The Leadership Challenge Planner: An Action Guide to Achieving Your Personal Best

By James M. Kouzes and Barry Z. Posner

Book Overview

From the legAndary authors of The Leadership Challenge comes this practical implementation tool you'll use to plan your next major project Over one million professionals have used Kouzes and Posner's resources to improve their leadership ability. Again and again, users have asked for more follow-up materials, enabling them to make practical use of the tenets of the famous five practices of exemplary leadership. The Leadership Challenge Planner is your answer. Even if you haven't previously used Kouzes and Posner's five-practices model, you'll find The Leadership Challenge Planner vital to preparing, implementing, and evaluating your next project. This tool helps you to achieve what the authors refer to as a "personal best"--that is, a leadership accomplishment with extraordinary results. You get easy-to-use worksheets that make efficient planning simple and practical. After completing the worksheets for the five practices of exemplary leadership, you'll assemble a blueprint and a weekly planner for implementing your ideas. You'll appreciate Kouzes and Posner's celebrated insight, as well as their proven, systematic approach to exemplary leadership. There's never been a project management resource like this one. Purchase multiple planners so you'll have the means to achieve personal bests in all of your upcoming projects You'll use this hands-on resource to: **Improve your ability to communicate a vision **Strengthen co-worker commitment **Build trust and employee satisfaction . . . and much more Praise for other Kouzes and Posner resources: "I found myself constantly nodding and saying to myself, 'That's right That's how it's done That's what it feels like ' Kouzes and Posner] capture the essence of what I've found is at the heart of transforming leadership." --Robert D. Haas, chairman and CEO, Levi Strauss & Co. "Kouzes and Posner are two of the best people in my field." --Ken Blanchard, author, Gung Ho and The One Minute Manager series " The Leadership Challenge is a masterpiece " --Herb Kelleher, president and CEO, Southwest Airlines

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0787945684
• ISBN13: 9780787945688
• Release Date: April 1999
• Publisher: Jossey-Bass
• Length: 112 Pages
• Weight: 0.70 lbs.
• Dimensions: 9.5" x 0.3" x 8.0"

Customer Reviews

Guidelines for the Five Practices of Exemplary Leadership

"The Leadership Challenge Planner is a one-hop-at-a-time workbook for leaders. It's designed to help you reflect and act on your need (or organization's) for change...When we began our research, we decided to find out what practices characterize exemplary leaders: people who get extraordinary things done in organizations. Our research began with analyzing what behaviors people demonstrated when they were leading a project that they considered a 'personal best': one that set an individual standard of excellence for them. We collected thousands of stories of leaders performing at their peak, and we looked at what actions seemed to be consistent in all the stories. Several years-and several thousand quantitative and qualitative analyses-later, we found that five practices define exemplary leadership: 1.Challenging the process 2.Inspiring a shared vision 3.Enabling others to act 4.Modeling the way 5.Encouraging the heart...The purpose of this planner is to assist people, managers and nonmanagers alike, in furthering their ability to lead others and get extraordinary things done...We hope that his planner convinces you that leadership is everyone's business...By accepting the challenge to lead, you come to realize that the only limits are those you place on yourself" (from the Introduction).In this context, throughout the five chapters (3 through 7), James M. Kouzes and Barry Z. Posner list and explain guidelines for these five practices.1. Guidelines for Challenging the Process- Try these strategies to change, grow, innovate, and improve: *treat every job as an adventure *send people shopping for ideas *put 'idea gathering' on your own agenda *go out and find something that needs fixing *take a class; learn a new skill *experiment, experiment, experiment *make it safe for others to experiment *work with ideas that may sound strange initially *debrief every failure as well as every success *model risk taking.2. Guidelines for Inspiring a Shared Vision- Try hese strategies to envision an uplifting future and enlist others in the vision: *determine what you want *act on your intuition *test your assumptions *become a futurist *develop your interpersonal competence *breathe life into your vision *speak positively *speak from the heart *make the intangible tangible *listen, listen, listen.3. Guidelines for Enabling Others to Act- Try these strategies to build trust and strengthen others: *always say we *increase interactions *focus on gains, not losses *from planning and problem-solving partnership *go first *enlarge people's sphere of influence *make sure delegated tasks are relevant *make connections *make heroes of other people *educate, educate, educate.4. Guidelines for Modeling the Way- Try these strategies to set the example and achieve small wins: *open a dialoque about personal and shared values *audit your actions *be dramatic *tell stories about teacheble moments *take personal interest in everything *make a plan *create a model *break it up, a