily as a “boss” who puts out fires and tells others what to do. But there is a big problem: the numbers for her team are falling and she doesn’t know why. Through a mentor program with the president of the company, Debbie discovers the secret of what great leaders know and do. What Ken Blanchard and Mark Miller demonstrate, in a very simple way, are the incredible, yet basic, principles of leadership worth following.

Great leaders don’t become great in a moment – or in a month or a year. They become great leaders one day at a time throughout their lifetimes. You’ll never finish. –The Secret, pg. 29

Start With Why | Simon Sinek

Author: Simon Sinek

Main Theme: How great leaders inspire everyone to take action
For People Who: Are stagnant in life, work, and service

Leaders do not merely hold a position of influence. Leaders do not merely hold a title. Leaders inspire us. When we hear their stories we are moved to action. We tear up. We buck up. We rise up. We feel challenged to face adversity and refuse to give up no matter how hard it gets. In the end, people don’t follow great leaders because they have to, but because they choose to. Great leaders don’t have to beg people to follow them; they inspire them to do so by the quality of their actions, the integrity of their intentions, and their competency to accomplish a shared vision. That is what Start with Why is all about.

There are only two ways to influence human behavior: you can manipulate it or you can inspire it. –Start With Why, pg. 17

The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People | Stephen R. Covey

Main Theme: Personal Growth & Change

For People Who: Need lessons on becoming an effective person and leader.

For over twenty-five years, CEOs, presidents, parents, teachers and leaders of all kinds have been challenged by The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. Stephen Covey recognizes that to be an effective person, it all begins from the inside out. We can spend so much time and energy focusing on improving our attitudes and behaviors that we waste away hacking at the leaves rather than the root. The root is who we really are inside. It’s the principles and values that we hold most dear and until those roots are dealt with, first and foremost, we will never get past the first habit. I loved how Covey built up these habits – like building a house. He begins with a foundation of principle-centered thinking. Covey then builds the framework with the first three habits which deal with who we are privately when no one is around. He then builds the exterior of the house with the second three habits which deal with who we are publicly. Finally, he expresses the importance of maintenance – the seventh and final habit – which deals with maintaining the health of a well-balanced life, without which the first six habits will fall into disrepair. This is a classic work that will impact generations to come.

The inside-out approach says that private victories precede public victories, that making and keeping promises to ourselves precedes making and keeping promises to others. It says it is futile to put personality ahead of character, to try to improve relationships with others before improving ourselves…I have never seen lasting solutions to problems, lasting happiness and success, that came from the outside in. –7 Habits, pg. 51

Insanely Simple | Ken Segall

Author: Ken Segall

Main Theme: Simplicity
For People Who: Want to see how simplicity can drive success

If you’ve ever wanted to be a fly on the wall at Apple when Steve Jobs was CEO, Insanely Simple is one you will find very interesting! I’m a big Apple fan, so it was a thrill to learn one of the key factors of Apple’s comeback after Steve Jobs’ 11 year exile from the company he founded was Simplicity. The author, Ken Segall, worked for years on Apple ad campaigns such as Think Different and Mac vs PC. (go ahead and stop reading for a minute and watch those ads – they’re great!) He’s also the one responsible for the ‘i’ in front of Apple products. In retelling his experiences with Steve Jobs he often references Steve’s “simple stick.” It was Steve’s way of knocking out the complexity in everything in order to make things as simple as possible. Complexity has a tendency to work it’s way into an organization, it’s systems, and it’s products. It’s interesting to look back and see the decisions that were made at Apple with the advantage of knowing how things worked out. Apple is one of the strongest and most well-known brands in the world. One reason for such notoriety is because Apple keeps everything insanely simple.

Simple can be harder than complex. You have to work hard to get your thinking clean to make it simple. But it’s worth it in the end, because once you get there, you can move mountains. –Steve Jobs

Chess Not Checkers | Mark Miller

Author: Mark Miller

Main Theme: Leadership
For People Who: Need to take their leadership game to the next level in a growing organization.

I received an early copy of Chess Not Checkers from Mark Miller’s publisher and could not wait to write about it! Chess Not Checkers is a leadership fable that follows a newly hired CEO, Blake. After taking on his new role, Blake is connected with a retired CEO named Jack who mentors and coaches struggling leaders. Chess Not Checkers is short, clear and concise. As much as I read, I have found that many books have a lot of fluff but not much substance after you’ve read half of the book. Chess Not Checkers is not fluff. I found the “moves” leaders must make to continue progress in a growing organization to be incredibly practical and well described. If you’re an avid reader the leadership ideas themselves won’t be mind-blowing; you’ve probably read about these concepts before. But the difference is how these ideas are packaged in Chess Not Checkers – which is a great visual aid I plan on using in leadership meetings! And who ever needs to hear something important about leadership just one time and in one way? Mark Miller does a fantastic job raising your leadership game, strategy and awareness in Chess Not Checkers.

Most small businesses can be successful with a checkers mindset…The leader does virtually everything in the beginning…each piece is capable of the same limited moves…the game is simple…you react, you make decisions, the pace is frenetic – you’re playing checkers…If you play checkers when the name of the game is chess, you lose. –Chess Not Checkers, pg. 27

Built To Last | Jim Collins & Jerry Porras

Author: Jim Collins & Jerry Porras

Main Theme: Leadership, Habits, Vision
For People Who: Want to Build Organizations that Outlast Them

I am a big Jim Collins fan and have now read the books he’s authored/coauthored in reverse of their publication date. What makes the ideas of Built to Last and his other works so potent is they are not merely his opinions. Each book is steeped in years of data collection and study. So the theories promoted in Built to Last, Good to Great, How The Mighty Fall, and Great by Choice are not mere opinion, they are grounded in factual history. This is why I find his (and his coauthor’s) writings on leadership and organization culture so compelling! Built to Last is essentially about how great visionary companies outpaced their competitors and have existed over 100 years! As leaders, do we not want our work to live far beyond us? As leaders, we believe the work we do changes the world. And may we never be satisfied as leaders until the organizations we have built can continue to succeed long after we have walked away from them.

Built to Last is about building something worthy of lasting…Implicit throughout every page of Built to Lastis a simple question: Why on Earth would you settle for creating something mediocre that does little more than make money, when you can create something outstanding that makes a lasting contribution as well? -Built to Last, pg. xiii