Recent Rewind

Recently, I have been a little busy and have been unable to regularly update my blog, so today I will simply give a rewind and update of some recent activity on the site.   

One of the best posts from this past month was a post revisiting one of my first posts, the Power of Encouragement.   This post, like many of my posts, includes a story from my personal life, and in this post, the story is from a different perspective than the first one.  I would encourage you to read both of these posts with the original post being linked here, and the revisited post being linked here. 

In total, I have written three posts that belong in my power series in the last month.  All three of these articles are fairly strong, but perhaps the best post was the Power of “Why”.  The Power of Paying Attention feeds off of this post as well, but the Power of “Why “sets the stage for the next part of my power series.  I would encourage you to follow this link here, and if you like, what you see, please consider reading the next two posts in the series.

While I have not been writing blog posts recently I did publish an e-book.  Compiling many of my posts and articles and synthesizing them into a set of coherent thoughts took some time, but the resulting text was very rewarding.  It is a quick read and I believe it contains some great information for a young leader just getting started in their leadership journey.  If you would like to get a copy of this book, please feel free to contact me via my contact page which is linked here. 

I have a few more posts in the works so stay tuned for more content in the next few days. 

Power of Encouragement Revisited

Recently I wrote about the power of encouragement including a story from my point of view.  That was a very good post so I have provided a link back to it here.  If you have not read it, please take a quick moment to do so.  Today I will expand on this idea while adding in a new story about a recent hire at the store where I am a manager. 

Recently our store hired a new employee who would be working as a part of my team.  While I was not involved in the interview process I was consulted in the decision making process.  This new hire was my first trainee as a manager, which is a task I thoroughly looked forward to.  Throughout the training process, one thing stuck in the back of my head and it was the recent situation I told you about in my previous post.  With this in mind, I was constantly encouraging my new team member through both mistakes and breakthroughs.  This investment quickly paid off, as my team member quickly became one of the highest performers in terms of basic task performance or daily responsibilities, which represented the bulk of the training.  With more training and more experience on the job, I truly believe a recent hire can turn into a top performer on a team full of top performers. 

One you might be pondering is how much does this encouragement really do for the performance of the team.  Well every person has a point where if their efforts are not noticed they stop working as hard.  By simply noticing employees doing a job well you can work to avoid this loss of production.  Whether you are a manager or not take a moment to recognize the hard work of someone you work with tomorrow and just see what comes from that.  Do that every day and the culture of your workplace may change because of you.  

Top Five Leadership Books

Today I will share with you the top five books that have had an effect on my leadership and coaching style.  This is not an exhaustive list and only includes books that I have read, but I believe that these ten books are a good start for anyone looking to become a better leader.

1)    The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership by John Maxwell

The book on the top of my list is The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership.  This should not come as a surprise to anyone who has been following my blog.  I will not expand on my thoughts here, but I have a recommendation for this book here.

2)    What It Takes to Be Number 1 by Vince Lombardi and Vince Lombardi Jr.

This book is the easiest book on my list to read at only 120 small pages.  While small, this book packs quite the punch because it is loaded with quotes and anecdotes from one of the greatest coaches of all time.  For a person with little time to invest this is the best book in my list.

3)    Developing the Leader Within You by John Maxwell

Another John Maxwell book, mostly because no other individual author has had the effect on my leadership that Mr. Maxwell has.  This book laid the groundwork and foundation for my leadership that The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership.  Also in this book is the Maxwell’s Five Levels of Leadership, which is closely related to the five powers in a workplace, and that is a topic I have covered some and will cover more in the near future.

4)    How to Win Friends & Influence People by Dale Carnegie

This book is regarded by many as the first book on leadership and is still very effective for leaders today.  Mr. Carnegie certainly knew how to run a business and lead thousands of people to make a company successful.  It is easy to read with four sections to break up the material, and overall is still a timeless classic in the realm of leadership books.

          5)    The Bible

I will not promote any religion here and talk about Jesus and his leadership ability, but the focus here is on the book of Proverbs.  Mostly attributed to King Solomon this book contains great teaching on leadership as well as other important topics for a leader.  With 31 chapters, it is easy to read one chapter a day each month for a constant reminder on leadership and other topics relevant for the individual.  

An expanded list can be found at this link, also on the linked page are links to other pages where these resources can be purchased