Your Leadership Edge

by Ed O'Malley, Amanda Cebula

Designed to help you thrive, Your Leadership Edge offers powerful and provocative ideas to help you mobilize groups around what matters most. KLC's newest resource offers insights about the daily practice of leadership. It s a practical, comprehensive guide designed to help you hone the behaviors, attitude and mindset necessary to create lasting impact for yourself, your organization or your community. Your Leadership Edge will help you take your leadership practice to the next level.

Genres: Leadership, Nonfiction, School, Professional Development

196 pages, Hardcover

Published October 1, 2015

Reviews

[Laurel · Rating 4 out of 5]

I was prepared to write this off as a highly designed quick read to make executives feel good about finishing a book. There is glossy paper filled with colorful text and cartoons, BUT this succinct book is still full of solid advice, some of it counter-intuitive. I rarely read a book twice but I will keep this one and dip back into it over time.

[Piper Reid · Rating 3 out of 5]

Yet again, another book I read for work. Something I appreciated about this novel was how they presented the material. The four guiding principals were thought provoking, and each principle being broken down into actionable steps made the ideas in this book easy to follow. My only grievances, I’ll admit, are entirely subjective. I felt that some of the chapters contained thought-provoking nuggets of information, while others failed to deliver the “point” in a way that was inspiring of action. Although, given that I read this book in a professional context, I would like to say that I know these opinions are biased towards what I would consider helpful versus unhelpful in my daily work.

[Carmaine · Rating 4 out of 5]

“Mobilizing people to make progress on adaptive challenges” is one of the numerous recommendations identified in Your Leadership Edge: Lead Anytime, Anywhere. Author and founding president and CEO of the Kansas Leadership Center, Ed O’Malley, believes “leadership is not a title, personality trait, or workshop topic.” He emphasizes people can exercise leadership in many different ways and venues. Author and director of project development at the Kansas Leadership Center, Amanda Cebula drives new ideas and encourages civic leadership addressing the challenges of communities. Together O’Malley and Cebula effectively engage and mobilize readers, managers, and workers.

Learn how to “diagnose the situation, manage self, energize others, and intervene skillfully” with powerful ideas. Designed to help you develop and flourish, Your Leadership Edge provides practical resources to enhance the principles and competencies you possess and transform them with purposeful and meaningful strategies. Create a lasting impact for your organization by enhancing attitudes and improving the mindset to face today’s challenges by giving and empowering people to work. Understand the difference between delegating and “giving the work back.” Learn how compliance does not parallel commitment.

Expand your management style into a winning leadership practice incorporating realistic question and answer scenarios. The inspirational and enlightening quotes highlight each section of the book. The recognizable language is not overdone with sophisticated terminology rarely understood. The engaging writing style captures the reader’s attention. Clever alliteration includes: “Ted in Transition, Neighborhood Nora, Hannah the Hospital CEO, and Muhammad the Manager.” Without being flowery or silly, the examples mesmerize the reader. Illustrations, captions, creative fonts, legible lettering, and colored chapter tabs augment the historical snapshots and meaningful message.

Recipes about taking the temperature to improve the climate are provided. Improving data driven reports with a new method of presenting the content may be worth consideration. Exploring uncomfortable explanations and acknowledging different interpretations welcome differences of opinions and offer successful communication strategies. One person may be rude; another may be negative; someone may be brave; while another person may be a problem solver. Learn how these divergent personalities can work together to devise a positive procedure.

If you wish to learn how to borrow ideas, trigger mindfulness, transform vulnerabilities into strengths, raise learning style awareness, and address and embrace uncertainty, O’Malley and Cebula provide core values, examples of choices, and cases of failures that can be considered progress. Like Jackie Robinson, having the “courage not to fight” and holding to your ground energize the reader. Making conscious and purposeful choices will result in loyalty and invigorate others.

The Kansas Leadership Center http://kansasleadershipcenter.org/ and Your Leadership Edge https://www.yourleadershipedge.com/ websites provide additional resources and indicate another book will follow.

Carmaine Ternes
Librarian, Researcher, Writer, Presenter
August 2017

[Clara]

I always appreciate a good reference to “The Office” (page 82) and of course the cartoons in this KLC book help drive home their messages. Some takeaways I highlighted in my reading:
• One suggested tip to help you get used to uncertainty and conflict: “If you say a meeting will last one hour, end the meeting on time whether there is resolution or not.”
• One suggested tip for how to inspire a collective purpose: “Care as much about their cause as yours. Otherwise, you are just using them to advance your effort. Contribute your time to their cause.”
• And two tips for things to help yourself and others “hold to purpose” were: “Keep a ‘not-to-do’ list. Put things on there that you feel tempted to do but don’t align with your purpose.” & “Don’t just float in and out of meetings and discussions with others. Be intentional. Write down notes to yourself about your purpose for any given meeting or discussion. Spend a minute or two before meetings reflecting on what your purpose is in that meeting.”

[Richard · Rating 5 out of 5]

A crisp, straightforward leadership framework which is both elegant and profound. This book distinguishes between management/authority and leadership, and outlines five principles and four competencies that are powerful and deep. The book doesn't pretend to be a heavy academic read: it's light-hearted and an easy read with multiple cartoons illustrating the key points. However, the framework is robust and built on the best of multiple lauded authors such as Marty Linsky, Rob Heifetz, Lisa Lahey, Bob Kegan and many more.

[Mandy Havert · Rating 4 out of 5]

An easy and concise read, the volume draws from many theories and practices articulated in other books and approaches. The O'Malley book is a quick reference with several "for further reading" notes in the short chapter. I think the book would work best from a full read and then subsequent re-readings as needed for sharpening skills in leadership practice.

[Patrick Funston · Rating 5 out of 5]

A great little leadership primer with small case studies for examples. I appreciate the clarity of the ideas here, but you’ll want to go more in depth. Thankfully, the work is well-sources with “read more” footnotes placed intuitively.

The illustrative cartoons are mixed in their humor or effectiveness, but provide a good break.

[Sarah Berblinger · Rating 4 out of 5]

A well-written leadership book co-written by the founder of the Kansas Leadership Center, Ed O'Malley. (I am hoping this man decides to run for governor of our state because Kansas is sorely needing a talented leader to step up!)

[Monica · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a quick read which excels at providing brief overviews of fundamentals of adaptive leadership. I think it is most useful as a read if you are willing to do some self reflection on leadership challenges along the way.

[Steven Leonard · Rating 4 out of 5]

Another solid primer on basic leadership skills. I think this works for a great conversation starter, a good addition to a lunchtime leadership series. More a practical guide than an academic treatment, but definitely a good read.

[Calvonia Radford · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book revealed me to myself and my leadership. I learned so much about the importance of diagnosing the problem and how to attack technical versus adaptive problems. Every leader should read this book.

[Linda · Rating 4 out of 5]

Read for a leadership class. This is either 4 or 5 stars, but holding back till have some time to apply and see what it does in action. A nice size book, concise without being too brief.

[Jennifer · Rating 4 out of 5]

I am hoping to begin testing the effectiveness of this next week. The premised/ideas seem quite promising.

[Bryce Kreiser]

Read for school (CLP).
Engaging, creative, concise, thoughtful.
Great for application later in life, in organization settings- definitely worth revisiting.

[Brynlee Bailey · Rating 3 out of 5]

Read this for work, it was okay. Definitely not my favorite self help book I’ve ever read, but it did have some good insights.

[Drew Ayling · Rating 4 out of 5]

While not a technical book, I think any good technologist should read this. The book highlights principles that any leader, including one that maintains a tiny sliver of something, that you can learn from. I would have never expected to get this much out a little leadership book. I try to hold these principles true when I feel lost and am not making progress on something.