Traditional wisdom holds that you should actively work on improving your inherently weak skills, trying to turn them into strengths. However, Hidden Strengths: Unleashing the Leadership Skills You Already Have (©2015, Berrett – Koehler), by Thuy Sindell, PhD, and Milo Sindell, suggests the opposite. You shouldn't waste time on trying to build up your worst attributes, but instead focus your energies on identifying and elevating underdeveloped middle skills, those 70 percent of your abilities which lie between your core weaknesses and strengths. Unlike weaker skills, which in many cases cannot be overcome, regardless of the effort involved, these underdeveloped skills are the richest source for potential growth. The book includes a free online assessment tool to help identify and transform your natural leadership abilities. The book also covers:
- Four key principles to developing and refining your hidden strengths;
- How a hidden strength differs from a natural strength, and how to them into a learned strengths;
- The risks and problems of over relying on natural strengths;
- 28 top skills critical to unleashing leadership potential;
- How to pinpoint skills that will deliver the biggest payoff, and develop a plan to transform them into assets.
The world we live in continues to change at an intense rate. Not a day goes by without another important discovery or boundary-pushing invention in the scientific fields. The rate of change and discovery outpaces our individual ability to keep up with it. Making Sense of Change Management (©2015, Kogan Page), by Esther Cameron and Mike Green, provides critical knowledge for leaders and managers who want to know how change works and what can be done to make it a more welcoming concept. The book takes into account the tremendous pressures and priorities affecting managers and aims to make their lives that little bit easier by addressing the issues that cause change to be so poorly managed in organizations. It provides a tour of different models, tools, and techniques that can be used to understand and implement change effectively, at an individual, team and organizational level. This latest edition also includes new chapters on Project-Led Change and Culture-Led Change, stimulating readers to broaden their understanding of different cultural approaches.
Consider this: The average lifespan of a Facebook post is three hours; you have less than an hour to respond on Twitter; the average marketer uses as many as seven different channels. In SPIKE Your Brand ROI: How to Maximize Reputation and Get Results (©2015, Jossey-Bass), author Adele Cehrs delivers strategies for executives looking to create real perception change for their brand, extend the lifespan of their messaging, and create an internal culture around that. The book teaches you how to recognize, anticipate, or even create a spike—a sudden point of interest that kick-starts exposure. The book, part of ASAE’s Jossey-Bass Series, outlines a pragmatic approach that will enable you to:
- Learn to recognize brand patterns that are driven by audience interests and outside events;
- Focus your energy, resources, and money when your brand is top-of-mind;
- Decrease your marketing spend while increasing your bottom-line benefits;
- Maximize benefits or mitigate damage by anticipating when your association or nonprofit is going to be in the spotlight; and
- Retool traditional word-of-mouth initiatives for optimum results.
We are all born with the power to imagine what does not yet exist. What if we used this power to create the world we all dream of living in — for ourselves and for others? Talent for Humanity: Stories of Creativity, Compassion, and Courage to Inspire You on Your Journey (©2015, Greenleaf Book Group), edited by Patrick Gaffney and developed by Talent for Humanity, an international nonprofit conceived by a group of individuals drawn together by a single vision of serving humanity and creating a better world through entertainment and the arts. The book features seven inspiring individuals who have utilized their passion and creativity in the arts to do incredible things to improve the lives of others. These stories take readers on an exploration of compassion and creativity from revolutionary Iran to Skid Row in Los Angeles, from a Native American reservation in Montana to Norway and Great Britain, from Palestine to the slums of Calcutta, and from Israel to the Sochi Olympics. Each of the seven featured individuals shares their life story and tells readers, in their own words, how they individually overcame obstacles and hardships, and sometimes the most grueling and brutal of ordeals, to take a stand against poverty, apathy, closed-mindedness, oppression, and prejudice. How does your association convey its remarkable story?