Books published by Center for Creative Leadership

Most companies and their leaders consider innovation vital. In fact, in a 2015 Center for Creative Leadership survey of leaders, 94 percent told us just that. But those same leaders also admitted that most of their organizations aren't very good at it. Just 14 percent said their companies were effective innovators. Innovation work is risky, stressful, and emotionally draining, and the only way to span this gap, and to address the needs of innovators, is effective leadership. Supporting Innovators discusses the three key pillars of leading innovators, and how you can give your innovators the focus, direction, and support they need to close the innovation gap.

Experience is vital for a leader's success, but merely having an experience (such as a challenging new job, a stretch assignment, or an unexpected hardship) isn't enough. The best leaders know not just how to seek out developmental experiences, but how to extract the essential lessons within each experience and apply them to future situations. This book will walk you through a four step process for making the most out of your experiences. You will learn how to seek out beneficial experiences, make sense out of both old and new experiences, internalize the most useful lessons from each experience, and apply those lessons to new, unfamiliar, and challenging situations. By becoming learning agile, you'll be able to use the lessons of experience to meet the challenges headed your way.

Do you work for a toxic Boss? Built on research from the Center for Creative Leadership(R) Toxic Boss Project and written with a blend of humor as well as serious tips, this Guide identifies the six most common types of toxic bosses, describes the mindset you need to endure, and outlines a tactic-rich approach based on wilderness survival principles

Conflict is inevitable, in everyday life and especially in today's increasinglynonhierarchical organizations-in the workplace. So what has always been a key leadership skill, conflict resolution, has become even more critical. But too often, leaders receive little formal training in conflict resolution, and they struggle just to manage the simplest interpersonal conflicts. By using the lessons of this book, readers will be able to apply a thorough, proven method-summarized in ten steps-for resolving conflicts. Following these steps, leaders can analyze a conflict and move toward its resolution with more assurance of a positive outcome for everyone involved.

Effective feedback, whether for your boss, peers, or direct reports, is built around three ideas. One, focus on the situation. Two, describe the other person's behavior you observed in that situation. And third, describe the impact that behavior had on you. The result is a message that is clear and that can inspire action and productive change.

Leaders need to be forceful--to assert themselves and their capabilities and to push others to perform. Leaders also need to be enabling--to tap into and bring out the capabilities of others. The problem is that many executives see forceful leadership and enabling leadership as mutually exclusive, or strongly prefer one or the other, and therefore lack the versatility to be truly effective. This publication explains how executives can overcome the emotional barriers to expanding their skill sets in one direction or the other.

You want to start working on the next steps in your career. Your boss made remarks in your last performance review that you want to take action on. You know now the kind of leader you aspire to be and want to pursue your aspirations. You have an "e;enduring weakness"e; that motivates you to improve. You feel bored or stale in your current job and want to develop new capabilities. If you've experienced those things or have had similar experiences, then you know that what makes you successful now won't take you to the next level of performance or leadership. Successful leaders have the ability to adapt, change, and reinvent themselves. They thrive on change. Do you? The FIVE STEPS in Change Now! will help you become the leader you aspire to be by guiding you through a process of change. Use this book to identify where to focus your development energy,create goals that work for you,craft a plan for achieving your goals,overcome obstacles,and stay on course. Don't wait. Become the leader you want to be, the leader you need to be.

More and more managerial challenges require leaders to be accountable-to take initiative without having full authority for the process or the outcomes. Accountability goes beyond responsibility. Whereas responsibility is generally delegated by the boss, the organization, or by virtue of position, accountability is having an intrinsic sense of ownership of the task and the willingness to face the consequences that come with success or failure. Through this guidebook you will learn how your organization and its leaders can create a culture that fosters accountability by focusing on five areas: support, freedom, information, resources, and goal and role clarity.