Product Description

"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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Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #40393 in Books
• Published on: 2006-11-05
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 384 pages

Features

• ISBN13: 9780132347723
• Condition: NEW
• Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
• Click here to view our Condition Guide and Shipping Prices

From the Back Cover

“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® 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® 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®) 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® 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®  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

 

About the Author

Ken Blanchard has had an extraordinary impact on the day-to-day management of millions of people and companies. His phenomenal bestseller, The One Minute Manager®, has sold 13,000,000 copies. He is Chief Spiritual Officer of The Ken Blanchard Companies, an international management training and consulting firm he co-founded in 1979.

 

This book contains indispensable contributions from The Ken Blanchard Companies’ founding associates—Margie Blanchard, Don Carew, Eunice Parisi-Carew, Fred Finch, Laurence Hawkins, Drea Zigarmi, and Pat Zigarmi—and consulting partners Alan Randolph, Jesse Stoner, Susan Fowler, Fay Kandarian, Judd Hoekstra, and Scott Blanchard.

 

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Introduction

Leading at a Higher Level

Ken Blanchard

This past year, my wife, Margie, and I went on a safari in South Africa with some family and friends. Margie and I have been on a number of safaris over the past 20 years. This time I saw some things I'd seen before but never quite as vividly. What I observed is how vicious, competitive, and territorial the jungle is. If you've ever heard a lion roar, it brings chills up your back. When our long-time guide, Gary Clarke from Topeka, Kansas, imitates the roar, he shouts, "It's mine, mine, mine, mine!" That's because when the lion roars, what he's really saying is, "This is my territory. Don't mess with me." In fact, lions will kill their sons if they challenge their control over the father's territory.

The reason I saw this more vividly than ever before is that I had decided on this trip that I was going to find out as much as I possibly could about Nelson Mandela. We had been at a dinner party where people around the table were asked to share what person—of anyone in the world—they would love to have dinner with. It was a quick decision for me. I said, "Nelson Mandela. I would love to have dinner with a man who was in prison for 28 years and treated cruelly, yet came out of that experience full of love, compassion, and reconciliation." On the trip, I began to read Mandela's book Long Walk to Freedom.

When I compared what I saw in the jungle with how Mandela had reacted to his treatment, I realized that in many ways we as human beings are just intelligent animals. And being intelligent animals, we can choose between being self-serving and serving. The animals in the jungle can't make that choice. A rhino can't get up in the morning and say, "I'm going to make friends with the lion today." It's just not in their temperament. And yet, just as Mandela did, we can make choices to live and lead at a higher level. But when you look at the leaders around the world—whether they're running countries, businesses, churches, educational institutions, or what have you—too many people are choosing to be self-serving rather than serving. Why is that? Because they don't have a different leadership role model.

When I contemplated this dilemma, my thinking took me back to my days in graduate school, when I studied Paulo Freire, a revolutionary from Brazil. He wrote a fascinating book called The Pedagogy of the Oppressed. Freire argued that the problem with oppression is that once the oppressed throw off the oppressor, the only leadership role models they have are the very people who oppressed them. Thus, the oppressed become the new oppressors. The ramifications of this are disheartening—not only for countries, but for every enterprise imaginable. This phenomenon creates a new breed of self-serving leaders overseeing a system where all the money, power, and recognition move up the hier-archy and away from the people the organization was established to serve.

I think the only answer to this recurring cycle is a different leadership role model. That's what this book is all about—helping individuals and organizations lead at a higher level.

Leading at a Higher Level

What is leadership? For years we defined leadership as an influence process. We believed that anytime you tried to influence the thoughts and actions of others toward goal accomplishment in either your personal or professional life, you were engaging in leadership. In recent years, we have changed our definition of leadership to the capacity to influence others by unleashing their power and potential to impact the greater good. We made this change for an important reason.

When the definition of leadership focuses on goal accomplishment, you can think that leadership is only about results. Yet when we talk about leading at a higher level, just focusing on goal accomplishment is not enough. The key phrase in our new definition is "the greater good"—what is best for all involved. We think leadership is a high calling. Leadership should not be done purely for personal gain or goal accomplishment; it should have a much higher purpose than that.

What is a higher purpose? It is not something as internally focused and self-centered as making money. As Matt Hayes and Jeff Stevens contend in The Heart of Business, when it becomes obvious that profit, which is a legitimate goal, is the driving reason for being in business, everyone—stockholders, top managers, employees, customers, suppliers, and the community—quickly becomes self-serving, with a focus on their own agenda and personal enrichment. Employee loyalty and passion often go out the window as the point of work becomes simply to get as much as you can for as little effort as possible.¹

What is the answer to this dilemma? A higher purpose—a key element of what we will refer to throughout this book as a compelling vision. In Hayes and Stevens' terms, it is outwardly focused, must require sacrifice—in other words, it takes precedence over any short-term goal such as profit—and is intrinsically honorable.

Leaders can be successful in the short run if they emphasize only goal accomplishment. What tends to fall by the wayside is the condition of the human organization. Leaders don't always take morale and job satisfaction into consideration—only results count. They forget what the point is. They don't have a higher purpose. In business, with that kind of leadership, it is a short leap to thinking that the only reason to be in business is to make money. There is an either/or added to people and results. Leaders falsely believe that they can't focus on both at the same time.

When you are leading at a higher level, you have a both/and philosophy. The development of people—both customers and employees—is of equal importance to performance. As a result, the focus in leading at a higher level is on long-term results and human satisfaction. Leading at a higher level, therefore, is a pro-cess. We define it as the process of achieving worthwhile results while acting with respect, care, and fairness for the well-being of all involved. When that occurs, self-serving leadership is not possible. Why?

Self-serving leaders think that leadership is all about them and not about the best interests of those they serve. They forget about acting with respect, care, and fairness for all involved. Everything is about their own self-interest. It's only when you realize that it's not about you that you begin to lead at a higher level.

Why Are We Writing This Book?

We are writing this book for several reasons. First, our dream is that someday everyone will know someone who is leading at a higher level. Self-serving leaders will be a thing of the past, and leadership throughout the world will be composed of people who, as Robert Greenleaf said, "Serve first and lead second."² We are writing this book to help make our dream a reality.

Second, the vision of The Ken Blanchard Companies is focused on leading at a higher level. This kind of leadership begins with a vision. Jesse Stoner and I wrote a book called Full Steam Ahead! about the power of visioning. To us, a compelling vision tells you who you are (your purpose), where you're going (your preferred picture of the future), and what will drive your journey (your values).

The purpose of The Ken Blanchard Companies is to help individuals and organizations lead at a higher level. Our mission statement reflects our new definition of leadership:

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Unleash the power and potential of people and organizations for the greater good.

Our picture of the future is

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• Everyone is trained to lead at a higher level.
• Every organization is led by people leading at a higher level.
• People are motivated to lead at a higher level by observing people who lead at a higher level.

Our operating values are

• Ethical—Doing the right thing
• Relationships—Developing mutual trust and respect
• Success—Operating a profitable and well-run organization
• Learning—Always growing, inquiring, and developing

These values are ordered by rank. In other words, we won't do anything to improve the profitability of the company that is unethical or that doesn't honor the relationships we have with our customers, our people, our suppliers, and our community. We realize that making money is not the higher purpose of our business.

You might say that this all sounds like Pollyanna—overly optimistic. That may be, but these are the standards we have set for ourselves. And these are the same high standards we want to help you and the people in your organization reach through this book. Helping individuals and organizations lead at a higher level is our passion, for both your organization and our own.

Finally, in many ways this book spells out our leadership point of view. Extensive research shows that effective leaders have a clear leadership point of view and are willing to share with others these beliefs about leading and motivating people. We hope reading this book will impact your leadership point of view.

How This Book Is Organized

Over the years, I have found that in organizations where leading at a higher level is the rule rather than the exception, people do four things well:

• They set their sights on the right target and vision.
• They treat their customers right.
• They treat their people right.
• They have the right kind of leadership.

This book is organized into four sections. Section I focuses on the right target and vis...

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Customer Reviews

Integrated View of Leadership
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.

Excellent compilation...
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

An Integrated One-Volume View of Ken Blanchard's Work on Leadership
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.