The leadership Challenge Planner: An Action Guide to Achieving Your Personal Best

After collaborating on several well-regarded leadership books, James M. Kouzes (chairman of the Tom Peters Group/Learning Systems) and Barry Z. Posner (dean of the Leavey School of Business at Santa Clara University) created The Leadership Challenge Planner to help managers, team leaders, and even community volunteers adopt their primary principles. "Every new project you take on is an opportunity for greatness--for attaining a personal best that defines your own standard of excellence," they write in its introduction. "Your next major project is your chance not only to create extraordinary results for your organization but also to develop your leadership capabilities."
To that end, they've designed the book to be used with a specific project; readers are guided through various stages, from assessing the project's "requirements and challenges" through planning to "lead others to successfully complete" it. The authors concentrate on the five key leadership practices they identified in their bestselling Leadership Challenge--"challenging the process," "inspiring a shared vision," "enabling others to act," "modeling the way," and "encouraging the heart"--and support them with extensive worksheets that help single out definitive objectives and the precise actions necessary to attain them. --Howard Rothman