David L. Dotlich

Peter C. Cairo

If any of the following behaviors sound like you or someone you work with, beware! In Why CEOs Fail, David L. Dotlich and Peter C. Cairo describe the most common characteristics of derailed top executives and how you can avoid them: Arrogance—you think that you're right, and everyone else is wrong. Melodrama—you need to be the center of attention. Volatility—you're subject to mood swings. Excessive Caution—you're afraid to make decisions. Habitual Distrust—you focus on the negatives. Aloofness —you're disengaged and disconnected. Mischievousness—you believe that rules are made to be broken. Eccentricity—you try to be different just for the sake of it. Passive Resistance—what you say is not what you really believe. Perfectionism—you get the little things right and the big things wrong. Eagerness to Please—you try to win the popularity contest.

The 11 Behaviors That Can Derail Your Climb to the Top - And How to Manage Them

Why CEOs Fail

Dan Ciampa

Clear, actionable guidance toward managing a major leadership change Transitions at the Top is an insightful, informative guide to navigating a change in leadership. A smooth transition is critical to both the health of the organization and the success of the new leader, but good planning and strong strategy can help organizations come out fresher and more driven on the other side. This book provides the specific principles, guidelines, and actions that boards, C-suite executives, and HR leaders need to guarantee a successful CEO transition. Continuity is key as one leader passes the mantle to a successor, and this book spans the steps and events that take place from when the candidate accepts the offer, all the way through the point where a critical mass of followers have accepted him or her as the established leader. Coverage includes guidance on who should be engaged in the process, as well as role-specific advice for each member of the transition management team. Many books have been written to advise new incoming CEOs, but there is little guidance available for the organization as a whole. This book provides actionable advice on smoothing the transition without breaking stride. Maintain continuity during leadership transitions Strengthen focus on culture, systems, and processes Engage all influential executives in smoothing the transition Lay a foundation to help the new leader succeed The transition management team plays a crucial role in maintaining the health of the organization during a time of major change. Strong strategy becomes critical when an organization is in flux, and high engagement is key. Transitions at the Top provides expert insight, clear guidance, and a solid plan for a smoother transition.

What Organizations Must Do to Make Sure New Leaders Succeed

Transitions at the Top

James L. Noel

Norman Walker

Leaders face numerous critical crossroads in their careers, moments that can provide extraordinary learning and growth opportunities or ensnare them and prevent further development. The good thing about these passages is that they’re predictable, and with proper preparation, leaders not only can survive them to become stronger but can use these experiences to enhance their leadership, compassion, and effectiveness. This book lays out thirteen specific “leadership passages” based on research, interviews, and coaching of senior executives in such well-known companies as Johnson & Johnson, Novarits, Intel, GE, and Bank of America. For each passage, the authors describe what to expect, how the passage constitutes a choice point, and what effective leaders do to navigate and grow from the challenge. Some of the passages include: moving into a leadership role for the first time, dealing with significant failure for which you are responsible, derailing/losing your job, being acquired/merging, losing faith in the system, understanding the importance of children, family and friends, and personal upheavals such as divorce, illness, and death. The authors provide a wealth of practical tools and techniques to improve your leadership, along with real-life examples from recognizable leaders and breakthrough ways in which companies can use the concept of leadership passages to grow talent.

The Personal and Professional Transitions That Make or Break a Leader

Leadership Passages

Stephen H. Rhinesmith

The Pfeiffer Annuals Have Presented Thought-Leading Ideas and Cutting-Edge Practices Across Four Decades The 2010 Pfeiffer Annual: Leadership Development explores one of the most pressing issues facing organizations across the globe—how to successfully identify and develop current and future leaders. This comprehensive resource includes an international panel of contributors who are leading academics and practitioners in the field. Their combined wisdom has created the most authoritative and up-to-date source for new ideas, tools, models, and contemporary practices in leadership development. The 2010 Pfeiffer Annual: Leadership Development addresses two main topics: The Management of Growth: Organizations must have the tools they need to develop leaders with the ability to respond to rapidly changing worldwide market forces with innovative products, processes, and organizational cultures. Employee of Engagement: To become successful, leaders need resources that will help them develop the ability to engage employees to respond to change with understanding and encourage workers to be active in the change process in order to help the organization succeed in achieving its objectives. This unique volume is a world-class resource for all practitioners, teachers, and students of leadership development.

Leadership Development

The 2010 Pfeiffer Annual

Written by David Dotlich and Peter Cairo-- two of the country's top executive coaches and educators-- Unnatural Leadership debunks the common notion of the natural leader as a flawless figure. The book describes the truth about being a real leader in a business environment turned upside down by e-commerce, diversity, security concerns, globalization, and matrix structures. Drawing on personal experience working with successful leaders in top-tier companies throughout the world, Dotlich and Cairo identify a style of leadership used by those who succeed in complicated business and people situations, a style that maximizes a leader's strengths and acknowledges weaknesses.

Going Against Intuition and Experience to Develop Ten New Leadership Instincts

Unnatural Leadership

Ron Meeks

Leadership development continues to be a top concern for most organizations. The third Pfeiffer Annual of Leadership Development has arrived! This year, four editors have brought together some of the best minds in the leadership world to reflect on four distinct topics: Leading in a Global World, Convergence and Collaboration & Risk and Innovation, and The Customer-Connected Leader.

The 2009 Pfeiffer Annual

Clear, actionable guidance toward managing a major leadershipchange Transitions at the Top is an insightful, informativeguide to navigating a change in leadership. A smooth transition iscritical to both the health of the organization and the success ofthe new leader, but good planning and strong strategy can helporganizations come out fresher and more driven on the other side.This book provides the specific principles, guidelines, and actionsthat boards, C-suite executives, and HR leaders need to guarantee asuccessful CEO transition. Continuity is key as one leader passesthe mantle to a successor, and this book spans the steps and eventsthat take place from when the candidate accepts the offer, all theway through the point where a critical mass of followers haveaccepted him or her as the established leader. Coverage includesguidance on who should be engaged in the process, as well asrole-specific advice for each member of the transition managementteam. Many books have been written to advise new incoming CEOs, butthere is little guidance available for the organization as a whole.This book provides actionable advice on smoothing the transitionwithout breaking stride. Maintain continuity during leadership transitions Strengthen focus on culture, systems, and processes Engage all influential executives in smoothing thetransition Lay a foundation to help the new leader succeed The transition management team plays a crucial role inmaintaining the health of the organization during a time of majorchange. Strong strategy becomes critical when an organization is influx, and high engagement is key. Transitions at the Topprovides expert insight, clear guidance, and a solid plan for asmoother transition.

Cade Cowan

With the demands of technology, transparency, and constant connectedness, and calls for higher performance, leaders from the front line to the C-suite face complex dilemmas that cannot be easily denied or postponed. These perplexing, recurring issues are familiar to anyone in a leadership role today, including: How do I balance my functional or business unit goals with the needs of my peers and the whole company? How do I support and promote others while still advancing my own career? How do I emphasize teamwork and still reward the “stars”? Can I really devote enough time and energy to both family and work? These are not “problems” but paradoxes—situations in which there will never be a single correct solution—and while they make many leaders feel overwhelmed and challenged, this remarkable book provides help. The Unfinished Leader is a modern handbook for recognizing, facing, and inspiring others to expose the real issues that underlie paradoxes in modern organizations. Leaders must first recognize situations they will never be able to “solve” and understand how to confront the barriers—in their own heads and their organizations—that push them towards seeking ultimate solutions that don’t exist. Leading through complexity requires giving up the illusion of control, consistency, and closure, while embracing the reality of being permanently “unfinished.” Drawing from interviews with 100 CEOs and top leaders from a wide range of companies—such as Avon, Nike, Colgate, DeutschePost DHL, Johnson & Johnson, PepsiCo, and many more— The Unfinished Leader provides the mindsets and tools to recognize contradictory requirements, understand competing demands, and still be able to take action. No one can find or even should look for perfect solutions to impossible situations. The Unfinished Leader will help leaders at all levels understand and excel at their true task: guiding themselves and their teams through ongoing paradoxes, reconciling competing outcomes, continually changing and adapting, and thereby building lasting success.

Balancing Contradictory Answers to Unsolvable Problems

The Unfinished Leader

This book reveals the three most important capabilities leaders must demonstrate today: the ability to set strategy, empathize with others, and take risks—all at the same time. In Head, Heart, and Guts, leadership experts David Dotlich, Peter Cairo, and Stephen Rhinesmith—who teach and coach CEOs and executive teams throughout the world—argue that to be successful in a complex, matrixed, fast-moving world, “whole” leaders must set strategy, develop trusting relationships with others, and consistently do the right thing based on personal values. “Partial” leaders, often the product of traditional executive programs, may be successful in the shortrun, but their companies lose over time. Filled with case studies of companies such as Bank of America, Johnson & Johnson, Novartis, and UBS, Head, Heart, and Guts, lays out specific steps and actions for leaders who want to grow beyond their “leadership comfort zone” and an action plan for companies that want to move beyond tried-and-true leadership development in order to develop “whole” leaders throughout their leadership pipeline.

How the World's Best Companies Develop Complete Leaders

Head, Heart and Guts

Praise for Leading in Times of Crisis "Building on the solid base of their book Head, Heart, and Guts, Dotlich, Cairo, and Rhinesmith lay out the ways to become the kind of leader needed to navigate through today's complexities and uncertainties. Leading in Times of Crisis is a necessary guidebook to survive and thrive in the global perfect storm." —JOHN NAISBITT, author, Megatrends and Megatrends 2000 "The risks and opportunities that confront today's leader have never been greater Leading in Times of Crisis provides unique and valuable insights, along with straightforward principles, that will help point the way in an increasingly diverse and rapidly changing environment." —KEN FRAZIER, president, global human health, Merck & Co., Inc. "This book blends practical business solutions with useful insights about leading people. It should help anyone looking for new ideas to deal with the uncertainty and complexity facing leaders everywhere today." —MINDY GROSSMAN, CEO of HSN (formerly Home Shopping Network) "The main message of this provocative book is that leadership as we have known it is changing rapidly and dramatically. Moreover, research shows that well over half of people in leadership positions fail. The challenge for leaders today is daunting. But a careful reading of what Dotlich, Cairo, and Rhinesmith have to say from their extensive experiences will help to reduce significantly this troublesome failure rate." —W. WARNER BURKE, Edward Lee Thorndike Professor of Psychology and Education; chair, Department of Organization and Leadership, Teachers College, Columbia University "Research demonstrates that the #1 leadership competency in shortest supply is 'dealing with ambiguity and complexity.' Dotlich, Cairo, and Rhinesmith give you the real-world tools to actually do it.??This book helps us to reach deep inside ourselves, our organizations, and our markets to achieve dynamic, sustainable success.??Get this book to effectively navigate change, inside and out!" —KEVIN CASHMAN, senior partner, Korn/Ferry Leadership & Talent Consulting, and best-selling author, Leadership From the Inside Out

David L. Dotlich

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