A great leadership book is a small miracle. By the end of it, you not only see the world differently, but you also see yourself differently. And as a result, you're better able to create meaningful change both at work, and in your life.

Here are the five leadership books that have influenced me the most, both as a coach and as a person who runs her own business. Without them, I can honestly say I’d not only be a different person, but also not nearly so good at what I do.

I hope you’ll give them a look.

Book 1: The Fifth Discipline - The Art & Practice of the Learning Organization 

by Peter Senge

Written in 1990, just one year after the world wide web was invented, and several years before anyone really knew what it was or what it could do, Senge was seemingly able to predict the world of c...

2020 may be the coolest sounding year since 2000, but let’s face it, it’s likely to be a challenging one. What's in store? Only the most contentious US election in history, the realization of Brexit, massive uncontrolled wildfires, and millions struggling to save their democracies, not to mention accelerating climate change, growing nationalist sentiments and the ever-looming possibility of a global economic turndown.

Most of my clients have identified their growing dissatisfaction with the way the world is going as a major source of anxiety in their lives. We feel small. We feel insignificant. And the problems seem so big. Is there anything that a small, insignificant person can do to solve them?

The answer is no.

But luckily, you are not small and insignificant. You’re big and importan...

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Hey there! If you'd like to learn more about getting and staying unstuck, sign-up for my weekly newsletter (green box at top right of your screen on desktop, or under this post on mobile) so you'll never miss a post. I promise I'm not a spammy nightmare. One per week, and that's it.

I confess, I’m a holiday Grinch. People find this surprising about me because in general, I'm a friendly, upbeat sort of person. And, I’ve been known to bake and decorate the occasional sugar cookie. But the truth is, I don’t love the holidays.

Why?

Oh, lots of reasons. And all of which are personal to me, and none of your business. I don’t sound so friendly and upbeat now do I? Well, I’m not alone. In fact, right around this time of year, many of my clients confess their own dislike/dread of the holidays.

There’re plenty of us Grinches. We have our reasons for feeling the way we do, and contrary to popular belief, not one of them is that our hearts are three sizes too small.

Some of us are coping with loss. Some are coping with illness. Some have strained or estranged...

The surest way for a leader to get stuck is to prioritize their own personal comfort over the truth of what’s happening around them. In the field of system leadership theory, this refusal to see reality in favor of what we wish was real is called “absencing”. When we’re absencing, rather than bravely stepping into the future, we cling to the past. We shut ourselves off from what is emerging. We turn our backs on our employees and ultimately, we turn our backs on ourselves. When we live in an absencing cycle, we’re betraying ourselves. It’s the ultimate self-own.

At the heart of absencing is the desire to run away from difficult people and situations and the uncomfortable emotions they give rise to. Difficulty make us feel less certain about our place in the world and that threatens our sens...

It took a year for Rene Zellwegger to prepare for the role of Judy Garland in the movie Judy. She had to learn to sing Over the Rainbow, a classic that almost everyone remembers from their childhood, and then convincingly perform it in front of live audiences. There was no room for error. And it was terrifying. “At times, if I could have run away, I would have,” she told Vanity Fair.

Each of us has felt that way at some point in our career. And the temptation to run away can be overwhelming. I know I’m haunted by more than one moment from my past where I might have been able to put in a little more, but instead stopped.

One of my favorite quotes from The Unstuck Project came from a CEO I’ll call Andy. Andy’s company is growing so rapidly, I see him in the news at least once a week these days...

Usually, sometime around their second or third session, my coaching clients realize that all this Unstuck Leadership stuff I’ve been going on about on this blog and in The Unstuck Leader is hard. Really hard.

It’s hard to manage our needs for certainty and significance. It’s hard to continually prioritize truth over comfort. It’s hard to identify the maladaptive systems at play in ourselves, as well as in our organization. It’s hard to let go of what’s not working. And, it’s hard to create an environment where co-creation happens around us, in spite of us and occasionally through us.

That’s why it takes daily commitment. Leadership is a practice.

It’s up to us to create the circumstances in which we are most likely to commit to doing all the things we need to do to be great leaders. For some...

Last week we talked about a terrible, awful thing called the Contractive Cycle. Being in a contractive state is the number one cause of being miserable at work.

But happily, there’s also something called an Expansive Cycle. It looks something like this:

When we’re in an expansive state, we’re grounded in core values, but open to new ideas, situations and people. From here, we experience heightened creativity, energy and joy.

Sound good?

Excellent. It’s time to rumble with our needs for certainty and significance. Let’s do this.

Make Friends With Fear

The first think we need to know about certainty is that our need for it largely comes from a primitive part of our brain, the neo-mammalian part, also known as the limbic system. It’s where our emotions reside. And fear is the emotion it likes best.

...

Hey there! If you'd like to learn more about getting and staying unstuck, sign-up for my weekly newsletter (green box at top right of your screen on desktop, or under this post on mobile) so you'll never miss a post. I promise I'm not a spammy nightmare. One per week, and that's it.