Leadership Isn’t For Cowards

Leadership Isn’t For Cowards: How to Drive Performance by Challenging People and Confronting Problems
A no-nonsense guide to driving performance while still maintaining a great place to work

Leadership Isn’t For Cowards offers straightforward steps to leading courageously and practical tips for driving performance. Courageous leadership means toughening your approach by being rigorous in the application of your values through the company culture. It means confronting and challenging people, and not letting them get away with being less than you know they can be. The path to courageous leadership has six components: Accept Your Current Circumstances, Take Responsibility, Take Action, Acknowledge Progress, Commit to Lifelong Learning, and Kindle Relationships. These manageable steps include:

• Identify the area in your business or life where a gap exists between your current reality and your desired reality
• Align yourself with a person or a group of people who can commit to holding you accountable for closing the gap
• Make a specific commitment to the outcome(s) you want and assign dates to them

With courageous leadership, you’ll create a culture and a mindset that encourages and demands excellence! Follow these steps to bring out the best in your employees and lead your company to significant success.

Table of Contents

Section 1 YOU ARE MESSING WITH PEOPLE’S LIVES 1
Chapter 1 Do You Know What You Are Doing? 3
Chapter 2 How Much of an Impact Are You Really Having? 7
Chapter 3 Are You a Coward? 11
Chapter 4 Is Culture Overrated? 17

Section 2 ACCEPT YOUR CIRCUMSTANCES 25
Chapter 5 How Great Is Denial? 27
Chapter 6 What Are You Pretending Not to Know? 33
Chapter 7 Are You Honest? 37
Chapter 8 What Is Real? 43
Chapter 9 Where Is Your Focus? 47

Section 3 TAKE ACTION 51
Chapter 10 Are You Good at Analyzing? 53
Chapter 11 When Are You Ready? 59
Chapter 12 How Present Are You? 65
Chapter 13 Do You Remember a Time when You Hesitated and Lost? 71
Chapter 14 Are You In, or Aren’t You? 77

Section 4 TAKE RESPONSIBILITY 83
Chapter 15 Want to Responsibly Scare Some People? 85
Chapter 16 How Much Blame Can You Take? 91
Chapter 17 What Difference Do You Make? 97
Chapter 18 What Kinds of Responsibility Are You Taking? 101
Chapter 19 Are You Truly Free? 107

Section 5 ACKNOWLEDGE PROGRESS 113
Chapter 20 How Goal-Driven Are You? 115
Chapter 21 Are You Too Harsh? 121
Chapter 22 Are You an Over-Recognizer? 127
Chapter 23 What, When, and How? 133
Chapter 24 Are You about Effort or Achievement? 139

Section 6 COMMIT TO NEW HABITS 143
Chapter 25 Just How Much Accountability Can One Person Stand? 145
Chapter 26 Do You Need to Be Committed? 151
Chapter 27 Just How Different Are You? 157
Chapter 28 What’s That Weight on Your Back? 163

Section 7 KINDLE 169
Chapter 29 Is It Really Just an e-Reader? 171
Chapter 30 How Are You Feeling? 175
Chapter 31 Did You Seriously Think That Would Work? 181
Chapter 32 Do You Ever Notice? 187
Chapter 33 Ever Given Birth? 193

Section 8 NOW WHAT? 199
Chapter 34 Do You Want To? 201
Chapter 35 Are You Willing? 207
Chapter 36 Can You Please Just Get On With It? 211