Top Ten Leadership Skills – Book 2

"leadership is action, not position"

Donald H McGannon

There is much debate on what constitutes essential leadership skills. In choosing the skills for this second book and book 1 I have drawn on:

- Leadership and management theory, models and philosophy
- My experiences as a leader and team member
- Questionnaires and surveys
- Those skills which are practical and transformational in nature

By adapting these skills to your own style and organisational context you will become a more adaptive, inspirational, effective and transformative leader. Your team will in turn develop into a mature, supportive and synergistic group whose actions are congruent with organisational vision and the constant striving for excellence.

Preface

This book concentrates on leadership skills as being transformational and inspirational in nature. This is not to say that managers do not have these skills and indeed I am not making that distinction. Managers are often thought of in terms of following procedure and ‘getting the job done’ with less concern for staff development and needs. But, as far as this book goes the term ‘leader’ also refers to the ‘manager’. (For a more detailed explanation of managers vs. leaders please see the book ‘The Skills, Models and Philosophies of Leadership)

Content

1. Know Yourself
   1. Emotional Intelligence
   2. Self awareness
   3. Social Skills
2. Know your Team
   1. What is a team?
   2. Team Formation
   3. Team Management and Roles
   4. Remote Working
3. Manage Team Performance
   1. Setting team goals and direction
   2. Managing difficulties and poor performance
   3. Dysfunctional teams
   4. Evaluating success
   5. Delegation and empowerment
   6. Feedback and appraisal
4. Provide vision & Direction
   1. What Should Vision Achieve?
   2. Setting Out Your Vision & Direction
5. Transformational Leadership
   1. Bennis and Nanus Transformational Leaders
   2. Bernard Bass Model of Transactional and Transformational Leaders
   3. Burns Model of Transactional and Transformational Leaders
   4. Weber’s 3 Types of Leader
   5. Schein Culture Change and Transformation
   6. X & Y Theory – Mcgregor (1960)
6. Conclusions / Summary
7. References