Designed as a handy reference tool on leadership principles and as an on-going, convenient professional development conversation starter for a leader and his or her staff, LOVING Like a Leader is comprised of 77 short stories called Leadership Mints. Sweetened with insights from 77-plus other books on leadership, these Leadership Mints define and leverage emotional intelligence in general and love in a business context in particular for greater productivity, profitability and sustainability. Like a candy mint, these short stories, these Leadership Mints are quickly accessed on-the-go in real time, easily digested and immediately satisfying. Combining the story-telling of an inspirational book like Chicken Soup for the Soul with the consummate research of the most-sold leadership development book in the world (over 1.5 million copies) like The Leadership Challenge, LOVING Like a Leader shares the best-kept secret of successful leaders: Love. In an entertaining story-telling format, this book provides tips and techniques-and the business rationale -to take love out of the bedroom and into the boardroom and optimize bottom-line results. Indeed, love is the “best-kept secret of successful leaders” based on extensive surveys of more than two million leaders over three decades according to highly-acclaimed researchers James Kouzes and Barry Posner, authors of The Leadership Challenge. LOVING Like a Leader is comprised of 77 short stories called Leadership Mints illustrating how leaders in business, sports and politics lead with love in a business context and set the stage for more on-going, more relevant and more convenient professional development. That’s especially significant to both leaders and their direct reports now that Annual Reviews are trending toward more regular ad hoc learning opportunities and more timely feedback sessions. Like a candy mint, these short stories, these Leadership Mints are easily digested and immediately satisfying on-the-go in real time. You don’t have to sit down to read this book for 15-30 minutes or more at a time as if it were a meal. You can digest these Leadership Mints one bite at a time in 5 minutes or less (average reading time per story) as if were a candy mint: easily accessed - always at your finger tips. Think of this book as your personal candy mint dish for you to grab and go when a leader’s intervention can do the most good: in real time solving a real issue relevant to all concerned at the time. Too often we send leaders to workshops and seminars and fill them up with information and tools that somehow never get dusted off in the real world. That’s why this book is structured around Leadership Mints not chapters. This reader-friendly format of short stories packing vital leadership thinking has spawned an on-going series of 5-minute Leadership Mints Breaks during regular staff meetings where leaders and their staffs discuss the key message in a story (a mint). Busy leaders don’t have the time to attend as many seminars or workshops as they might like. And business demands preclude their staffs from attending as many off-site training programs. The 5-minute Leadership Mints Break provides a quick and easy solution to long-term growing future leaders without sacrificing short term productivity. That’s the intent of a Leadership Mint, a quick pick-me-up via a short entertaining story that can be read in less than 5 minutes and provides a key tip or technique to handle a leadership issue from conflict management to emotional intelligence.
