Leadership: Research Findings, Practice, and Skills

Leadership: Research Findings, Practice, and Skills by Andrew J. DuBrin is another academic text you might find helpful in your pursuit of leadership. His textbook has 15 chapters which corresponds nicely to a college semester course.

The first nine chapters provide a description of leadership, discuss insight development and give prescriptions for leadership success. The last five chapters deal with specific leadership skills. DuBrin suggests the following skills as necessary for leadership:

1. motivating and coaching,
2. creative problem solving,
3. communication (including non-verbal and cross-cultural),
4. conflict resolution,
5. attitudes required for international and culturally diverse settings,
6. enhancing quality, and
7. capitalizing on technology.

As a textbook, Leadership: Research Findings, Practice, and Skills
also includes a chapter summary, key terms, a section called "Guidelines for Action and Skill Development," discussion questions and activities, a case study problem and a leadership exercise.

One highlight for me was the inclusion of Self-Assessment exercises in each chapter. These exercises help you assess yourself as a leader. They include:

1. Readiness for the Leadership Role
2. The Assertiveness Scale
3. What Type of Leader Are You?
4. The Least Preferred Coworker (LPC) Scale for Measuring Leadership Style
5. Rating a Manager's Power
6. Survey of Influence Tactics
7. Characteristics of an Effective Coach
8. The Creative Personality Test Intellectual Abilities
9. A Test of Communication Effectiveness
10. The Leadership Criterion of The Baldrige Award
11. Attitudes Toward Technology

Not content with just helping you figure out how effective you are as a leader right now, this book also provides a number of skill building exercises to help you improve for the future. These include:

1. Becoming a Charismatic and Transformational Leader
2. Management by Anecdote
3. Feedback Skills
4. Becoming an Empowering Manager
5. Identifying Influence Tactics
6. Shelters for the Homeless
7. The Teamwork Checklist
8. Estimating Valances for Applying Expectancy Theory
9. Thinking Outside the Box
10. Brainstorming
11. Word Hints to Creativity
12. Identifying Emotion Provoking Words and Phrases
13. Charting Your Cultural Value Profile
14. How Much Do I Value Diversity?
15. Do You Have the Right Corporate Culture for TQM?
16. The Interpersonal Skills Checklist

Lots of good stuff in this book. It will keep you thinking for hours. Very revealing about the kind of leader you are! With lots of help for becoming the leader you want to be.