Leadership Sustainability: Seven Disciplines to Achieve the Changes Great Leaders Know They Must Make

Book excerpt: MAKE YOUR LEADERSHIP EFFORTS STICK Every day, thousands of people put great effort--and money--into becoming more effective leaders, through seminars, personal coaching, and employee development plans. These undertakings can do wonders to help leaders of all stripes improve their effectiveness. But not every leader finishes what he or she starts--and many revert back to less effective habits, often without even realizing it. How can you ensure that you stick with all the positive changes you have made? How do you make sure you don’t slip back into your old ways? Answer: Leadership Sustainability Dave Ulrich--the man BusinessWeek referred to as the "#1 Management Educator and Guru"--teams up with leadership expert Norm Smallwood to go where no leadership guide has gone. This dream team provides sophisticated, proven leadership sustainability ideas and tools that you can put to use immediately. Leadership Sustainability helps you turn good intentions into effective actions by mastering seven critical disciplines: Simplicity: Focus on the few key behaviors that will have the most impact. Time: Allocate your time so your calendar matches your intentions. Accountability: Take personal responsibility for doing what you say you will do. Resources: Support your leadership with effective, ongoing coaching and HR systems. Tracking: Develop metrics for measuring your leadership improvement. Melioration: Learn from your mistakes and demonstrate resilience. Emotion: Draw on deep personal values to keep yourself motivated. The journey to great leadership doesn't end with learning and implementing effective new skills. Great leadership is about consistency, and the drive for consistency is a never-ending process. Use Leadership Sustainability to ensure leadership greatness today, tomorrow, and for the rest of your life. PRAISE FOR LEADERSHIP SUSTAINABILITY: "Dave and Norm propose a practical approach to solving the problem of leaders turning what they intend into what they do. The seven principles provide a simple and practical way to get things done." -- Ram Charan, coauthor of the New York Times bestselling Execution "Dave and Norm do a great job about teaching leaders not just what to do, but how to make sure that they do it. The ideas in the book are insightful, specific, and actionable." -- Gina Qiao, SVP Human Resources, Lenovo "Finally, a 'how-to' book that is grounded in the real-world dynamics of leading organizations!" -- Dixon Thayer, CEO, HealthNEXT "Dave and Norm provide both an in-depth understanding of why we often fall short and a set of tools for getting on with it." -- Morgan W. McCall, Jr., Professor, Marshall School of Business, University of Southern California, and author of High Flyer "Leaders all over the world will celebrate Dave and Norm’s powerful new gift: the concept of Leadership Sustainability and its seven disciplines." -- Frances Hesselbein, President and CEO, The Frances Hesselbein Leadership Institute "Finally, we have two scholar-practitioners who correctly address evidence that one of every two leaders fails and offer solutions about proper execution that leads to sustainability." -- W. Warner Burke, Professor of Psychology and Education, Teachers College, Columbia University "Dave and Norm understand that one of the keys to success is disciplined continuity and sustainability--which constitute a required core competency among leadership." -- Kathleen Wilson-Thompson, Chief Human Resources Officer, Walgreen Co.