Top 8 Leadership Books for Your Summer Reading List

Leadership

Leaders are readers. If you’re looking for some titles to add to your reading list this summer, we’ve gathered our top eight picks for you.

From memoirs to case studies to historical dramas, you’ll find inspiring accounts to satisfy your need to read.  Here’s a list of books that we think are well worth the turn of the page:

1. Grit to Great: How Perseverance, Passion, and Pluck Take You from Ordinary to Extraordinary by Linda Kaplan Thaler and Robin Koval

What it’s about: You don’t have to be brilliant or incredibly talented to become successful.  In fact, those qualities may work against you when you face resistance. To push past barriers, it’s far better to have Guts, Resilience, Initiative and Tenacity.

Why pick it up:  It’s a quick read (143 pages) and packed with both case studies and research. Plus, you’ll find ‘Grit Builders’ at the end of each chapter.

2. The Right Kind of Crazy: A True Story of Teamwork, Leadership, and High-Stakes Innovation by Adam Steltzner and William Patrick

What it’s about: The unbridled elation at NASA when the Curiosity rover successfully landed on Mars in 2012 – and the inside account of the ten years of hard work and zero margin for error that led up to that moment.

Why pick it up:  It’s a story about the triumph of human ingenuity over staggering odds.  Share it with your team to inspire them to break down seemingly impossible problems into smaller, more manageable ones.

 3. Originals: How Non-Conformists Move the World by Adam Grant

What it’s about: From Martin Luther King, Jr. to the founder behind uBeam, it’s an inspiring account of how successful non-conformists bust myths, speak truth to power, and avoid groupthink without getting sidelined.

Why pick it up:  Fresh research, counter-intuitive insights, status quo busting, lively writing, and practical calls to action.

4. Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience by Milhaly Csikszentmihalyi

What it’s about:  Most people alternate between work we dislike but feel obliged to do, and passive activities that offer no stimulation. This book suggests that we find flow, a state in which we are intrinsically challenged without the self-conscious anxiety of performance.

Why pick it up:  A reminder that when we are so absorbed in meaningful activity that we ‘forget’ ourselves, we reconnect with who we are at our best.

5. Turn the Ship Around: A True Story of Turning Followers into Leaders by L. David Marquet

What it’s about: A ship’s transformation through personal accounts and moments in which U.S. Navy Captain Marquet realized his own failures and successes.

Why pick it up: It’s “The Hunt for Red October” meets Harvard Business Review.

6. The Wright Brothers by David McCullough

What it’s about: The dramatic story of two courageous brothers who launched the Age of Flight despite overwhelming odds. To quote Wilbur Wright: “No bird soars in the calm. If you want to take off, you have to take off into the wind. You need the wind. The wind will make you.”

Why pick it up: It’s written by a two-time Pulitzer Prize winner and blends the best of history with an inspiring story of how to meet resistance head on to achieve your goals.

7. Shoe Dog: A Memoir by the Creator of Nike by Phil Knight 

What it’s about: A candid and riveting account from the man behind the swoosh about the company’s early days and its evolution from a garage business into one of the world’s most iconic, game-changing brands.

Why pick it up: It’s a straight-from-the-source account about the early years of Nike, and the ragtag group of misfits who harnessed the power of a shared mission and deep belief in the spirit of sport.

8. Superbosses: How Exceptional Leaders Master the Flow of  Talent by Sidney Finkelstein

What it’s about: A revealing study about how some people are able to propel not only their companies – but also their protégés – to great heights.

Why pick it up: A good boss hits his goals and leads his team. A superboss blows away her goals by building an army of new leaders. Which would you rather be?

Some of the principles shared in these books you may already know but need reminding of.  Others can give you the inspired insight you need to tackle your greatest challenges of 2016.

Question: What books have helped you along your leadership journey?

The Science of Power: A Review of The Power Paradox by Dacher Keltner

Leadership

“Power tends to corrupt; absolute power corrupts absolutely.”

Unfortunately, that statement from British historian Lord Acton is not entirely false.

How power impacts our brains is the subject of The Power Paradox: How We Gain and Lose Influence, a new book by UC Berkeley Professor Dacher Keltner.  At Berkeley’s Social Interaction Laboratory, Keltner and his students explore how power reduces our inhibitions and weakens our social awareness.

“What we’ve learned,” says Keltner, “is that when we feel powerful, the empathy regions of the brain disengage.  We suddenly become impulsive, we behave inappropriately, we are more likely to swear, and we generally lose touch with other people.” Keltner’s lab students dub this the Cookie Monster effect.

Thus, the paradox. The skills we need to gain power and effectively lead others – like social intelligence and empathy – are the very ones we are likely to lose when we achieve power.

So, does power corrupt?  Yes and no.

“One of the things we’ve learned from studying the science of power,” states Keltner, is that it “tends to amplify our pre-existing tendencies.”  In effect, power reveals.

Power reveals

Consider the effects of power on the late U.S. President, Richard Milhous Nixon. Long before Nixon left the White House as an unindicted coconspirator in the Watergate scandal, he was a highly paranoid conspiracy theorist.  His attempts to break an imaginary conspiracy led him to launch a conspiracy that broke him, and, ultimately, cost him the presidency.

Nixon’s words, “I am not a crook,” and “When the president does it, that means it is not illegal,” forever cloud the political zeitgeist of the 1970s.The pall of Watergate overshadowed Nixon’s foreign and domestic achievements even until his death in 1994. Nixon died not famous but infamous, an icon of the power paradox.

Keltner finds that examples of the fall from power like Nixon’s resignation may lead us to believe that the abuse of power is inevitable. But the power paradox is more complex.

Keltner writes, “It is not human nature to abuse power. Power is a dopamine high. Every time we experience power, we find ourselves at a moment, a fork in the road . . . we can act in ways that lead us to enjoy enduring power, or we can be seduced by the self-indulgent possibilities that power occasions.  Which path you take matters enormously.”

What will you do with power?

In his classic work The Prince, Machiavelli concluded that a person should use any means necessary in order to acquire and protect power.  Yet, the rise of countless leaders like Nixon who subscribed to the Machiavellian model show that tactics like coercion and manipulation inevitably lead to their fall.

Keltner writes, “Society has changed dramatically since Machiavelli’s Renaissance Florence in ways that require us to move beyond outdated notions of power.”  He suggests that we broaden our definition of power as the capacity to make a difference in the world, to find our purpose – the specific difference in the world that we are best suited to make – and bring it to fruition.

To overcome the power paradox, Keltner recommends a fivefold path to stay in check with what matters most:

1. Be aware of your feelings of power. Be mindful of the dopamine high associated with power. Keep yourself grounded by reminding yourself of your higher purpose.
2. Practice humility. Power is a gift, not a right. Don’t get caught up in your own press.
3. Stay focused on others, and give. Our ability to make a difference in the world will grow exponentially when we give to others, and help others be givers.
4. Practice respect. People with their self-respect intact are unified behind the purpose and values of the society, and are committed to the success of the society over personal success.
5. Change the psychological context of powerlessness. Use your position to create opportunities that empower those without power.  Call into question elements of society that devalue others.

In short, Keltner challenges us to answer the question, “What will you do with your power?”  Will you be corrupted by it, or use it to make a positive impact on the world?  The choice is yours.

Interested in overcoming the power paradox for yourself or your team? Check out our Leadership Development services or email me at snasim@executiveexcellence.com directly to set-up a free 30 minute consultation.

The Servant Leader’s Dilemma

Leadership

A few weeks ago, I was meeting with a CEO who is an avid student of servant leadership.  This was the fourth in a series of sessions in which I was helping him write a speech about the benefits of being a servant leader.  Here’s a paraphrased version of the conversation:

CEO:  I nearly cancelled our meeting this morning because I was not prepared.

ME:  Why do you think you were not prepared?  

CEO:  The firm is growing fast, and I have so many people to serve.  I’m exhausted.

ME:  Ah, yes.  The servant leader’s dilemma.  “How can I effectively use my leadership position to serve others without burning myself out?” 

The concept of servant leadership was originated by Robert Greenleaf nearly 50 years ago.  Greenleaf was an iconoclast who argued that leaders should use their positions of power to help their teams succeed rather than for self-interest and personal glory.  It’s a powerful concept that has been put to the test by many organizations, large and small, such as Southwest Airlines and Federal Express.

Servant leadership has a strong appeal for leaders with a bias for being good stewards of humanity.  Yet, many who start down the servant leadership path quickly run afoul when applying it to their teams.  Consider these two areas identified by Dr. Tony Baron, author of The Art of Servant Leadership, that can result in the servant leader’s dilemma:

The doormat.  

Leaders who are attracted to servant leadership are also often repelled by the traditional command-and-control, top down, leadership style.  They’ve seen traditional leaders who demoralize and dispirit their team, and create a culture of fear.

However, servant leaders can swing the pendulum in the opposite direction.  They emphasize the character traits they want to display and to see in their management team. Traits like integrity, humility, respect, and compassion are rewarded.

While these traits are honorable and can serve a leader well, teams need leaders who can effectively balance character with performance. In The Servant Leader author James Autry notes, “Servant leadership is not about being nice or being loved, nor is it about never having to do the gut-wrenching stuff like firing people.  It is the combining of personal characteristics with self-discipline and the unwavering commitment to creating a workplace of efficacy and productivity.”

Nobody wants to follow a doormat.  You can care about people and have an intense bias for action at the same time.  After all, you’re not really serving others if you’re not helping them make and keep their performance commitments.

The empty vessel.

Executives who aspire to be servant leaders care deeply about helping others grow. But, like the CEO described in the opening conversation, they often misapply the concept and exhaust themselves in the process. If you spend all of your time giving to others, you’ll find yourself at a place where you have nothing left to give.

Those attracted to servant leadership want to be generous to others.  But, as Dr. Tony Baron suggests, “you cannot be generous by emptying your cup but by sharing what is overflowing in your life”.

Leaders who spend too much of their time meeting others’ needs first run the risk of serving themselves into exhaustion.

Do you feel that your team is taking advantage of your good nature?  Are you exhausting yourself in the service of others?  If so, it may be time to ask yourself if you’ve ever misapplied the principles of servant leadership.