North Dakota State University
NDSU Extension Service

Leadership -- Books

Choosing to Lead
Kenneth Clark
208 Pages
The writers drew together the best research of the qualities of managers and leaders in all types of organizations. The result has been hailed a landmark in our quest for a general theory of leadership.

Death by Meeting: A Leadership Fable
Patrick Lencioni
2004, 260 pages
Tackling the most common problem in business, boring meetings, Pat reveals his model for making meetings productive, compelling and even energizing. Bad meetings almost always lead to bad decisions, which is the best recipe for mediocrity.

Developing the Leader Within You Workbook
John C. Maxwell
2001, 250-page Book
This workbook guides you through the practical, personal application of principles for inspiring, motivating and influencing others that are featured in the hardcover best-seller Developing the Leader Within You.

Fifth Discipline: The Art and Practice of the Learning Organization
Peter M. Senge
1990, 413-page Book
Forget your old, tired ideas about leadership. The most successful corporation of the 1990s will be something called a learning organization. Learning disabilities are tragic in children, but they are fatal in organizations. Because of them, few corporations live even half as long as a person-- most die before they reach the age of 40. Learning organizations defy these odds and overcome learning disabilities to clearly understand threats and recognize new opportunities. Not only is the learning organization a new source of competitive advantage, it also offers an empowering approach to work.

First, Break All the Rules: What the World's Greatest Managers Do Differently
Marcus Buckingham and Curt Coffman, The Gallup Organization
1999, 271-page Book
This book is based on in-depth interviews by The Gallup Organization of more than 80,000 managers in over 400 companies - the largest study of its kind ever undertaken. The results show that, despite their differences, great managers share one common trait: They do not hesitate to break virtually every rule held sacred by conventional wisdom.

The Five Dysfunctions of a Team: A Leadership Fable
Patrick Lencioni
2992, 230 pages
The Five Dysfunctions of a Team explores the fundamental causes of organizational politics and team failure. This gripping fable centers on Kathryn Petersen, an old-school CEO who comes out of retirement to accept the monumental task of transforming a dysfunctional group of high profile, egocentric executives into a cohesive and effective team. With an amazing gift for building teams, Kathryn forces her colleagues to confront the behavioral pitfalls that destroy most teams and adopt the five characteristics of a truly cohesive one.

Leadership and the New Science: Discovering Order in a Chaotic World (Second Edition)
Margaret J. Wheatley
1999, 175-page Book
Wheatley describes how the new science radically alters our understanding of the world, and how it can teach us to live and work well together in these chaotic times. You'll learn that:
* Relationships, not lone individuals, are the basic organizing unit of life
* Chaos and change are the only route to transformation
* Participation and cooperation are essential to our survival in this interconnected world
* Order is natural, but not available through traditional methods of control.

Leadership and the One-Minute Manager
Kenneth Blanchard, Patricia Zigarmi, Drea Zigarmi
1985, 111-page Book
Chapters on: A Visit from an Entrepreneur, Being Successful, Thinking Differently About Leadership, Different Strokes for Different Folks, Leadership Style: Perceptions of Others, Leadership Style Flexibility, The Four Basic Leadership Styles, No Best Leadership Style, Think Before You Act, Flexibility: A Review, The Four Basic Leadership Styles: A Summary, Diagnosing Development Level, Matching Leadership Style to Development Level, Situational Leadership and One Minute Management, Different Strokes for the Same Folks, Developing Competence and Commitment, Turning Around Performance Problems, One Minute Management and Situational Leadership, Sharing What You're Doing, Contracting for Leadership Style, Positive Assumptions About People, Becoming a Situational Leader

The Leadership Challenge Planner
James M. Kouzes, Barry Z. Posner
1991, 91 Pages
"An Action Guide to Achieving Your Personal Best"… This book is vital to preparing, implementing, and evaluating your projects as a leader and it gives you tools that will improve your ability to communicate, strengthen co-worker commitment, build trust, maintain employee satisfaction, and much more.

Leadership Is
Harrison Owen
1990, 159-page Book
This book is about leadership and spirit, or maybe spirited leadership. Leadership Is tells a story that is at once comforting and disturbing. The comfort comes from the assertion that in a world apparently bereft of leadership, there is in fact an abundance only waiting to be made manifest. The disturbing part lies in the suggestion that leadership is no longer (and possibly never was) a matter of command and control exercised by the one or the few over the many. Leadership is liberation, the capacity to inspire the human spirit on its quest for fulfillment.

Leadership Secrets of Attila the Hun
Wess Roberst, Ph.D.
1985, 110-page Book
This is the book that reveals the leadership secrets of Attila the Hun -- the man who centuries ago shaped an aimless band of mercenary tribal nomads into the undisputed rulers of the ancient world, who today offers us timeless lessons in win-directed, take-charge management.

Leading Without Power: Finding Hope in Serving Community
Max De Pree
1997, 189-page Book
The most successful organizations of the Information Age operate not as controlled collections of human resources but as dynamic communities of fee people. To mobilize these communities, leaders must know how to lead without power because free people follow willingly -- or not at all. De Pree also authored Leadership is an Art and Leadership Jazz.

Lions Don’t Need to Roar: Using the Leadership Power of Professional Presence to Stand Out, Fit in and Move Ahead
D.A. Benton
1992, 257 Pages
Whether interviewing for the job of your dreams or dreaming about scaling the heights in your field, you’ll find that professional success requires more than capability alone: it requires professional presence.  This author shares her knowledge with you using guidelines and techniques previously available only in her seminars and also reveals the secrets of making the right impression.

Listen Up, Leader!
David Cotrell
2000, 39 Page Booklet
Listen Up helps leaders listen, learn, serve employees and treat them like partners. Topics include character, vision, rewards, making positive changes, taking a stand and working for the best.

Love and Profit: The Art of Caring Leadership
James A. Autry
1991, 219-page Book
This book explodes the myth that "nice guys finish last." Love and Profit offers clear, direct and compassionate guidance, dealing situation by situation with the most difficult decisions every manager must inevitably face. The ideas will enable you to manage brilliantly during the day... and sleep well at night. Autry was a keynote speaker at the National Association of Extension 4-H Agents conference Oct. 21-25, 2001, in Bismarck, ND

Overcoming the Five Dysfunctions of a Team: A Field Guide for Leaders, Managers, and Facilitators
Patrick Lencioni
2005, 155 pages
InOvercoming the Five Dysfunctions of a Team: A Field Guide, author Pat Lencioni offers more specific, practical guidance for overcoming the Five Dysfunctions - using tools, exercises, assessments and real-world examples.

Plant Your Feet Firmly in Mid-Air: Guidance Through Turbulent Change
Janet E. Lapp, Ph.D.
1996, 233-page Book
Lapp uncovers blocks to change, examines which beliefs hinder and which promote transformation, and gives step-by-step guidance through change efforts. She was a keynote speaker at the National Association of Extension 4-H Agents conference in Bismarck in October 2001.

Silos, Politics and Turf Wars: A leadership fable about destroying the barriers that turn colleagues into competitors.
Patrick Lencioni
2006, 211 pages
This is a story about Jude Cousins, an eager young management consultant struggling to launch his practice by solving one of the more universal and frustrating problems faced by his clients.  Through trial and error, he develops a simple yet ground-breaking approach for helping them transform confusion and infighting into clarity and alignment.

Situational Leader
Paul Hersey
1984, 128-page Book
For organizations to achieve excellence in today's world, the commitment to develop people is becoming increasingly important. It is the effective utilization of the human resources that is the cornerstone to high performing organizations. This book presents a practical framework for developing people and increasing productivity. The Situational Leader assesses the performance of others and takes the responsibility for making things happen.

The Three Signs of a Miserable Job: A Fable for Managers (and their employees)
Patrick Lencioni
2997, 260 pages
In his sixth fable, bestselling author Patrick Lencioni takes on a topic that almost everyone can relate to: the causes of a miserable job. Millions of workers, even those who have carefully chosen careers based on true passions and interests, dread going to work, suffering each day as they trudge to jobs that make them cynical, weary, and frustrated. It is a simple fact of business life that any job, from investment banker to dishwasher, can become miserable. Through the story of a CEO turned pizzeria manager, Lencioni reveals the three elements that make work miserable -- irrelevance, immeasurability, and anonymity -- and gives managers and their employees the keys to make any job more fulfilling.

Thriving on Chaos: Handbook for a Management Revolution
Tom Peters
1987, 557-page Book
"There are no excellent companies." So begins Tom Peter's radical handbook for a management revolution with a manifesto whose urgent message is that in our changed and now endlessly changing world, excellence must go hand in hand with a new imperative: flexibility. Thriving on Chaos offers both trenchant analysis and a bold program for action: 45 prescriptions specify what managers at every level must do -- and do fast -- if the organizations they lead are to survive, let alone flourish, in today's (and tomorrow's) chaotic economic environment. The prescriptions are divided into five sections: Creating Total Customer Responsiveness, Pursuing Fast-Paced Innovation, Achieving Flexibility by Empowering People, Learning to Love Change: A New View of Leadership at All Levels, and Building Systems for a World Turned Upside Down.

Two Minute Management
Alex D'Alessandro
1985, 99-page Book
This book is about getting results by projecting the person you say you are and focusing on two special minutes that you spend with yourself before approaching people. The first part of the statement, "People are managed by your image first, then your real self-image...but only if you care to share," refers to a manager's position power, or perceived image, as the driving force behind his authority to get the job done. The second part refers to a choice that any leader has: to reach out and touch his people with real participative management, using person power. The author believes that a real commitment to our managers and companies begins with a deep understanding of the clear communication process of one person's self-image to another's self-image.

Books can be checked out for one month, audio and video tapes for two weeks. Contact the Distribution Center at NDSU.distributioncenter@ndsu.edu or 701 231-7882 to check out Staff Resource Library materials, or stop by Morrill 10 to browse the shelves.