Good Books

In The Five Dysfunctions of a Team, Patrick Lencioni weaves the story of a team and their new leader. Taking place from the office to the retreat center and spanning a window from the leader's first day through several weeks into their tenure, the reader is introduced to this leader and the characters that make up their team. As the story unfolds, the reader is able to learn and understand the lessons Lencioni has to teach about how to lead a team well. This is a relatively quick and easy read. For those who enjoy fiction, this is a terrific book that blends the storytelling of fiction with the leadership development that is often tucked away in much dryer non-fiction tombs. 

~Tiffaney McClendon

In Leaders Eat Last, Simon Sinek tells stories of real people to highlight how great leaders care for those they lead, build trust, and inspire. He explains that team members will follow leaders who inspire them. And he gives a roadmap for how to be that leader that others willingly choose and genuinely want to follow, instead of being simply a manager that they have to take orders from in order to avoid being fired. 

Sinek is one of my favorite thought-leaders, authors, and speakers on the subject of leader development. Because he and I agree that great leaders inspire, and those who are inspired are better able to succeed and become inspiring themselves. 

~Tiffaney McClendon

In No Ego, Cy Wakeman introduces the concept of emotional waste, illustrates the damage it does to organizations and teams, then helps develop skills to eliminate it. While some of Cy's ideas can seem a bit rigid, she does give a name to a phenomenon to which most of us can definitely relate. And she gives solutions for overcoming it. So even if you choose to modify some of her stricter rules or soften some of her hard-line boundaries, it's worth checking out this book to discover how to identify and overcome emotional waste within yourself, your team, and your organization. 

~Tiffaney McClendon