Favorite Books and Articles:

Coaching

Flaherty, James.  Coaching: Evoking Excellence in Others.  Butterworth Heinemann, 1999.

Comments: An excellent introduction to coaching from a philosophical rather than psychological perspective.  (Focuses on the search for meaning.)  A person’s results depend on the way s/he “reads” the situation.  To change results, help the client change the way s/he “reads” the situation and interprets feedback.  The philosophical foundations at the beginning of the book may be difficult reading but the coaching process and agendas that follow provide maps for focused, insightful and moving coaching sessions.  (And they don’t turn the client into set of pathologies to be fixed!)

Hargrove, Robert.  Masterful Coaching.  Pfeiffer, 1995.

Comments:  A coaching model for both consultants and managers.  Explains how to apply learning organization concepts (from thought leaders such as Senge and Argyris) to coaching.  How to move from single loop learning (getting better at what you’re already doing) to double loop learning (changing your assumptions) and even triple loop learning (changing your identity – how you define yourself).  How to facilitate action learning within individuals and teams.  How to establish learning conversations, unpack inferences, and balance advocacy with inquiry.

Hyatt, Carole and Gottlieb, Linda.  When Smart People Fail (Revised Edition).  Penguin Books, 1993.

Comments: Helps you “get inside” the loss of identity that clients experience when they lose a job or suffer a major career setback.  Enables you to help them find the gift inside the loss and create a more-congruent energized new work life.

Mink, Oscar and Barbara; Owen, Keith. Developing High-Performance People: The Art of Coaching. Addison-Wesley, 1993.

Comments:  A book that’s chock-full of coaching models, “how tos,” and instruments.  A comprehensive tool kit.

O’Neill, Mary Beth.  Executive Coaching with Backbone and Heart: A Systems Approach to Engaging Leaders with Their Challenges.  Jossey-Bass, 2000.

Comments: A new book that may become a classic.  Most books on coaching are written to managers about how to coach their employees or to coaches about how to guide clients through career, personal and interpersonal development.  This book is written to leadership coaches about how to guide executives.  It focuses on the systems lens as well as the more familiar group, interpersonal, and intrapersonal lenses that you’ll find in other coaching books.  Well-written and gutsy, this book will stretch your coaching envelope. 

Simonsen, Peggy.  Career Compass: Managing Your Career Strategically in the New Century.  Davies-Black, 2000.

Comments:  A great career coach explains the process of strategic career management including looking inward (examining core competencies, values and purpose), looking outward (analyzing the job market and potential employers) and looking forward (planning goals and developmental path through career development stages and 21^st century career challenges.)

Whitworth, Laura; Kimsey-House, Henry; Sandahl, Phil.  Coactive Coaching.  Davies-Black Publishing, 1998.

Comments:  Describes and gives examples of essential coaching skills.  Explains how to address 3 key client needs: fulfillment, balance, and process.  Also provides coaching dialogues, skill-building exercises and tools.

 Yardley-Griffin, Paula.  Coaching in 1999, a Special Issue of Consulting Today.  High Meadows Resources, 1999.  (For info call 914 591-5522.)

Comments: A great introduction to both new and tried-and-true approaches to coaching.  Also provides a great resource list for developing coaching skills.

Leadership

Block, Peter.  The Empowered Manager: Positive Political Skills at Work.  Jossey-Bass, 1987.

Comments: A great book on shifting from a patriarchal, bureaucratic mentality toward an entrepreneurial one in which people serve out of a commitment to meaning, contribution and service.

 Block, Peter.  Stewardship: Choosing Service Over Self-Interest.  Berrett-Koehler, 1993.

Comments:  To make leadership effective, it’s essential to understand how our thinking about it disempowers people.  In one of my favorite passages, Block explains, “Our search for strong leadership expresses a desire for others to assume the ownership and responsibility.  The effect is to localize power, purpose, and privilege in the one we call the leader.”  An essential understanding for anyone who’s trying to help organizations shift from heroic to developmental leadership.

Bradford, David and Cohen, Allan.  Managing for Excellence.  John Wiley & Sons, 1984.

Comments:  Even though this book is titled “Managing for Excellence,” it’s as much about leadership as it is about management.  This classic book explains the differences between heroic models of leadership and developmental ones.  Then it explains how to navigate the stages of team development to create a shared responsibility team. 

Heifetz, Ronald.  Leadership Without Easy Answers.  Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1994.

Comments: Heifetz maintains that it’s a leader’s job to provide the container for a community to work through its issues and create resolutions that serve its larger purpose.  He identifies five essential leadership tasks: 1. Identify the adaptive challenge (the issues, values and stakes). 2. Keep the level of distress within a tolerable range so that the group can do its adaptive work.  3.  Focus attention on ripening issues, not on distractions.  4. Give the work back to the people but at a rate they can stand.  5. Protect the voices of leadership without authority.

Kotter, John.  A Force for Change: How Leadership Differs from Management.  The Free Press, 1990.

Comments:  Kotter’s classic that differentiates management from leadership.  Management is planning and controlling.  Leadership is envisioning, motivating and community building.  Management keeps you on-track to established objectives.  Leadership helps you blaze a new trail to outcomes that aren’t yet fully defined.  Both are essential.  Kotter explains the developmental experiences that contribute to each set of competencies.

Extended Bibliography

Andreas, Steve and Faulkner, Charles.  NLP The New Technology of Achievement.  William Morrow and Company, Inc., 1994.

Bell, Chip.  Managers as Mentors.  Berrett-Kohler, 1996.

Bennis, Warren and Goldsmith, Joan.  Learning to Lead.  Addison-Wesley, 1994.

Bennis, Warren and Nanus, Burt.  Leaders: The Strategies for Taking Charge.  Perennial Library, 1995.

Block, Peter.  The Empowered Manager: Positive Political Skills at Work.  Jossey-Bass, 1987.

Block, Peter.  Stewardship: Choosing Service Over Self-Interest.  Berrett-Koehler, 1993.

Bolles, Richard.  The New Quick Job-Hunting Map.  Ten Speed Press, (revised yearly).

Bolles, Richard.  The Three Boxes of Life.  Ten Speed Press, 1981.

Bolles, Richard.  What Color is Your Parachute?  Ten Speed Press (revised yearly).

Bolton, Robert.  People Skills.  Simon & Schuster, 1979.

Bradford, David and Cohen, Allan.  Managing for Excellence.  John Wiley & Sons, 1984.

Bradford, David and Cohen, Allan.  Power Up.  John Wiley & Sons, 1998.

Bridges, William.  Job Shift: How to Prosper in a Workplace Without Jobs.  Addison-Wesley, 1994.

Bridges, William.  Managing Transitions: Making the Most of Change.  Addison-Wesley, 1991.

Cashman, Rita.  Corporate Coaching Seminar.  Rita Cashman, 1997.

Connor, Daryl.  Managing at the Speed of Change: How Resilient Managers Succeed and Prosper Where Others Fail. Villard Books, 1993,

Dilts, Robert.  Visionary Leadership Skills: Creating a World to Which People Want to Belong. Meta Publications, 1996

Flaherty, James.  Coaching: Evoking Excellence in Others.  Butterworth Heinemann, 1999.

Goldsmith, Marshall; Lyons, Laurence; Frens, Alyssa (editors).  Coaching for Leadership.  Jossey-Bass/Pfeiffer, 2000.

Hargrove, Robert.  Masterful Coaching.  Pfeiffer, 1995.

Heifetz, Ronald.  Leadership Without Easy Answers.  Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1994.

Huang, Chungliang and Lynch, Jerry.  Mentoring: The TAO of Giving and Receiving Wisdom.  Harper Collins, 1995.

Hudson, Frederic.  The Adult Years: Mastering the Art of Self-Renewal (Revised Edition).  Jossey-Bass, 1999.

Hudson, Frederic.  The Handbook of Coaching.  Jossey-Bass, 1999.

Hudson, Frederic and McLean, Pamela.  Life Launch: A Passionate Guide to the Rest of Your Life.  Jossey-Bass, 1996.

Hunsaker, Phillip and Alessandra, Anthony.  The Art of Managing People. Prentice-Hall, 1980.

Hupp, Toni.  “Data Feedback Meetings: Moments of Truth and Success Factors,”  Consulting Today, Spring 1999, Volume 3, Issue 1. (For info call 914 591-5522.)

Hyatt, Carole and Gottlieb, Linda.  When Smart People Fail (Revised Edition).  Penguin Books, 1993.

Josefowitz, Natasha and Gadon, Herman.  Fitting In: How to Get a Good Start in Your New Job.  Addison-Wesley, 1988.

Kotter, John.  A Force for Change: How Leadership Differs from Management.  The Free Press, 1990.

Kotter, John.  Leading Change.  Harvard Business School Press, 1996.

Kouzes, James and Posner, Barry.  Credibility: How Leaders Gain and Lose it, Why People Demand it.  Jossey-Bass, 1993.

Kouzes, James and Posner, Barry.  The Leadership Challenge.  Jossey-Bass, 1987.

Krisco, Kim.  Leadership and the Art of Conversation.  Prima Publishing, 1997.

Lemme, Barbara.  Development in Adulthood.  Allyn and Bacon, 1995.

Manz, Charles and Sims, Henry.  Super-Leadership. Berkley Books, 1990.

Mink, Oscar and Barbara; Owen, Keith. Developing High-Performance People: The Art of Coaching. Addison-Wesley, 1993.

Nair, Keshavan.  A Higher Standard of Leadership: Lessons from the Life of Gandhi.  Berrett-Koehler, 1994.

Oakley, Ed and Krug, Doug.  Enlightened Leadership.  Simon & Schuster, 1991.

O’Neill, Mary Beth.  Executive Coaching with Backbone and Heart: A Systems Approach to Engaging Leaders with Their Challenges.  Jossey-Bass, 2000.

Pearson, Carol.  Awakening the Heroes Within.  Harper Collins, 1991.

Schein, Edgar.  Career Anchors: Discovering Your Real Values.  University Associates, Inc., 1990.

Schein, Edgar.  Career Survival: Strategic Job and Role Planning.  Pfeiffer & Company, 1995.

Scholtes, Peter.  The Leader’s Handbook.  McGraw-Hill, 1998.

Simonsen, Peggy.  Career Compass: Managing Your Career Strategically in the New Century.  Davies-Black, 2000.

Walter, John and Peller, Jane.  Becoming Solution-Focused in Brief Therapy.  Brunner/Mazel Publishing, 1992.

Whitmore, John.  Coaching for Performance (Second Edition).  Nicholas Brealey Publishing, 1997.

Whitworth, Laura; Kimsey-House, Henry; Sandahl, Phil.  Coactive Coaching.  Davies-Black Publishing, 1998.

Witherspoon, Robert and White, Randall.  Four Essential Ways that Coaching Can Help Executives.  Center for Creative Leadership, 1998.

Yardley-Griffin, Paula.  Coaching in 1999, a Special Issue of Consulting Today.  High Meadows Resources, 1999.  (For info call 914 591-5522.)