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    The Heart of Leadership: Becoming a Leader People Want to Follow
    The Heart of Leadership: Becoming a Leader People Want to Follow
    The Heart of Leadership: Becoming a Leader People Want to Follow
    Ebook136 pages1 hour

    The Heart of Leadership: Becoming a Leader People Want to Follow

    By Mark Miller

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    About this ebook

    Are you the type of leader people want to follow? You can be—but first, you've got to understand what sets great leaders apart from all the rest.

    Certainly, leaders need people skills, execution skills, a deep knowledge of industry trends, the ability to articulate a vision, and more—they must be competent—but that's just the tip of the iceberg. What's below the waterline? What's deep inside the best leaders that makes them different?

    Mark Miller contends it is their leadership character. In his latest enlightening and entertaining business fable, he describes the five unique character traits exhibited by exceptional leaders and how to cultivate them.

    The Heart of Leadership begins with young and ambitious Blake Brown being passed over for a desperately wanted promotion, despite an outstanding individual performance. Confused and frustrated, he turns to his former mentor, Debbie Brewster. Rather than attempting to solve Blake's problem for him, she sends him on a quest to meet with five of his late father's colleagues, each of whom holds a piece of the puzzle he's trying to solve.

    As Blake puts the pieces together, he discovers that in the final analysis, a lack of skills isn't what holds most leaders back; skills are too easy to learn. Without demonstrated leadership character, however, a skill set will never be enough. Most often, when leaders fail to reach their full potential, it is an issue of the heart. This is Blake's ultimate revelation.

    This book shows us that leadership needn't be the purview of the few—it is within reach for millions around the world. The Heart of Leadership is a road map for every person who desires to make a difference in the lives of others and become a leader people want to follow.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherBerrett-Koehler Publishers, Inc.
    Release dateOct 7, 2013
    ISBN9781609949624
    The Heart of Leadership: Becoming a Leader People Want to Follow
    Author

    Mark Miller

    Mark Miller (BA, Evangel University) is executive pastor at NewSong Church in Cleveland, Ohio, and he consults for other churches on reaching postmoderns, creativity, and leadership. He is the founder of The Jesus Journey, an experiential storytelling retreat that makes the story of the Bible accessible to postmoderns. He is married to Stacey and has two daughters.

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    Reviews for The Heart of Leadership

    4/5

    9 ratings2 reviews

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    • 5/5
      Thank you ,
      Reading this book was helping me to do some inter action and reflection on my style of leadership and it is an eye opener to keep one on the right track. Making you remember that one needs to work daily on becoming a better serving leader.
    • 2/5
      This book has a useful and interesting message. The problem is that it is drawn out and repetitive. If it got to the point with more succinct examples, it would likely be a more useful and impactful read.

    Book preview

    The Heart of Leadership - Mark Miller

    More Praise for The Heart of Leadership

    "The Heart of Leadership addresses the primary stumbling block for leaders—themselves! If you want to improve how you lead others, you must first improve how you lead yourself. This great little book shows you how."

    —Daniel S. Harkavy, CEO, author, and Executive Coach, Building

       Champions, Inc.

    "The Heart of Leadership extends and deepens the bestselling leadership models pioneered by Mark Miller. This book is clear, compelling, and of real practical value. Keep it on hand—a small investment of time will yield a lifetime of dividends, in your life as well as in your career."

    —Jeff Rosensweig, Associate Professor of International Business

       and Finance and Director, Global Perspectives Program, Goizueta

       Business School, Emory University

    There’s a difference between potential leaders with raw talent and great leaders with real influence. Mark’s book reveals the foundational difference—it’s all about leadership character.

    —Tony Morgan, author and Chief Strategic Officer and founder of

    TonyMorganLive.com

    "Mark Miller’s The Heart of Leadership immediately creates a place for personal discovery. As I read each page, I was no longer thinking of Blake, the main character, but myself. Blake’s journey of discovery became my own. This is about the ‘life’ of leadership and how it reaches within and without, having profound and long-lasting impact. It’s about being unselfishly driven and highly motivated. It is about how others within the workplace and within our lives benefit from our personal resolve to lead from the perspective that others matter."

    —Clifton L. Taulbert, author of Eight Habits of the Heart and President,

       The Freemount Corporation/Building Community Institute

    "There are so many buzzwords in business that claim to be the answer to all leadership woes. The truth is that leadership is all about the people, and to have success with people, read The Heart of Leadership, and watch your leadership soar to a whole new level."

    —Todd Nielsen, author and COO, JMARK Business Solutions

    The Heart of Leadership

    OTHER BOOKS BY MARK MILLER

    The Secret of Teams

    The Secret of Teams Field Guide

    With Ken Blanchard

    Great Leaders Grow

    The Secret

    The Heart of Leadership

    Becoming a Leader People

    Want to Follow

    Mark Miller

    The Heart of Leadership

    Copyright © 2013 by Mark Miller

    All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law. For permission requests, write to the publisher, addressed Attention: Permissions Coordinator, at the address below.

    Ordering information for print editions

    Quantity sales. Special discounts are available on quantity purchases by corporations, associations, and others. For details, contact the Special Sales Department at the Berrett-Koehler address above.

    Individual sales. Berrett-Koehler publications are available through most bookstores. They can also be ordered directly from Berrett-Koehler: Tel: (800) 929-2929; Fax: (802) 864-7626; www.bkconnection.com

    Orders for college textbook/course adoption use. Please contact Berrett-Koehler: Tel: (800) 929-2929; Fax: (802) 864-7626.

    Orders by U.S. trade bookstores and wholesalers. Please contact Ingram Publisher Services, Tel: (800) 509-4887; Fax: (800) 838-1149; E-mail: customer.service@ingrampublisherservices.com; or visit www.ingrampublisherservices.com/Ordering for details about electronic ordering.

    Berrett-Koehler and the BK logo are registered trademarks of Berrett-Koehler Publishers, Inc.

    First Edition

    Hardcover print edition ISBN 978-1-60994-960-0

    PDF e-book ISBN 978-1-60994-961-7

    IDPF e-book ISBN 978-1-60994-962-4

    2013-1

    Production Management: Michael Bass Associates

    Cover Design: Irene Morris

    To Mom and Dad:

    Your love, challenge, encouragement,

    and prayers have marked me and

    my leadership forever.

    Thank you!

    Contents

    Foreword by Patrick Lencioni

    Introduction: Leadership Character

    Leaders Are Different

    When the Student Is Ready

    It’s Not About You

    Leaders Create the Future

    Vision Fuels Courage

    The Price of Leadership

    No Substitute for Wisdom

    Look in the Mirror

    I Can Change This

    A Matter of the Heart

    The Next Step

    Epilogue

    Author’s Note

    Self-Assessment

    Acknowledgments

    About the Author

    Foreword

    Leadership has been the subject of so many books, studies, and commencement speeches that many people have started to ignore the importance of the message. And, to be fair, authors and speakers often rehash the same clichés and obvious truths, leaving readers and audience members searching for something new.

    But maybe it’s not something new that we need. Maybe we only need to take a longer, harder look at what we already know but have failed to grasp—the simple but painful truth that if your heart is not right, no one cares about your leadership skills.

    In The Heart of Leadership, Mark Miller makes a compelling case for a radical form of leadership. According to my dictionary, radical means favoring extreme changes in existing views, habits, conditions, or institutions. And, Mark’s ideas around the heart of leadership just do not correspond to the more self-oriented views, habits, and conditions of today’s culture.

    This book also illustrates the idea that there is much more to the concept of leadership than most people realize. As the main character in the story comes to understand, wisdom, responsibility, and courage are not generic, fluffy or simplistic concepts that any leader can easily embrace. They can only be achieved through a radical detachment from self, through a painful honesty about our past mistakes and limitations. Anything short of that will leave an aspiring leader, and his or her constituents, feeling empty.

    For those who have the courage and the character to embrace the radical nature of heart-based leadership, the rewards are great. But those rewards are not always tangible nor are they guaranteed. They cannot be calculated like a bonus or a 401(k) program. That may be why relatively few leaders choose to lead this way. But perhaps this book will begin to change that. I certainly hope so.

    —Patrick Lencioni

    President, The Table Group

    Author, The Five Dysfunctions of a Team

    and The Advantage

    INTRODUCTION

    Leadership Character

    Have you ever noticed how many books are written to help leaders improve? As many books as there are out there focused on helping leaders enhance their skills, there are far fewer written to help the leader with the all-important self-work—the part on the inside. That’s why I’m excited about this book.

    I’ll let you in on a little discussed fact about leadership: As important as the skills are, lack of skills is not what derails most leaders; skills are too easy to learn. If you want to predict people’s ultimate success as leaders, evaluate not their skills but their leadership character.

    The challenge of growing our leadership character is complicated by a lack of clarity as to what we’re actually discussing when the term is used. Ask people what character traits they look for in leaders, and I’m guessing they will probably name attributes like integrity, honesty, and, perhaps, loyalty. These alone are not a great answer. Don’t get me wrong—these are fine traits, but they are totally inadequate when describing leadership character.

    The best leaders must certainly be honest and have integrity, but we expect these qualities from everyone in our organizations. There are additional traits that set leaders apart. This book is about identifying and developing leadership character. When these traits are evident—and a leader possesses the requisite leadership skills—you find people eager to follow.

    So, why is a book like this necessary? This book is intended to help leaders and aspiring leaders strengthen their leadership character, and, as a consequence, position themselves for greater opportunity, influence, and impact. For some of you, the ideas in this book may help transform your leadership and unlock opportunities as you’ve never imagined. It might even change your life.

    If you and I can embrace and cultivate the leadership character

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