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by David Cottrell
Purchase on Amazon
I really enjoyed this book. The nuggets of wisdom are well worth the cost of the book. A good quick read that can greatly impact your business career.
Sample Nuggets of Wisdom from the book:
"When it comes to leading people, there is no problem that is unique to you." pg. 19
"For you to be the very best, you cannot allow yourself to become complacent in your comfort zone. You need to be reaching for improvement."
Summary of the Selection:
The selection does an excellent job of giving specific leadership duties, crisis faced by managers/leaders, and steps to resolve the concerns/crisis. I have summarized the chapters below, which will only give you a flavor of what you can find in this unique book.
1.Drivers and Passengers
a.Be a Driver and until you accept total responsibility for your job duties, you will not be able to put plans in place to accomplish your goals.
b.Transitioning from manager to leader requires that you make different decisions.
2.Keep the Main Thing the Main Thing
a.Crisis should not be what drives your job duties. A leader's job should not only be crisis management and the leader and his/her subordinate leadership should not be firefighters.
b.What are your job duties as a leader? What are your and your organization's goals? What are the main things that are important to doing a good job?
Know your main things and those of your employees. Share the main things with each other. This is the first step to team building.
3.Escape from Management Land
a.To get out of management land you need to get in touch with your employees. What are their concerns, what are their main things, who are the superstars, the mediocre employees, and the falling stars?
b.Your job, as a leader, is not to lower the bottom by adjusting and accommodating the falling stars (failing employees). You as a leader should be raising the top by recognizing and rewarding superstar (successful employees) behaviors.
4.The "Do Right" Rule
a.To do the right thing as a leader you need to develop your action plan before you get into a crisis.
b.The only way to fix the problem is to go directly to what's causing the light to flash and fix the problem. Address problems in a pro-active manner. An action plan should have been decided upon long before the crisis developed.
c.Guard your integrity like it's your most precious management possession.
5.Hire Tough
a.The most important thing you can do as a leader is to hire the right people. You can't have a strong and effective team with weak and ineffective people.
b.The most important asset in your company is having the right people on your team.
c.Never lower your standards just to fill a position. You will pay for it later.
6.Do Less or Work Faster
a.Your time is your responsibility. Take control of your time so you can take control of your life.
b.Look for small increments of time by prioritizing, limiting interruptions, and effectively managing meetings.
c.There's a myth that no one seems to recognize, and it's this: No one can save time... we all have the same amount, and can't save time; we have to make
better decisions on how we spend our time.
d.There are two ways to spend time better: 1) you can do less or 2) you can do things faster. Of course, there are some things that we can eliminate and just say no to.
7.Buckets and Dippers
a.Fill Lots of Buckets—1) know your and your employees' main things, 2) give employees feedback on performance, 3) provide recognition, 4) communicate to the team and let them know how they are doing by providing them with their team score.
b.The more buckets you fill, the more your own bucket is filled.
8.Enter the Learning Zone (Leadership and the learning zone)
a.Get out of the comfort zone.
b.Spend 10 minutes a day reading leadership related materials.
c.Listen to your employees and your supervisor(s).
d.Give back
e.Set goals
f.Stay positive
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