Leading Professionals

Download or read book Leading Professionals written by Laura Empson and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2017 with total page 279 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book reveals the power dynamics and interpersonal politics that lie at the heart of professional organizations. Drawing on the latest academic theory, and based on interviews with over 500 senior professionals, it analyses how professionals come together to create 'leadership'. It explains how change happens and why leaders so often fail.

Download or read book When Professionals Have to Lead written by Thomas J. DeLong and published by Harvard Business Press. This book was released on 2007-11-12 with total page 256 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: For too long, professional services firms have relied on the “producer-manager” model, which works well in uncomplicated business environments. However, today’s managing directors must balance often conflicting roles, more demanding clients, tougher competitors, and associates with higher expectations of partners at all levels. When Professionals Have to Lead presents an overarching framework better suited to such complexity. It identifies the four critical activities for effective PSF leadership: setting strategic direction, securing commitment to this direction, facilitating execution, and setting a personal example. Through examples from consulting practices, accounting firms, investment banks, and other professional service organizations, industry veterans DeLong, Gabarro, and Lees show how this model works to: • Align your firm’s culture and key organizational components. • Satisfy your clients’ needs without sacrificing essential managerial responsibilities. • Address matters of size, scale, and complexity while maintaining the qualities that make professional services firms unique. A valuable new resource, this book redefines the role of leadership in professional services firms.

Download or read book Leading Professionals written by Laura Empson and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2017-09-02 with total page 279 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Professional organizations—such as accounting and consulting firms, law firms, and investment banks—are fundamental to the functioning of the global economy. Yet many of the most powerful are notoriously private. This book uncovers the complex, messy, and surprisingly emotional challenges of leading professional organizations—revealing the realities that lies beneath the 'professional' surface which these organizations present to the outside world. Individual professionals—highly educated, highly intelligent, and highly opinionated—are generally reluctant to see themselves as followers and may be equally reluctant to put themselves forward as leaders. They value their autonomy and confer authority on their leaders on a highly contingent basis. How does a professional come to be seen as a leader within a professional organization? How do leaders maintain their position once they have reached the top of their organization? How do they navigate the complex power relationships among their professional colleagues and actually get things done? Leading Professionals: Power, Politics, and Prima Donnas analyses the complex power dynamics and interpersonal politics that lie at the heart of leadership in professional organizations. It is based on Laura Empson's scholarly research into the world's leading professional organizations across a range of sectors, including interviews with over 500 senior professionals in 16 countries. It draws on the latest organizational and leadership theory to analyse in detail exactly how professionals come together to create 'leadership'. It identifies how change happens within professional organizations and explains why their leaders so often fail.

Download or read book Beautiful Testing written by Adam Goucher and published by "O'Reilly Media, Inc.". This book was released on 2009-10-14 with total page 354 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Successful software depends as much on scrupulous testing as it does on solid architecture or elegant code. But testing is not a routine process, it's a constant exploration of methods and an evolution of good ideas. Beautiful Testing offers 23 essays from 27 leading testers and developers that illustrate the qualities and techniques that make testing an art. Through personal anecdotes, you'll learn how each of these professionals developed beautiful ways of testing a wide range of products -- valuable knowledge that you can apply to your own projects. Here's a sample of what you'll find inside: Microsoft's Alan Page knows a lot about large-scale test automation, and shares some of his secrets on how to make it beautiful Scott Barber explains why performance testing needs to be a collaborative process, rather than simply an exercise in measuring speed Karen Johnson describes how her professional experience intersected her personal life while testing medical software Rex Black reveals how satisfying stakeholders for 25 years is a beautiful thing Mathematician John D. Cook applies a classic definition of beauty, based on complexity and unity, to testing random number generators All author royalties will be donated to the Nothing But Nets campaign to save lives by preventing malaria, a disease that kills millions of children in Africa each year. This book includes contributions from: Adam Goucher Linda Wilkinson Rex Black Martin Schröder Clint Talbert Scott Barber Kamran Khan Emily Chen Brian Nitz Remko Tronçon Alan Page Neal Norwitz Michelle Levesque Jeffrey Yasskin John D. Cook Murali Nandigama Karen N. Johnson Chris McMahon Jennitta Andrea Lisa Crispin Matt Heusser Andreas Zeller David Schuler Tomasz Kojm Adam Christian Tim Riley Isaac Clerencia

Download or read book How to Lead Smart People written by Mike Mister and published by Profile Books. This book was released on 2019-05-30 with total page 176 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In many jobs people work their way up through a hierarchy, an experience that prepares them for managing a team. In some professions, such as law, finance, accountancy, academia, engineering, education and healthcare, individuals may find themselves managing a team of equals. This book uses 50 simple lessons to show the reader in concise, pithy prose how to manage a team of equals with intelligence and diplomacy. Each lesson features a short introduction and example from the authors' experience, showing you how skills can be acquired. These are then followed by 6-10 action points to implement immediately. Core leadership skills are reevaluated for the leader of a smart team. The book teaches you core skills such as decision making and delegating, but also soft skills such as delivering good and bad news to team members and how to realise more general aims such as building trust and growing your team. The authors also offer advice on how to look after yourself as a team leader, how to build resilience in tough situations, but also how to develop creativity and extend your skill base so that you are constantly learning.

Download or read book Leading Imperfectly written by James T. Robilotta and published by . This book was released on 2015-07-19 with total page 162 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: There is a problem in today's developing leaders-they think they need to be someone they are not to get what they want. In short, none of us is perfect, and when we pretend to be, people quit listening to us. Instead, we need to focus on trying to connect with others. Leading Imperfectly is full of examples for how to make those connections. The book is divided into a series of short, often humorous, and always insightful essays filled with real-life stories from James' own life. The through line for the book is the significance of practicing authentic leadership. The essays discuss topics such as realizing our story has value, the importance of love in leadership, how to prevent over-committing because you can't be everything to everyone, realizing you don't have all the answers, and some practical advice about the importance of valuing the time we have and giving that time to the most important people in our lives. James also challenges us to look at the lies we tell ourselves that hold us back in life, and to learn how to listen to others so they will listen to us. James' humor provides comic relief in the middle of some of the more serious stories, but the humor always makes his examples hit home and keeps his stories memorable. Readers will appreciate that while he speaks as someone who has had success in life, his leadership background is not that of the typical leader who writes leadership books-he's not a former company CEO or a famous athlete-and that makes his points stand out all the more. Educators, business professionals, student leaders, and others will find this book to be introspective, validating, and motivational. Most importantly they will take away that their story is good enough. Check out Leading Imperfectly. Between the chuckles, there's quite a bit of wisdom that will stick with you long after you turn the last page.

Download or read book Responsibility at Work written by Howard Gardner and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2010-12-21 with total page 409 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Filled with original essays by Howard Gardner, William Damon, Mihaly Csikszenthmihalyi, and Jeanne Nakamura and based on a large-scale research project, the GoodWork® Project, Responsibility at Work reflects the information gleaned from in-depth interviews with more than 1,200 people from nine different professions—journalism, genetics, theatre, higher education, philanthropy, law, medicine, business, and pre-collegiate education. The book reveals how motivation, culture, and professional norms can intersect to produce work that is personally, socially, and economically beneficial. At the heart of the study is the revelation that the key to good work is responsilibilty—taking ownership for one’s work and its wider impact.