The Leadership Challenge: How to Make Extraordinary Things Happen in Organizations (J-B Leadership Challenge: Kouzes/Posner)

Only adaptive individuals and organizations will thrive in today's dynamic global environment. Leaders must support more and more individual discretion to meet the changing demands of customers, clients, suppliers, and other stakeholders, which increases the requirement to use and expand people's talents and experience.

Embedded within The Five Practices of Exemplary Leadership are essential behaviors that serve as the basis for becoming an exemplary leader. We call these the Ten Commitments of Exemplary Leadership

people always need to know the “why” for what they are being asked to do.

framing the question more about the process than about herself led to “many sidebar ‘deeper' conversations being initiated,

leadership is fundamentally a relationship, and hence it is important to understand and appreciate what people look for in an individual they would be willing to follow.

Too many people think that it's the leader's job to develop the vision when the reality is that people want to be involved in this process. You can't command commitment; you have to inspire it.

The best leaders are the best learners. They learn from their failures and their successes.

Leaders don't wait for permission or specific instructions before jumping in. They make something happen when they notice what isn't working, create a solution for the problem, gain buy‐in from constituents, and implement the desired outcome.

Before you can become a credible leader—one who connects “what you say” with “what you do”—you first have to find your authentic voice, the most genuine expression of who you are.

The data indicates that those people who report to leaders who are seen as very frequently or almost always ensuring that “people grow in their jobs by learning new skills and developing themselves” have engagement scores that are 66 percent higher than do the direct reports of leaders who are viewed as rarely engaging in this leadership behavior.