The Leader Habit: Master the Skills You Need to Lead--in Just Minutes a Day

by Martin Lanik

Overview

In leadership as in life, only practice makes perfect. Habits are powerful, and The Leader Habit offers a simple, original approach to dramatically improving even our weakest areas.

Routines quietly undergird large portions of what we do and how we function. Habit formation can speed success in the workplace as well—even in complex areas like leadership. Leadership training expert and bestselling author Martin Lanik spotlights 22 essential leadership abilities, breaking them down into a series of small, learnable behaviors.

In The Leader Habit, you will find:

• Compelling evidence on how habits shape our lives, and how leadership is simply a series of habits
• Content based on original research that looks at 795 leaders across the globe, identifying 22 essential leadership skills and 79 micro-behaviors that make up those skills
• Simple exercises to turn effective leadership behaviors into ingrained habits, along with clear cues that tell you when to practice each
• A Leader Habit Quiz that assesses 6 personality traits and points to behaviors that you’ll find most rewarding
• Tips for staying motivated, avoiding procrastination, and sustaining progress

The book's simple formula focuses on developing one skill at a time: sell the vision, delegate well, innovate often, empower others, overcome resistance, build strategic relationships, focus on customers, listen actively, negotiate effectively, and more.

Many of us aspire to great leadership by consuming books and training. However, unless you intentionally reinforce the right behaviors, results are fleeting. The Leader Habit builds the "muscle memory" to turn leadership skills into lasting habits.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780814439340
Publisher:	AMACOM
Publication date:	04/17/2018
Pages:	256
Product dimensions:	6.25(w) x 9.25(h) x 1.00(d)
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

MARTIN LANIK, PH.D. is the CEO of Pinsight«, the leader-readiness platform. He holds a doctoral degree in industrial/organizational psychology and has more than a decadeÆs experience designing and running leadership development programs for global companies.

Table of Contents

Prologue: Laura's Story xi

Part I How It Works

Chapter 1 Leadership Is a Series of Habits 3

Chapter 2 The Leader Habit Formula 21

Part II Build Your Leadership Skills

Chapter 3 How to Sustain Practice 45

Chapter 4 From 5-Minute Exercise to Full-Blown Skill 65

Chapter 5 Starting Your Leader Habit Workout 83

Part III Exercises That Develop Your Skills

Chapter 6 Getting Things Done 101

Planning & Execution 101

Skill: Manage Priorities 102

Skill: Plan and Organize Work 105

Skill: Delegate Well 108

Skill: Create Urgency 111

Solving Problems & Making Decisions 113

Skill: Analyze Information 114

Skill: Think Through Solutions 116

Skill: Make Good Decisions 119

Skill: Focus on Customers 123

Leading Change 126

Skill: Sell The Vision 127

Skill: Innovate 129

Skill: Manage Risk 132

Chapter 7 Focusing On People 137

Persuasion & Influence 137

Skill; Influence Others 138

Skill: Overcome Individual Resistance 141

Skill: Negotiate Well 144

Growing People & Teams 148

Skill: Empower Others 148

Skill: Mentor And Coach 151

Skill: Build Team Spirit 154

Interpersonal Skills 157

Skill: Build Strategic Relationships 158

Skill: Show Caring 161

Skill: Listen Actively 164

Skill: Communicate Clearly 166

Skill: Speak With Charisma 169

Part IV Encourage New Skills in Others

Chapter 8 Motivating Change 175

Chapter 9 Coaching Leader Habits 197

Acknowledgements 221

Notes 223

Index 233

Editorial Reviews

2018-06-01
A step-by-step guidebook to developing and strengthening leadership skills.Lanik's self-help book immediately stakes out an unusual approach. Ordinarily, such books are seminarlike, containing lectures and loads of information followed up by questions, work sheets, and the like. Lanik largely dispenses with this slightly cumbersome model, opting instead for an approach based on the idea that successful leadership is an accumulation of good habits rather than an overarching philosophy, learned by rote. The author calls his approach the Leader Habit Formula, in which you take one leadership skill that you wish to develop—such as active listening, delegating tasks, or communicating clearly—and engage in quick practice sessions every day devoted specifically to that skill. Lanik reminds readers that not all habits are bad; many are beneficial, and his Leader Habit Formula is designed to create good habits through repetition. He breaks 22 core leadership skills into component parts that he calls "micro-behaviors" and pairs them with daily, five-minute exercises intended to make them into habits in short order. As the author explains, this is a variation of a process called "chaining," in which large, complex tasks are divided into discrete, smaller components and taught in sequence. In clear, accessible prose, Lanik stresses that the key to his Leader Habit Formula is constant practice, and he warns that readers who buy the book hoping for a one-stop solution will be disappointed. Instead, he says, one must practice locking in various micro-behaviors as often as possible, preferably while keeping a record of one's progress. Ultimately, the book provides a refreshing counterpoint to the standard idea that some people are simply gifted with good leadership skills, instead shifting the emphasis to daily attention.An engaging program that demystifies leadership skills with bite-sized exercises.

Kirkus Reviews