Leadership involves power and influence over others-but each of us is trapped by a psychological imperative inside us to use whatever control we have for our own ends. Where does this imperative come from? The author describes four ego patterns, formed during our childhood, which is the source of our drives and fears-Shaping, Defining, Adapting and Defending-and shows how they determine the needs we try to meet in our lives as leaders. Our natural instinct to use our leadership to meet our own needs rather than others' is what he terms 'defendedness'. One strategy of defended leadership is to build a 'front stage' and a 'back stage', which allows us to reveal or conceal aspects of our self according to how threatening we perceive our audience to be. While the best human audiences (in secure relationships, loving marriages, deep friendships and so forth) can go some way towards fulfilling our need for unconditional and dependable approval, ultimately we need to locate a spiritual source of approval if we are to be fully available to serve others freely. With study questions and exercises, as well as leadership tools and an online community.

Leading Out of Who You Are: Discovering the Secret of Undefended Leadership

Business & Money

Walker, Simon P.

Management & Leadership

Piquant Publishing

The journey to undefended leadership doesn't stop at a personal discovery. Its practical outcome should be a new approach to the tasks of leadership. This book ventures into the territory of the pragmatic leader who has to make executive decisions, manage budgets, set targets, hire and fire, resolve conflict, improve performance, organize procedures and plan strategy. The author illustrates from history the strengths and weaknesses of eight different styles of exercising power (which he calls Foundational, Commanding, Affiliative, Serving, Pacesetting, Visionary, Consensual and Self-emptying), and explains why the ability to use not just one or two of these but all of them fluidly-and for the benefit of others, not ourselves-depends not simply on skill or training but (paradoxically) on the freedom to abandon our defences and attend to the needs of those around us. Indeed, as long as we are afraid of what we might lose, we remain unable to access the most radical and powerful of the leadership strategies: self-emptying. The Holy Grail of leadership-the ability to use each of the eight strategies as and when needed-is found only by those who, like Mahatma Gandhi or Martin Luther King, take the risk of 'leading with nothing to lose'.

Leading with Nothing to Lose (Undefended Leader)

The personal character of the leader and the pragmatics of leadership lead us outwards towards the question we must now address: the politics of the leader. This is the focus of this last, and arguably most urgent, book in the Undefended Leader trilogy. Where is the West heading? The scale of the changes facing our civilisation in the coming years through the forces of climate change, security and globalisation is unprecedented. The need for leaders able to make wise, farsighted choices in the face of such changes is even more urgent. This book offers a guide map for making such choices. By systematically explaining the patterns of recent social, economic and spiritual shifts, Simon Walker is able to clarify the options, anticipate the consequences and describe a viable roadmap for the future social landscape. The lessons for business, political, church and personal leadership are spelled out for all to see. Essential, provocative and most timely reading for all leaders!

Leading with Everything to Give: Lessons from the Success and Failure of Western Capitalism (Undefended Leader)

The Undefended Leader

This one-volume edition of Simon Walker's trilogy of books on 'undefended' leadership addresses leaders in all walks of life: from the home or pre-school to the corporate, academic, political or church offices. It combines the contents from his books: Leading out of Who You Are; Leading with Nothing to Lose; Leading with Everything to Give. In the first book he examines the formation of the leadership ego and shows how maintaining a front and back stage derails leaders. In the second book Simon looks at how power is used in leadership, based on eight case studies from history, and draws powerful guidelines for leaders today. In the final book he focuses on the leader's vision and examines what has caused the current failure of leadership in the West. He points out the direction in which we need to move if life is to flourish in the coming decades.

The Undefended Leader Trilogy

Simon P Walker

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Walker, Simon P.. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Walker, Simon P.

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Walker, Simon P.. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Leading Out of Who You Are: Discovering the Secret of Undefended Leadership

Leading with Nothing to Lose (Undefended Leader)

Leading with Everything to Give: Lessons from the Success and Failure of Western Capitalism (Undefended Leader)

The Undefended Leader

The Undefended Leader Trilogy

The Undefended Leader