Multipliers: How the Best Leaders Make Everyone Smarter, by Liz Wiseman

"A revised and updated edition of the acclaimed Wall Street Journal bestseller that explores why some leaders drain capability and intelligence from their teams while others amplify it to produce better results...In this engaging and highly practical book, leadership expert Liz Wiseman explores these two leadership styles, persuasively showing how Multipliers can have a resoundingly positive and profitable effect on organizations—getting more done with fewer resources, developing and attracting talent, and cultivating new ideas and energy to drive organizational change and innovation."

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The First 90 Days: Proven Strategies for Getting Up to Speed Faster and Smarter, by Michael Watkins

"In this updated and expanded version of the international bestseller The First 90 Days, Michael D. Watkins offers proven strategies for conquering the challenges of transitions—no matter where you are in your career. Watkins, a noted expert on leadership transitions and adviser to senior leaders in all types of organizations, also addresses today’s increasingly demanding professional landscape, where managers face not only more frequent transitions but also steeper expectations once they step into their new jobs."

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Choosing Leadership: A Workbook, by Linda Grinzel

"Choosing Leadership is a new take on executive development that gives everyone the tools to develop their leadership skills. In this workbook, Dr. Linda Ginzel, a clinical professor at the University of Chicago's Booth School of Business and a social psychologist, debunks common myths about leaders and encourages you to follow a personalized path to decide when to manage and when to lead. Thoughtful exercises and activities help you mine your own experiences, learn to recognize behavior patterns, and make better choices so that you can create better futures." [From her immensely pragmatic workbook to her considered and well-researched insights, I learned much that is informing my perspective on leadership and how we can and should approach it more thoughtfully.]

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The Anthropocene Reviewed by John Greene

"The Anthropocene is the current geological age, in which human activity has profoundly shaped the planet and its biodiversity. In this remarkable symphony of essays adapted and expanded from his ground-breaking, critically acclaimed podcast, John Green reviews different facets of the human-centered planet - from the QWERTY keyboard and Halley's Comet to Penguins of Madagascar - on a five-star scale."

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Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking, by Susan Cain.

“In Quiet, Susan Cain argues that we dramatically undervalue introverts and shows how much we lose in doing so. She charts the rise of the Extrovert Ideal throughout the twentieth century and explores how deeply it has come to permeate our culture. She also introduces us to successful introverts—from a witty, high-octane public speaker who recharges in solitude after his talks, to a record-breaking salesman who quietly taps into the power of questions. Passionately argued, superbly researched, and filled with indelible stories of real people, Quiet has the power to permanently change how we see introverts and, equally important, how they see themselves."

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It's Showtime! - Richard Butterfield's Power of Persuasion

"The playbook for professionals who understand that effective communication is the key to success...This indispensable guide combines Richard's dual experience as an actor and as the man behind the curtain for high-profile leaders across the globe. His tactics for the spoken word apply to every facet of the organization, from the ultra-concise elevator speech to the magnificent keynote address. He punctuates his lessons with anecdotes borrowed from sessions with clients like Linked In, Microsoft and the Cleveland Clinic, and then provides exercises to help you inject key concepts into your own public speaking engagements."

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Anxious People: Fredrik Backman

"A poignant, charming novel about a crime that never took place, a would-be bank robber who disappears into thin air, and eight extremely anxious strangers who find they have more in common than they ever imagined...Humorous, compassionate, and wise, Anxious People is an ingeniously constructed story about the enduring power of friendship, forgiveness, and hope—the things that save us, even in the most anxious of times."

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Harvard Business Review: “Dear White Boss…”

"We asked Caver and Livers, faculty and coaches at the Center for Creative Leadership, to write a fictional letter from a black manager to a white boss describing the miasma and what it’s like to be different in the workplace...Their letter portrays the nature of corporate life once black managers are established—the feeling that they leave some part of their identity at home and the sometimes subtle and often systemic racial biases that inhibit and alienate African-Americans."

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Harvard Business Review: Be a Better Ally.

"How can white men be effective allies to those employees? First, by taking responsibility for their own behaviors, educating themselves about racism and privilege, and getting and accepting feedback from people in underrepresented groups. They can also become confidants to and sponsors of women and people of color and insist on diverse hiring pools and practices. They can vigilantly watch out for bias at work, intervening decisively if they discover it. Last, they can work to build a community of other allies against racism and sexism."

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Grant EmersonComment
Harvard Business Review: Be a Better Leader, Have a Richer Life.

"...By providing a blueprint for how you can be real, be whole, and be innovative as a leader in all parts of your life, this program helps you perform better according to the standards of the most important people in your life; feel better in all the domains of your life; and foster greater harmony among the domains by increasing the resources available to you to fit all the parts of your life together."

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Grant EmersonComment
The New Yorker: Failure and Rescue.

"But the only failure is the failure to rescue something...So you will take risks, and you will have failures. But it’s what happens afterward that is defining. A failure often does not have to be a failure at all. However, you have to be ready for it—will you admit when things go wrong? Will you take steps to set them right?—because the difference between triumph and defeat, you’ll find, isn’t about willingness to take risks. It’s about mastery of rescue."

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Grant EmersonComment
Occam's Razor: This I Believe: A Manifesto for a Magnificent Career.

Occam's Razor: This I Believe: A Manifesto for a Magnificent Career. "I've developed an overall macro-philosophy that guides my career choices. I've also collected a cluster of personal philosophies and core values that guide my day-to-day work. My hope is that you'll find my lessons to be of value as you think about your own professional career, both from a macro context, in terms of what you are solving for, and in a micro context, in your day-to-day work."

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Harvard Business Review: "How to Reframe What Work Means to You"

Harvard Business Review: How to Reframe What Work Means to You. "Applying this very human sense of purpose to work changes how we approach it and therefore how much we engage in it...A personal sense of purpose is not in and of itself the only thing that fires people up at work. But being able to connect what we do every day with a bigger sense of why we do it helps infuse us humans with energy, drive, and direction."

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