The Most Effective Leadership Conversations

Jan. 31, 2014 - PRLog -- Business Book Summary of Leadership Conversations

EBSCO Publishing has just released a new book summary. Managers and executives face the same challenge: ensuring that newly promoted employees perform effectively. Unfortunately, these employees often struggle in their new positions because they continue to rely on mindsets and methods that no longer work in their new roles. Leadership Conversations by Alan S. Berson and Richard G. Stieglitz provides a framework for everyone from first-line managers to executive officers to understand and apply the mindsets and priorities necessary to succeed at all levels. This framework is based on engaging in four types of conversations that focus on building relationships, developing others, making decisions, and taking action.

Richard G. Stieglitz explains that leaders need to master four types of conversations to be their most effective:

1.       Building Relationships: Clear communication and a long-term view are key to building mutually beneficial relationships that are the foundation for successful businesses and careers. Relationship building is now more important than technical skills, and nearly all managers and leaders need more relationships than they have.

2.       Developing Others: The importance of developing others is often overlooked, but doing so is risky. It could lead to an organization having to hire people from the outside into key leadership roles, which can be an expensive and time-consuming task. It can also lead to employees floundering in their new roles and even to customer dissatisfaction.

3.       Making Decisions: Employees at different levels view the decision-making process differently, but all employees interested in moving up the corporate ladder need to learn to make good decisions and deal with change. These conversations require a strong set of business relationships to be effective because people differ in their assessments of ideas, opportunities, and challenges. These strong relationships allow for the development of alternatives that please everyone and bypass compromises that may leave some people unhappy.

4.       Taking Action: The three previous conversation types all lead to conversations about taking action. These conversations focus on planning strategy, motivating people for implementation, monitoring progress, and managing the change that will inevitably become necessary.

In addition to a 7-10 page summary of the book, each Business Book Summary includes a Key Concepts section that outlines the main points of the book, an About the Author section that informs readers of the author’s background as well as their additional written works, and a Features of the Book Section that explains the special features found within the book.

For busy professionals, Business Book Summaries from EBSCO provide an easy, quick way to stay on top of the best business books in the market. With many titles available in audio format, it becomes even easier to obtain the helpful information available in these top business titles.

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