CEO Blog - Time Leadership

My wife, Elizabeth, won (yes she came in first) in her age group in the Boston Marathon Monday.  The day was miserable – cold and wet.  Personally I think this gave the Canadians a small edge since training happened in the cold.  Amazing feat.

On average Elizabeth and I ran 13.1 miles Monday – no wonder I am still tired.

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Stop Selling and Start Leading by Kouzes, Posner and Calvert is my most recent read.

When I saw the title, I had wrongly assumed it would talk about marketing as a way to sell – I was wrong.  The book uses the principles of leadership and shows how they help create sales.   It talks about 5 Principles of leadership – Model the Way, Inspire a Shared Vision, Challenge the Process, Enable others to Act and Encourage the Heart.  It then goes through each principle – explaining what is meant and giving examples of how to apply it.  

As I read, I realize I am good at Inspiring Vision and my natural selling method is to Encourage the Heart (I call it just being yourself or being genuine).  The book is inspiring me to figure out how to get all of Danby thinking along the same lines.

Each chapter ended with summary points (another thing I like in good books)

I dislike the pushy sales type and the book aligned with my values.  No pushy closing tricks.  No deception.

Quotes from the book - "Exemplary leaders understand the power of words and chooses them wisely.” “They imagine that extraordinary feats are possible and that something special can emerge from the ordinary” (Interesting comment on being ordinary.  When I was growing up, my brothers and I decided my father was nothing special (he was not a policeman, a fireman, a heavy equipment driver – just a plain ordinary man.  Of course as I grew older, he became my idol and I realize he was special – not ordinary)  “Leadership is an observable pattern of practices and behaviors, a definable set of skills and abilities."

There is a whole chapter on “Experiment and Take Risks”.  This is not an area I need encouragement on.  If anything, I need more focus.

I particularly liked that the book had short stories illustrating each point.

Easy read (although I am behind in my reading list so it took a few weeks to get to it).  Valid points.