Five books that will increase your ability to lead

From PLN

Five books that will increase your ability to lead

by Leslie Dillon, from Leader's Digest August 2007

Leaders are “powerless without others’ cooperation.” That’s why the ability to persuade is such a critical leadership skill. Theodore Kinni discusses 5 books that will help you “hone your ability to lead through influence.” (I’ve discussed a couple of these books in earlier Leader’s Digest columns, but the remarks here are based on Kinni’s article.)

Howard Gardner’s Changing Minds: The Art and Science of Changing Our Own and Other People’s Minds (Harvard Business School Press, 2004) provides a framework for understanding how minds change. The three aspects of mind changing are:

The entities. The concepts, stories, theories, and skills that change.
The levers. These effect changes and include reason, research, and redescriptions.
The arenas of mind change. These can range “from large-scale, heterogeneous populations, such as a nation, to the solitariness of one’s own mind.”

Gardner’s model “offers a method for analyzing mind-changing efforts and provides a tool set” to help you improve your ability to influence others.

Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die by Chip and Dan Heath (Random House, 2007) gets its inspiration from Malcolm Gladwell’s The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference (Little, Brown, 2000). The most effective messages are “sticky.” Sticky ideas are understood, remembered “and have a lasting impact.” The authors identify six key principles of stickiness: simplicity, unexpectedness, concreteness, credibility, emotions and stories. Also, we need to remember to put ourselves “in listeners’ shoes when we craft our messages.”

Annette Simmons’ Whoever Tells the Best Story Wins: How to Use Your Own Stories to Communicate with Power and Impact (Amacom, 2007) discusses the importance of good stories and includes exercises to help you build good stories. Take your stories “from four sources close at hand: a time you shined, a time you blew it, a mentor, and a book, movie, or current event.” The ability of stories “to connect with people is what makes them influential.”

Stephen Young’s Micromessaging: Why Great Leadership Is Beyond Words (McGraw-Hill, 2007) “reveals how leaders can undermine their stated goals with micromessages--gestures, expressions, tone of voice--that don’t match the words being spoken.” Unfortunately, most of us aren’t aware of the powerful negative message our micromessages send. The book’s key message is self-awareness. “If you want to succeed in influencing others, don’t send mixed messages.”

Crucial Confrontations: Tools for Resolving Broken Promises, Violated Expectations, and Bad Behavior (McGraw-Hill, 2005), by Kerry Patterson, Joseph Grenny, Ron McMillan, and Al Switzler, takes on a truly difficult area— how to resolve broken promises and deal with bad behavior. Many managers avoid confrontation, but “leaders who hope to change minds must learn to deal with it constructively.” Opinion leaders wield “influence because they were the best at stepping up to colleagues, coworkers, or even their bosses, and holding them accountable.” The authors developed a six-step process to master confrontation:

Choose what and if. Decide on the goal and whether it’s worth the effort to achieve it.
Master your stories. Ensure that you understand fully why and how the problem developed.
Describe the gap between what was expected and what was observed.
Make it motivating and easy for the person to change.
Agree on a plan. Follow up to ensure the problem is solved.
Stay focused and flexible. Monitor emerging problems and avoid getting sidetracked.

Here’s a bonus! Find out how good you are at managing confrontations. Take this free, online self-assessment (33 questions).

(Theodore Kinni, “Five books that will amplify your ability to lead through influence,” Harvard Management Update, July 2007.)

Recommended reading - for April 2008, the LLN Peer Panel suggests a range of books that leaders might find worthwhile.
Changing your mind - Leaders need to be able to persuade others--but you may need to change your own mind from time to time. This PLN Challenge offers examples of when library leaders have changed their minds.