Leadership Books & MP3 Audiobooks for Business & Community Leaders

Merriam-Webster says, "The conducting or supervising of something (as a business); judicious use of means to accomplish an end." Mark Shead says, "Management skills are a subset of leadership skills...A leader is someone who knows where to go. Management skills are how they actually get there." Stephen R. Covey says, "Effective leadership is putting first things first. Effective management is discipline, carrying it out." Thomas J. Peters says, "Management is about arranging and telling."

According to these and other leader managers, management involves organization, mobilization, and discipline to get present things done. All leaders are managers but not all managers are leaders.

The Key Words in Management: Organizational Skills.

Merriam-Webster says, "The capacity to lead; the act or an instance of leading." James C. Hunter says, "We define leadership...as a skill of influencing people to work enthusiastically toward goals identified as being for the common good." Bill George says, "The leader's job is to provide an empowering environment that enables employees to serve their customers and provides them with the training, education, and support they need." Alan Keith says, "Leadership is ultimately about creating a way for people to contribute to making something extraordinary happen." Andy Stanley says, "Leaders provide a mental picture of a preferred future and then ask people to follow them there." Stephen R. Covey says, "Management is efficiency in climbing the ladder of success; leadership determines whether the ladder is leaning against the right wall." Thomas J. Peter says, "Leadership is about nurturing and enhancing." Peter Drucker says, "Management is doing things right; leadership is doing the right things."

These and other gurus agree that leaders have to have a vision, an attitude of personal and organizational growth, a principle focus, courage to do the uncomfortable, a volunteer following, and a desire to help others succeed even to the point of becoming better than themselves.

Perhaps Chris Brady and Orrin Woodward said it best in their book Launching a Leadership Revolution: Mastering the Five Levels of Influence, "Leadership is the influence of others in a productive, vision-driven direction and is done through the example, conviction, and character of the leader."

Unlike things and projects, which you manage, people must be led. A true leader doesn't need to manage people because people follow them voluntarily.

The Key Words in Leadership: People Skills.

Not all managers are leaders, and not everyone in a leadership position is a leader. That said, every single person at some point is put in a leadership position. You are a positional leader (one appointed to a leadership role) if you are a:

• CEO
• Officer
• Manager
• Supervisor
• Coach
• Counselor
• Teacher
• Mother/Father
• Uncle/Aunt
• Sister/Brother
• Celebrity
• Public Figure
• Pastor
• Organizer
• Friend

If you find yourself in one of these or a similar role, you are in a position of leadership. Lower-hierarchy group members usually follow new positional leaders, at least on a short-term basis, to meet expectations and organizational goals. If the positional leader does not also meet expectations, however, they lose influence and effectiveness.

Leaders must read. A true leader can never stop learning--in fact they don't want to stop learning--or their organization and followers won't grow, either. There is too much information in this Information Age world to learn everything through one's own experience; but a book can teach the best points of what the author learned over his entire lifetime in one or two hundred pages. A leader knows they do not know everything. In fact, they know that they don't know what they don't know, and they search for new information and perspectives to broaden their horizons. Leaders and managers who do not read eventually lose effectiveness and then lose their influence.