Every manager on the move wants to have influence at the top in order to get his or her ideas heard and ultimately acted upon. In Lead Your Boss, recognized leadership guru John Baldoni gives managers new as well as tried and true methods for influencing both their bosses and their peers, and giving senior leaders reasons to follow their lead. Featuring instructive stories based on real-life experiences from leaders at all levels. Lead Your Boss gives readers practical, tactical advice on becoming a key player in any organization, regardless of whether or not they have an office in the Csuite! YET.
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"..useful advice…offers encouragement and inspiration. The book breaks its lessons down into simple steps." -- Harvard Business Review
"...concrete advice for those who find themselves working in the middle…whether that means honing your diplomacy skills, eliciting great ideas, or taking that essential leap of faith." -- Washingtonpost.com
“…down-to-earth, nuts-and-bolts, and easy to connect with…” -- leadershipnow.com
Selected as on the best books of 2009 by CEO Refresher.com
Selected by Leadershipnow.com as one of the Best Leadership Books of 2009
”… strategies for getting your ideas heard, establishing trust at the top and throughout your team, generating honest feedback, becoming a leader in your own right…” -- T+D magazine
Book Description
Every manager on the move wants to have influence at the top in order to get his or her ideas heard and ultimately acted upon. In Lead Your Boss, recognized leadership guru John Baldoni gives managers new—as well as tried-and-true—methods for influencing both their bosses and their peers, and giving senior leaders reasons to follow their lead. Featuring instructive stories based on real-life experiences from leaders at all levels, Lead Your Boss reveals proven strategies for:
• Developing spheres of influence
• Handling tough issues
• Asserting oneself diplomatically
• Putting the team first
• Persuading up
• Establishing trust
• Using organizational politics to everyone’s advantage
• Inspiring others through-out the organization
Lead Your Boss gives readers practical, tactical advice on becoming a key player in any organization, regardless of whether or not they have an office in the Csuite…YET.
John Baldoni is an internationally recognized leadership consultant, coach, author and speaker.
John has taught what it means to inspire at the top of a mountain in the Canadian Rockies. At sea level in Orlando, Florida, John spoke to nearly one thousand USAF/JAG commissioned and non-commissioned officers on leadership and communication. And his book, Lead Your Boss, The Subtle Art of Managing Up, was selected as a notable leadership book for fall 2009.
In 2012, Leadership Gurus International ranked John No. 10 on its list of global leadership gurus. In 2010 for the second consecutive year, John was named one of the world's top 25 leadership experts by Top Leadership Gurus International.
John established a career as a highly sought after communications and leadership consultant, where he had the privilege of working with senior leaders in virtually every industry from pharmaceutical to real estate, packaged goods to automobiles, and finance to health care.
John speaks widely to corporate, professional, military and university audiences. Those who attend John's keynotes and workshops find his advice to be practical and his advice inspirations. Mixed with stories of great men and women, and leavened with light hearted humor, John seeks down-to-earth practical advice that individuals can apply immediately. John's presentations blend his passion for leadership with genuine enthusiasm for helping people achieve their leadership ambitions.
In Fall 2011 John published his tenth book, Lead With Purpose: Giving Your Organization a Reason to Believe in Itself. Over the past decade, John has established himself as a world authority on on topics that matter to leaders who are seeking insight into leadership challenges of the day. Through his books and many columns for leading business publications, John has become a source of practical wisdom on topics such as influencing without authority, applying power appropriately, leading with grace and conviction, and developing genuine followership. All of these topics complement John's mission to help individuals and their organizations achieve positive results.
As a recognized global thought leader, John's executive coaching helps managers to achieve positive results by focusing on communication, influence, motivation and supervision. John specializes in leadership presence, which he defines as "demonstrating earned authority." John's coaching clients including Fortune 1000 companies as well as non-profits.
John is a regular online contributor to CBSi/BNET, Bloomberg/Businessweek, and Harvard Business Review. John's columns have appeared in the online versions of FastCompany, Forbes, Wall Street Journal and the Washington Post well as Leader to Leader and the Wharton Leadership Digest.
John has been quoted by scores of publications including the New York Times, Boston Globe, Chicago Tribune, Christian Science Monitor, Globe and Mail (Canada), HR Management, and the Washington Post. Additionally John has appeared on many radio programs, including the national version of the Michael Smerconish Show. Reviews of his work have appeared in a number of publications including Investor's Business Daily, Training & Development, Sales & Marketing Management, WashingtonPost.com and The Hindu.
John has created a video coaching series for Athena Online and a series of coaching podcasts for CXO Media. These forms of media give John the opportunity to reach a wider audience with his leadership insights designed to help managers become effective leaders.
The fact is that I would have given this book a six star rating if the title was something like, "Help Your Boss and Your Team Succeed" or "Influencing Your Boss." The sixth star would have been extra credit for avoiding the current-day compulsion to label everything good as "leadership."
But the publishers and perhaps the author, John Baldoni, chose Lead Your Boss: The Subtle Art of Managing Up as the title for the best book I've read on a subject that most managers want to know more about. I know that from a quarter century of training men and women entering their first job as a boss.
In every class, we identify the things that these people want to learn about. There are only two items that ever come out on top. One is confronting team members about poor performance. The other is dealing with the boss.
This book is not a compendium of theory or a program that promises success if you just follow the author's five, or five hundred, "easy steps." It won't be easy. What John Baldoni describes in this book is some of the pick-and-shovel work you have to do if you have a boss.
After you read this book, you'll still have a lot of work ahead of you. But the good news is that you'll know what you need to do. You won't have to learn on the job and you won't try a lot of things that don't work.
Baldoni has divided the book into three sections. The first two direct you to ask two diagnostic questions: "What does the leader need?" and "What does the team need?" That's head work.
The pick and shovel work comes when you ask the question that guides the third section: "What can I do to help the leader and the team succeed?" That's a critical question because it moves things out of your head and on to your To Do list.
That action orientation is one thing that makes this an excellent book. But there's more.
The advice is helpful. Baldoni doesn't just suggest you "think like a boss" and leave it at that, the way many other authors do. He suggests three simple behaviors that will help that happen. The first one, "Be around" is similar to what my research identified as a key behavior of top performing supervisors. I called it "show up a lot."
The book is practical and realistic. Too many books of advice act like things will always work. They ignore the fact that there will probably be times during your career when you work for a great boss and there will probably be a time when you work for a jerk.
Even if you work for a good boss, sometimes he or she won't think your ideas or recommendations are the thing to do. What then? You'll find a guide to what to do next in a section at the back of the book called, "The Smart Guide to Positive Pushback. It's worth the price of the book all by itself.
There's a bonus here, too. The advice won't just work for dealing with your boss. It will also work for you if you are a boss.
Bottom Line: Whether you're a boss yourself or you just work for one, this is the best book out there about how you can do a better job of influencing the boss so that you, your boss and your team succeed.
John Baldoni offers a great deal of wonderful management advice that would work quite well in any progressive organization that truly engages its employees in a trusting environment of open and honest communication. Unfortunately, some organizations are not so progressive; rather, they are hierarchial and bureaucratic; micro-managment is pervasive, and a culture of fear defines its essence.
Welcome to corporate America.
Strangely enough, the concepts Baldoni proposes throughout this book alligned with my management philosophy during my 26 year experience in corporate America; throughout this book, I was constantly nodding my head in agreement in support of the strategies "to lead the boss"; they would work quite well in any organization that believes in giving its employees as much autonomy as possible to effectively run the business, and most importantly, stay focused on its customers' needs and expectations.
In the real world of business, some bosses have hidden agendas which don't always take into consideration the best interests of those they manage; rather, they inhibit autonomy and make it virtually impossible to sustain any sort of long-term career growth. Under those conditions, no one wins.
Certainly, anyone with a good set of core values and a desire to succeed as an integral part of a team, would embrace the tactics proposed by Baldoni. It's terrfic management advice, in theory.
From firsthand experience, implementing these wonderful concepts can be extremely challenging in the real world of business. Proceed with caution.
Baldoni's strength is finding good stories and then using them to make a point. This is one of those management books you can open to any chapter and begin there. Each chapter can stand alone. Although the title is "Lead your Boss" ... it is really about how to influence others at any level in the organization in a positive way. If nothing else, pick this one up for the stories. They will stick with you long after you forget where you read them.
