Your First Leadership Job: How Catalyst Leaders Bring Out the Best in Others

Your First Leadership Job: How Catalyst Leaders Bring Out the Best in Others

by Richard S. Wellins, Tacy M. Byham
Released April 2015
Publisher(s): Wiley
ISBN: 9781118911952

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Book description

Becoming the Very Best First-Time Leader

Congratulations! You're now in charge. Perhaps it's your first time as a leader, or maybe you want to fine-tune your skills. Either way, you've begun one of the most rewarding chapters of your career. But, like many beginnings, the first few years can be challenging. Fortunately, you don't have to tackle this challenge on your own. Your First Leadership Job gives you practical advice straight from others who have walked in your shoes. Not only does it include dozens of tools to ensure your success, but it's also based on the authors' and DDI's extensive experience and research, which ultimately has led to the development of millions of leaders around the world. In fact, a quarter-million leaders will be developed this year alone via DDI training.

Your First Leadership Job is divided into two sections. Part 1 introduces the concept of catalyst leader—one who sparks energy, passion, and commitment in others. Your transition to catalyst leader is a major step in your leadership journey. This book provides essential tips to put you on the catalyst path. Ultimately, leadership is about the many conversations—frequent, clear, authentic, and occasionally difficult—that you will have daily. Your First Leadership Job builds awareness of the fundamental skills you'll come to rely on to make every one of these interactions successful.

Part 2 devotes 13 chapters to critical core leadership competencies, including coaching for success, hiring the best employees, turning dreaded appraisals into discussions that propel performance, and handling difficult employees. It also includes a chapter for first-time female leaders.

Look at Your First Leadership Job as an indispensable companion to becoming an awesome leader—one who will make a positive, lasting impact on your team, family, and career. Visit www.yourfirstleadershipjob.com to learn more.

Table of contents

  1. Cover
  2. Title Page
  3. Copyright
  4. Dedication
  5. Foreword
  6. Preface
  7. Part 1: Project Initiation
    1. Chapter 1: Now You're a Leader: The Journey Begins
      1. How Is This Book Different from Other Leadership Books?
    2. Chapter 2: Boss or Catalyst?: What Makes a Great Leader?
      1. Your New Job: Catalyst Leader
      2. Tool 2.1
      3. Catalyst Leader Self-Assessment
      4. Tool 2.2
      5. Frontline Leadership Success Profile
    3. Chapter 3: Navigating the Transition to Leadership: The Mind-Set You Need to Succeed
      1. What's in a Question?
      2. Tool 3.1
      3. Assessing Your Leadership Mind-Set
      4. What Do We Really Mean by “Transition”?
      5. Getting Ready: Fast Track
      6. Reach Out to Stakeholders
      7. Tool 3.2
      8. What Do I Need to Know?
      9. Your First Six Months
    4. Chapter 4: Your Leadership Brand, Part 1: Be Authentic
      1. Make a Good First (or Second) Impression: Your Leadership Brand
      2. What's in a Leadership Brand?
      3. Tool 4.1
      4. Never Do/Always Do
      5. Be Authentic
    5. Chapter 5: Your Leadership Brand, Part 2: Bring Out the Best in People and Be Receptive to Feedback
      1. Bring Out the Best in People
      2. Tool 5.1
      3. Schedule a One-on-One Meeting with Each Team Member
      4. Be Receptive to Feedback
      5. Your Leadership Brand = Your Leadership Legacy
      6. Tool 5.2
      7. My Legacy, My Brand
    6. Chapter 6: Leadership Is a Conversation, Part 1: How to Make People Feel Heard, Valued, and Motivated
      1. Practical Needs and Personal Needs
      2. The Key Principles
      3. Maintain or Enhance Self-Esteem
      4. Good or Excellent?
      5. Listen and Respond with Empathy
      6. Was That Empathy?
      7. Ask for Help and Encourage Involvement
      8. Identify the Key Principle
    7. Chapter 7: Leadership Is a Conversation, Part 2: How to Build Trust and Ownership
      1. Share Thoughts, Feelings, and Rationale (to build trust)
      2. Avoiding the Pitfalls of Sharing
      3. Provide Support without Removing Responsibility (to build ownership)
      4. Good or Excellent?
    8. Chapter 8: Your Five-Step Conversation Road Map: Taking a Practical Approach to Get Results
      1. To Meet Practical Needs, Take Five
      2. Personal and Practical Needs—Putting It All Together
      3. Common Leadership Interaction Styles
      4. Which Ones Are You?
      5. Planning Your Conversations
      6. Tool 8.1
      7. Discussion Planner
    9. Chapter 9: Nothing Else Matters Unless You Get Results: How to Execute with Focus, Measurement, and Accountability
      1. There's No “I” in “Results”: Team Comes First
      2. The Essential Elements of Execution
      3. Tool 9.1
      4. How Well Do I Execute?
      5. Tool 9.2
      6. Identifying Your Top Priorities
      7. Tool 9.3
      8. Where Does My Time Go?
      9. Measurement
      10. Accountability
      11. Radar Chart
      12. Tool 9.4
      13. Strategy Execution Tool (Sample)
  8. Part 2: Mastery and Leadership Skills
    1. Chapter 10: Hiring and Selecting the Best: Behavior Predicts Behavior
      1. Surround Yourself with the Best
      2. Selection Traps
      3. Tool 10.1
      4. Asking Behavioral Questions
      5. Tool 10.2
      6. Seeking STARs
      7. Tool 10.3
      8. Motivation Matters
    2. Chapter 11: What Your Boss Really Wants From You: Become an Adviser
      1. Key Relationship
    3. Chapter 12: Engagement and Retention: Creating the Environment to Energize People
      1. Engage Early and Often
      2. Engagement Is Energy
      3. Driving Engagement
      4. Everyday Engagers
      5. Engagement Conversations: More Than Just Eye Contact
      6. Praise: Recognizing Individual Achievement and Effort
      7. Retention Conversations
      8. Tool 12.1
      9. Identify Talent to Retain
    4. Chapter 13: Meetings: Make Them Count!
      1. What Makes Meetings More Difficult Than Ever?
      2. Questions You Don't Want Meeting Participants to Ask
      3. Master Meetings: Tips to Prevent Meeting Dips
      4. Tool 13.1
      5. Using Interaction Skills to Solve Meeting Problems
    5. Chapter 14: Coaching: Learning from Success
      1. Put Me In, Coach!
      2. Define and Conquer
      3. Assessing Impact
      4. Tool 14.1
      5. My Approach
      6. Oh, the Humanity
      7. Coaching with Interaction Guidelines
      8. Coaching with the Key Principles
      9. Try Out Your Coaching Skills
      10. You Believe They Can Fly, Right?
    6. Chapter 15: Feedback Fundamentals: Specific, Timely, and Balanced
      1. Leaders Give Feedback All the Time—Myth or Fact?
      2. Feedback Deflectors
      3. Keep the STARs Shining
    7. Chapter 16: Handling Difficult Employee Situations: Focus on the Behavior, Not the Person
      1. Doing Nothing Is Not an Option
      2. Eight Tips to Get Results
      3. So, What Happened?
      4. Your Guide to Handling Difficult Employee Situations
    8. Chapter 17: Delegation: Be a Delegator, Not a Dumper
      1. To Delegate or Not to Delegate, That Is the Question
      2. What Should I Delegate, and What Should I Keep?
      3. Tool 17.1
      4. What Should I Delegate?
      5. How Do I Decide Who Gets What?
      6. How Do I Effectively Communicate the Decision?
      7. How Do I Follow Up (and Avoid Being a Dumper)?
      8. No! Don't Take the Monkey Back!
    9. Chapter 18: Performance Management: An Ongoing Cycle, Not an Event
      1. Beating the System
      2. It's Not about You
      3. Be a Coach, Not a Judge
      4. Setting Goals
      5. Guiding Performance Conversations
      6. The Boss Is Still the Boss
    10. Chapter 19: You and Your Network: Nurture Your Business Relationships
      1. It Is Who You Know
      2. Where Do You Stand on the Value Ladder?
      3. Three Ways to Think about Your Network Now
      4. The Four Practices of Networking
      5. Connecting the Dots
      6. Five Easy Ways to Get Started TODAY
    11. Chapter 20: Influence: Look Up, Down, and Across
      1. Influencing Takes Personal Power
      2. Developing an Influence Strategy
      3. Use Packaging to Engage Hearts and Minds
      4. Gauge Readiness and Gain Commitment to Act
      5. Ready, Set, Influence!
    12. Chapter 21: A Woman's First Leadership Job: Own the Moment
      1. A Make-or-Break Point
      2. The Glass Ceiling Is Alive and Well
      3. Is It a Matter of Confidence?
      4. Declare Yourself Early and Often
      5. Rethink Mentorship
      6. Needed: An Attitude Change
      7. The Wisdom of Women (Including Madonna)
      8. #LeadLikeAGirl
    13. Chapter 22: Leadership Changes the World: The Difference Is You
      1. It's Time to View Leadership as a Profession (and a Confession)
  9. Part 3: Bonus Chapters and Tools
  10. Acknowledgments
  11. About DDI
  12. About the Author
  13. Index
  14. End User License Agreement

Product information

  • Title: Your First Leadership Job: How Catalyst Leaders Bring Out the Best in Others
  • Author(s): Richard S. Wellins, Tacy M. Byham
  • Release date: April 2015
  • Publisher(s): Wiley
  • ISBN: 9781118911952