"Leading at a Higher Level translates decades of research and 25 years of global experience into simple, practical, and powerful strategies to equip leaders at every level to build organizations that produce bottom-line results. At Nissan, we have made these principles a core part of our leadership philosophy, better equipping our managers to bring out the great energies and talents of our employees." Jim Irvine, Vice President of Human Resources, Nissan North America "At Southwest Airlines, we have always strived to lead at a higher level. We truly believe that profit is the applause you get for taking care of your internal and external customers. We have always insisted upon a happy, carefree, team-spirited--yes, even fun--working environment, which we think results in motivated employees who will do the right thing for their internal and external customers. Reading this book will make a positive difference in your organization." Colleen C. Barrett, President, Southwest Airlines "If you want to have a great company, you don't have a choice but to lead at a higher level.When you do that, you excite your people, they take care of your customers, and your cash register goes ca-ching. " Horst Schulze, President and CEO, The West Paces Hotel Group, LLC; Founding and former President & COO, The Ritz-Carlton Hotel Company, LLC "Leading at a higher level is a must today if leaders are to rebuild trust and credibility, as we are doing at Tyco. This book will teach you how." Eric Pillmore, Senior Vice President of Corporate Governance, Tyco International The definitive "Blanchard on Leadership" 25 years of breakthrough leadership insights in one extraordinary book! From The One Minute Manager(R) to Raving Fans, Ken Blanchard's books have helped millions of people unleash their power and the potential of everyone around them. The Ken Blanchard Companies has helped thousands of organizations become more people-oriented, customer-centered, and performance-driven. In Leading at a Higher Level, Blanchard and his colleagues have brought together all they've learned about world-class leadership. You'll discover how to create targets and visions based on the "triple bottom line"...and make sure people know who you are, where you're going, and the values that will guide your journey.Blanchard extends his breakthrough work on delivering legendary customer service and creating "raving fans. " You'll find the definitive discussion of the renowned Situational Leadership(R) II techniques for leading yourself, individuals, teams, and entire organizations. Most importantly, Leading at a Higher Level will help you dig deep within, discover the personal "leadership point of view" all great leaders possess--and apply it throughout your entire life. For everyone who wants to become a better leader...in any company, any organization, any area of life Set the right targets, follow the right vision Focus on the "bottom lines" that really matter Serve your customers at a higher level Deliver your ideal customer experience, and create "raving fans" Beyond ego: the way of the servant leader Listen, praise, support, guide, and help your people win Lead at a higher level. Lead your people to greatness as you create high performing organizations that make life better for everyone. This book will guide you, inspire you, provoke you, and be your touchstone.Ken Blanchard (coauthor of The One Minute Manager(R)) and his colleagues have spent more than 25 years helping good leaders and organizations become great, and stay great. Now, for the first time, they've brought together everything they've learned about outstanding leadership. Discover how to...Go beyond the short term and zero in on the right target and vision Deliver legendary, maniacal customer service, and earn raving fans Truly empower your people and unleash their incredible potential Ground your leadership in humility and focus on the greater good For a long time, leaders have relied on Ken Blanchard's insight, wisdom, and practical techniques. Now, he and his colleagues have delivered the leadership classic for a new generation: Leading at a Higher Level. www.LeadingAtAHigherLevel.com Contents Introduction: Leading at a Higher Level--by Ken Blanchard xvii Section I: Set Your Sights on the Right Target and Vision Chapter 1 Is Your Organization High Performing?3 Chapter 2 The Power of Vision 21 Section II: Treat Your Customers Right Chapter 3 Serving Customers at a Higher Level 39 Section III: Treat Your People Right Chapter 4 Empowerment Is the Key 67 Chapter 5 Situational Leadership(R) II: The Integrating Concept 87 Chapter 6 Self Leadership: The Power Behind Empowerment 103 Chapter 7 Partnering for Performance 117 Chapter 8 Essential Skills for Partnering for Performance: The One Minute Manager(R) 145 Chapter 9 Situational Team Leadership 167 Chapter 10 Organizational Leadership 195 Chapter 11 Strategies for Managing a Change 219 Section IV: Have the Right Kind of Leadership Chapter 12 Servant Leadership 249 Chapter 13 Determining Your Leadership Point of View 277 Endnotes 297 Organizational Change Readiness Assessment 309 Acknowledgments and Praisings 313 About the Authors 317 Services Available 333 Index 335
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Leading at a Higher Level is Ken Blanchard's definitive statement on leadership excellence, collecting over 25 years of experience and time-tested management techniques. Check out Amazon.com's exclusive audio and video to begin your organization's journey on the path to customer loyalty, employee satisfaction, and sustained success.
Leading at a Higher Level is Ken Blanchard's definitive statement on leadership excellence, collecting over 25 years of experience and time-tested management techniques. Check out Amazon.com's exclusive audio and video to begin your organization's journey on the path to customer loyalty, employee satisfaction, and sustained success.
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From Publishers Weekly
Blanchard (The One Minute Manager) and associates from his self-named management consulting and training firm present a greatest hits collection of tips, advice and techniques from 25 years of work on unleashing "the power and potential of people and organizations for the greater good." After initial sections on setting targets and creating a vision for one's company, plus delivering the best possible experience to the customer, the book delves into the manager-employee relationship. Blanchard and his co-authors recap their "Situational Leadership" technique, which calls for a flexible leadership style to match the setting and players involved. They also review the three elements of their "One Minute Manager" idea: setting goals, delivering praise and offering "reprimands or redirection" adds up to a small percentage of a manager's responsibility but will lead to desired results. The collection's closing chapters advise managers on how to identify their core values and set examples for staff. The scope of the book and its level of detail make for a dense read in its entirety, but a detailed table of contents will allow managers easy browsing.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
19 of 19 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
Management expert Ken Blanchard has spent more than 25 years helping individuals and organizations become and stay great. Known for his co-authorship of The One Minute Manager, for the first time Blanchard combines his collective wisdom to show managers and leaders zero in on the right target and vision.
Blanchard argues that in high performing organizations everyone's energy is focused on three issues:
1. Being the provider of choice. To keep your customers, you must go beyond satisfying them, you have to turn them into raving fans.
2. Being the employer of choice. Workers seek opportunities where they feel their contributions are valued and rewarded.
3. Being the investment of choice. Money flows to organizations that provide viability, visibility and performance over time.
To achieve these goals, Blanchard argues, your organization must become a HPO - a high performing organization. The author employs the acronym SCORES to illustrate the six elements found in every HPO:
1. Shared Information and Communication.
2. Compelling Vision.
3. Ongoing Learning.
4. Relentless Focus on Customer Results.
5. Energizing Systems and Structures.
6. Shared Power and High Involvement.
In an HPO, Blanchard writes, every thing starts and ends with the customer. Each organization member is passionate about developing sophisticated knowledge of customers and sharing the information throughout the organization. This is accomplished three ways:
1. Decide. If you want raving fans, you do not announce it. You plan for it.
2. Discover. After you decide, it's critical to ask your customers' for suggestions to improve their experience with your organization.
3. Deliver + 1 per cent. Excite your people to deliver this experience, plus.
Enablement is the key to beating your competition day-after day. Allowing your people to pit their brains and allowing them to use their knowledge, experience and motivation is critical. To guide this transition to an enablement culture, leaders must use three keys:
1. Share Information.
2. Declare the Boundaries
3. Replace old Hierarchies with Self-Directed Individuals and Teams.
This requires a special leader: the servant leader. Leadership has two parts: vision and implementation. They need to find out what their people need to be successful and they make a difference in the lives of their people and in the process, their organization.
Blanchard argues that in high performing organizations everyone's energy is focused on three issues:
1. Being the provider of choice. To keep your customers, you must go beyond satisfying them, you have to turn them into raving fans.
2. Being the employer of choice. Workers seek opportunities where they feel their contributions are valued and rewarded.
3. Being the investment of choice. Money flows to organizations that provide viability, visibility and performance over time.
To achieve these goals, Blanchard argues, your organization must become a HPO - a high performing organization. The author employs the acronym SCORES to illustrate the six elements found in every HPO:
1. Shared Information and Communication.
2. Compelling Vision.
3. Ongoing Learning.
4. Relentless Focus on Customer Results.
5. Energizing Systems and Structures.
6. Shared Power and High Involvement.
In an HPO, Blanchard writes, every thing starts and ends with the customer. Each organization member is passionate about developing sophisticated knowledge of customers and sharing the information throughout the organization. This is accomplished three ways:
1. Decide. If you want raving fans, you do not announce it. You plan for it.
2. Discover. After you decide, it's critical to ask your customers' for suggestions to improve their experience with your organization.
3. Deliver + 1 per cent. Excite your people to deliver this experience, plus.
Enablement is the key to beating your competition day-after day. Allowing your people to pit their brains and allowing them to use their knowledge, experience and motivation is critical. To guide this transition to an enablement culture, leaders must use three keys:
1. Share Information.
2. Declare the Boundaries
3. Replace old Hierarchies with Self-Directed Individuals and Teams.
This requires a special leader: the servant leader. Leadership has two parts: vision and implementation. They need to find out what their people need to be successful and they make a difference in the lives of their people and in the process, their organization.
18 of 18 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars
An Integrated One-Volume View of Ken Blanchard's Work on Leadership
December 12, 2006
Format:Hardcover
I've been reading Dr. Ken Blanchard since The One Minute Manager came out. Perhaps you have been, too. While I haven't read all of his collaborations, I've usually read the books where the title seemed relevant to my interests.
More than once, I've wondered how I should fit all the pieces of his views on leadership into one finished jigsaw puzzle. Clearly, the views are humanistic, idealistic and inspiring. But how do we combine them all? My confusion was eliminated by reading Leading at a Higher Level which does an excellent job of integrating three decades worth of writing into one coherent set of ideas and directions for implementation.
If you tried to boil down this book into one idea, it's that of having the right target . . . what Dr. Blanchard and his partners and associates call the triple bottom line -- being the provider of choice for customers, the employer of choice for employees, and the investment of choice for investors. I'm not inclined to quibble, but in the rest of the book it's clear that other stakeholders are supposed to be considered (people who use the offerings, partners, the community, suppliers, and those affected by the company). I wonder if the triple bottom line doesn't need to be expanded to have more bottom lines.
Here's how the book is organized:
I. Set Your Sights on the Right Target and Vision
1. Measuring leadership performance -- the HPO SCORES model which is:
a. Shared information and open communications
b. Compelling vision
c. Ongoing learning
d. Relentless focus on customer results
e. Energizing systems and structures (ways of getting things done that fit with the vision)
f. Shared power and high involvement
As you can see, this is a highly participative concept of leadership where everyone has a role.
2. The Power of Vision
II. Treat Your Customers Right (Raving Fans created by Gung Ho people)
III. Treat Your People Right (Direct, Coach, Support, or Delegate depending on how prepared your people are for the task, and use one minute praisings and redirections and apologies)
IV. Have the Right Kind of Leadership (Servant leadership and diagnosing your own leadership perspective and style)
The bulk of the book is focused on the third topic, treat your people right, which is Dr. Blanchard's key operating philosophy.
The most interesting aspect of the book for me, however, was Dr. Blanchard's occasional revision of his philosophy. For instance, I could never understand why Dr. Johnson and he emphasized one-minute reprimands as much as one-minute praisings in The One Minute Manager. Dr. Blanchard makes a long-needed shift in that view to point out that one-minute redirections and one-minute apologies are needed much more often than one-minute reprimands.
Who will gain the most from this book? Someone who wants to see a process spelled out that can be used for being a humanistic leader and who hasn't read many books on the subject. If you've already read everything that's ever been written and feel comfortable with how Dr. Blanchard's many books fit together in application, you probably won't gain much additional knowledge from this book. But if you would like a friendly review of books you've enjoyed, you'll find the reading to be a pleasant experience. I enjoyed learning more about Dr. Blanchard's various colleagues.
If you haven't read anything by Ken Blanchard, just buy and read this book. It tells you everything you need to know about the other books. You could then expand your appreciation selectively by reading the fables that go with those books where you want to have a deeper understanding . . . by adding a story to go with the leadership lessons.
Be the leader you would like to have! That's the advice of Norman Schwarzkopf. I'm sure he would approve of this book.
More than once, I've wondered how I should fit all the pieces of his views on leadership into one finished jigsaw puzzle. Clearly, the views are humanistic, idealistic and inspiring. But how do we combine them all? My confusion was eliminated by reading Leading at a Higher Level which does an excellent job of integrating three decades worth of writing into one coherent set of ideas and directions for implementation.
If you tried to boil down this book into one idea, it's that of having the right target . . . what Dr. Blanchard and his partners and associates call the triple bottom line -- being the provider of choice for customers, the employer of choice for employees, and the investment of choice for investors. I'm not inclined to quibble, but in the rest of the book it's clear that other stakeholders are supposed to be considered (people who use the offerings, partners, the community, suppliers, and those affected by the company). I wonder if the triple bottom line doesn't need to be expanded to have more bottom lines.
Here's how the book is organized:
I. Set Your Sights on the Right Target and Vision
1. Measuring leadership performance -- the HPO SCORES model which is:
a. Shared information and open communications
b. Compelling vision
c. Ongoing learning
d. Relentless focus on customer results
e. Energizing systems and structures (ways of getting things done that fit with the vision)
f. Shared power and high involvement
As you can see, this is a highly participative concept of leadership where everyone has a role.
2. The Power of Vision
II. Treat Your Customers Right (Raving Fans created by Gung Ho people)
III. Treat Your People Right (Direct, Coach, Support, or Delegate depending on how prepared your people are for the task, and use one minute praisings and redirections and apologies)
IV. Have the Right Kind of Leadership (Servant leadership and diagnosing your own leadership perspective and style)
The bulk of the book is focused on the third topic, treat your people right, which is Dr. Blanchard's key operating philosophy.
The most interesting aspect of the book for me, however, was Dr. Blanchard's occasional revision of his philosophy. For instance, I could never understand why Dr. Johnson and he emphasized one-minute reprimands as much as one-minute praisings in The One Minute Manager. Dr. Blanchard makes a long-needed shift in that view to point out that one-minute redirections and one-minute apologies are needed much more often than one-minute reprimands.
Who will gain the most from this book? Someone who wants to see a process spelled out that can be used for being a humanistic leader and who hasn't read many books on the subject. If you've already read everything that's ever been written and feel comfortable with how Dr. Blanchard's many books fit together in application, you probably won't gain much additional knowledge from this book. But if you would like a friendly review of books you've enjoyed, you'll find the reading to be a pleasant experience. I enjoyed learning more about Dr. Blanchard's various colleagues.
If you haven't read anything by Ken Blanchard, just buy and read this book. It tells you everything you need to know about the other books. You could then expand your appreciation selectively by reading the fables that go with those books where you want to have a deeper understanding . . . by adding a story to go with the leadership lessons.
Be the leader you would like to have! That's the advice of Norman Schwarzkopf. I'm sure he would approve of this book.
16 of 16 people found the following review helpful
Not only does this book bring together years of research, but it also aggregates the minds of multiple leaders in the Blanchard organization. If you haven't read the other books coming out of the Ken Blanchard Companies, you'll definitely want to read this book. If you have read the others, this will be a great refresher and it provides a different format. As you know, many of the Blanchard books are in story format (aka parables) and now those story-based lessons are gathered into a more standard non-fiction book.
The book is broken into three sections: set your sights on the right target and vision, treat your customers right, and treat your people right. The greatest focus is on the latter: treat your people right. The argument is that if you treat your people right, they'll treat your customers right and work toward your target and vision. Makes sense for really large and even smaller organizations.
I'm still looking for that right book for the 1-5 person company. This is definitely a great book, but you have to transate and apply it to your scenario if there is noone between you and the customers.
Enjoy your reading time.
Tom Carpneter - Senior Constultant - SYSEDCO
Helping IT Professionals Succeed
The book is broken into three sections: set your sights on the right target and vision, treat your customers right, and treat your people right. The greatest focus is on the latter: treat your people right. The argument is that if you treat your people right, they'll treat your customers right and work toward your target and vision. Makes sense for really large and even smaller organizations.
I'm still looking for that right book for the 1-5 person company. This is definitely a great book, but you have to transate and apply it to your scenario if there is noone between you and the customers.
Enjoy your reading time.
Tom Carpneter - Senior Constultant - SYSEDCO
Helping IT Professionals Succeed
Most Recent Customer Reviews
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