HOT READS FOR THE PRACTITIONER
Title: Boss or Bossy?
Competency: leadership
Who benefits: leaders and managers, especially at entry and early mid-levels
Consultant Usage: any management consultant or executive coach might find this book a useful recommendation
What’s it about? I vividly remember a time many years ago when I was sitting in my office with my feet propped on my desk. My boss in walked without so much as a knock and witnessed the scene. My heart stopped and inside my brain I uttered words that can’t be repeated in any self-respecting Blog.
What came out of his mouth was the very last thing I expected. He said “Oh, excuse me, I will come back when you aren’t so deep in thought.â€Â And he did. I would like to continue on with effusive praise for this individual. However, I remember that incident mostly because it was the exception to the rule. He was not someone I could trust. He often took credit for others work. He would undermine his own subordinates if it suited his organizational political needs.
My peers and I spent a lot of time working around him and trying to outguess him. It was demeaning and non-productive. But he was the Boss.
Fortunately it doesn’t have to be that way. A recently published book, Being the Boss is written to encourage self-reflection and insight to wannabe leaders and leaders in the early stages of their career. There is an interesting tag line early in the book that deserves repeating here: “Anyway, don’t you want to be great?â€
The unofficial subtitle of the book refers to the three imperatives to becoming a great leader. The book flows around the ‘how-to†of the three imperatives and stories from junior to senior leaders to support their contentions.
The three imperatives for every leader are (in my condensed form):
1. Manage yourself
2. Manage a network
3. Manage a team
If those topics are relevant to you and your career, by all means consider this book. It is an easy read with many insights and fun and funny moments interspersed.
Catch you later.
[tags]boss, bossy, leadership, manage yourself, manage a network, manage at team, bill bradley, william bradley, bradley[/tags]
Bill Bradley
Bill Bradley (mostly) retired after 35 years in organizational consulting, training and management development. During those years he worked internally with seven organizations and trained and consulted externally with more than 90 large and small businesses, government agencies, hospitals and schools.
