Many of the leadership skills (such as emotional intelligence, weak signal management, mental agility) that are key to success in today's corporate world are not taught in business schools, are rarely discussed by business academics, nor are they recognised within corporations as they recruit, promote and train their staff. Business conversation is all about the war for talent - and yet the solutions presented are all "outside-in" (i.e. what the corporation needs to do to ensure people stay, to "make" their values align, to retain them) rather than "inside-out" (i.e. alignment of individual's sense of purpose with how they spend their time, the fit of their skills to the demands of their job, and so on).

Alpha Leadership seeks to redress these imbalances.

The book is constructed around a new and simple model of leadership. The authors call this, 'Alpha leadership', which consists of three main axes: Anticipate, Align and Act. They have derived this model from their extensive experience of leadership development in the US and Europe, during a period of rapid adaptation to the digital economy. The authors argument is that traditional approaches to leadership, leadership as it is taught in the business schools and the criteria assigned to it by corporate promotion and appraisal systems, focus exclusively on 'action', and take little or no account of the crucial importance of anticipation and alignment. This is of increased concern since the skills most likely to generate success for leaders in today's networked, knowledge-based and unpredictable business environment are precisely those most often ignored.

This emphasis on action without its preliminaries of anticipation and alignment is also a paradox, since without effective anticipation and alignment, action is likely to be inefficient, ineffective, and unsustainable. The book is aimed at an "inside-out" view of leadership: starting with the individual and his/her sense of purpose and values, rather than the more typical approach to leadership writing which adopts an "outside-in" view, holding up models and examples of other leaders to emulate with little or no clue of how to go about doing so, or indeed whether or not this would be an appropriate model in the reader's specific context.

Alpha Leadership is designed as a pragmatic "how to" book, derived from the authors experience of one-to-one executive coaching - with tools, approaches and frameworks to support leaders in progressing in their careers, while also maintaining a sense of balance and purpose in their lives. Each chapter starts with a "parable" or story - a very readable analogy from completely different fields of study that is used to shed light on the issues and problems facing leaders in the business environment. The authors then move to a section on "sense making" (avoiding blue sky theorising in favour of practical, down-to-earth interpretation and real life business examples). Finally the authors include relevant tools/frameworks to help the readers apply what they have read in their every day business lives.

Leadership Training offers both background knowledge and the practical help you need to create strong leadership training at all levels within the organization. Presenting the most up-to-date training methodologies such as accelerated learning, this guide also provides methods for assessing leadership strengths and weaknesses. Contains exercises, handouts, assessments and tools to help you: – develop strong leaders at all organisational levels – encourage growth of key leadership competencies – become a more effective and efficient facilitator – ensure training is on target and gets results ?This book is a wonderful resource for putting together a first-rate leadership development programme or adding to an existing one.? Nadine W. Martin, Manager for E-learning and Delivery, LL Bean, Inc. Other books in this series: New Supervisor Training, Customer Service Training, New Employee Orientation Training, Leading Change Training.

Leading Change Training helps you create solid change programmes within your organization and integrate leading-edge change leadership models and other theories into your programme. It not only involves simply reducing resistance, but also creating an awareness of the challenges and responsibilities that each person, irrespective of level, faces as a change initiative goes forward. Contains exercises, handouts, assessments and tools to help you: – create effective change training for executives, leaders, managers and staff – build support and reduce resistance to organisational change – become a more effective and efficient facilitator – ensure training is on target and gets results ?This book offers not only the ?how? of a programme on leading change, but also an insightful and helpful look at the why, when and where.? Lin Standke, Instructional Design Manager, Centre for Professional Development, CUNA & Affiliates Other books in this series: Leadership Training, Customer Service Training, New Employee Orientation Training, Leading Change Training.

Managing and Leading People
- High performance organizations; Individual differences; Leadership and motivation at work; People management;

Managing for Results
- Managerial work; Organizations and change; Customer relations; Quality and continuous improvement;

Managing in a Strategic Business Context
- The competitive environment; Corporate strategy; Globalization; Government policy; Demographic and social trends; Regulation; The technological context; Social responsibility and business ethics; Appendix 1; How the book and the CIPD standards link together; Appendix 2; Exam questions

What quickly becomes clear is that even the best businesses are still developing their talent management processes. There are no 'right' answers and different organizations, with different levels of commitment, at different stages of development and in different environments produce different approaches. Developing Executive Talent is a map that lets you compare your organisation's approach with what others are doing in this area. It also grants you a close-up view of alternative processes designed to identify and develop the leaders of tomorrow. By learning from the experience of others you can become an 'educated consumer' of talent management services, and help both your organization and your own career.

With quotations from Heads of Human Resources describing their experiences and concerns, specific tools and processes used by large businesses to identify and manage the leaders of tomorrow, Developing Executive Talent offers the clearest and most coherent picture to date of how leading organizations are tackling this critical business challenge.

 

To guide people on a journey of continuous learning, understanding and adapting to events as they occur, leaders must overcome their own blind spots and those of their organization.
Any leader who implements the practices outlined in this book will immediately improve their ability to perform in today’s competitive global environment. Karen Blakeley provides in-depth analysis of how leaders learn on the job - and what gets in the way. Most importantly she offers a systematic approach for accelerating leaders’ learning capacity - and maximising their performance potential.