The High Impact Leader

The High Impact Leader takes you beyond static and inflexible leadership "rules" to help develop hands-on leadership skills within the unpredictable, often chaotic framework of everyday life. This results-based examination features wide-ranging research and examples of how real-world leadership has developed over the past century. It details a program for accelerating your authentic leadership development that is realistic and achievable, for individuals in virtually any personal or professional environment.

Leadership Development in Balance: Made/Born

Are leaders born or made? Bruce J. Avolio, a leading expert in this field, states if you believe leaders are just born you will probably not develop to your full leadership capacity. The goal of this book is to provide the reader with a broader and deeper understanding of what constitutes "authentic leadership development" and how that can be applied to each reader's development as a leader.

Full Range Leadership Development

Over the last decade, the full range model has become the most researched model in the leadership literature- and the most validated- and has proved to be an accurate guide for developing exemplary leadership in diverse cultures, organizations, and leadership positions. The new edition shows how the process of leadership development is linked to validation and how the process of validation informs accelerated leadership development.

No People

Who hasn’t scurried along the cliffs of uncertainty, not always as sure footed as one would like to be? There are many who can’t imagine a life away from the cliff’s edge, where great advances are sown and catastrophic failures constantly loom. In every area of our lives, cliffs unexpectedly present themselves, which may trigger a completely new course correction. Hanging back from the cliffs is certainly an option, one chosen by those who embrace a distant and safer view. Others revel in seeking out those cliffs because it is at the cliff’s edge where the most interesting trails and exploration reside.

 Those who are the cliff dwellers must consider the advantage of bringing on your journey a trusted member of the No People (NPs). They are not the average Sherpa willing to carry your load in quiet compliance. They are the people who know when you need to hear “no”—especially when you are most likely to ignore their advice. I have written this book to underscore the critical role that the No People play in organizations and communities around the world. They are often a fragile group of diminishing numbers and safe sanctuaries (in places where leaders carelessly walk along the cliffs, ignorant of constituent and stakeholder interests and points of view, they have become nearly extinct). These are some NP tribal stories; tales of how this tribe continues to positively shape our world.

The boisterous sea of liberty is never without a wave.

—Thomas Jefferson

Full Leadership Development: Building the Vital Forces in Organizations

People interested in developing their own leadership potential, or the leadership potential of those around them, will find a wealth of knowledge in Full Leadership Development. The author, Bruce J. Avolio, approaches the concept of leadership as a system, not only as a process or a person. His framework is based on what he defines as the full range of leadership: people, timing, resources, the context of interaction, and the expected results in performance and motivation. He contends that when a leadership system is optimized, it in turn optimizes the vital force of each individual, thereby enhancing the collective force of the entire organization. The relationships between the individuals in this system, and the mutual development within each relationship, make up the essence of leadership. The quality of the relationships between the leadership, their peers, and followers is a source of enrichment for all involved.

Psychological Capital: Developing the Human Competitive Edge

Although there are as many answers to the question of how organizations can gain competitive advantage in today's global economy as there are books and experts, one lesson seems very clear: traditional answers and resources are no longer sufficient. This seminal book offers not only an answer regarding how to gain competitive advantage through people, but also a brand new, untapped human resource - psychological capital, of simply PsyCap. Generated from both the positive psychology movement and the authors' pioneering work on positive organizational behavior, PsyCap goes beyond traditionally recognized human and social capital. But PsyCap is not a vague or unscientific concept. : to be included in PsyCap, a given positive construct must be based on theory, research, and valid measurement; must be open to development; and must have measurable performance impact. The positive constructs that have been determined to best meet these PsyCap criteria, efficacy (confidence), hope, optimism, and resiliency, are covered in separate chapters in Psychological Capital. After exploring other potential positive constructs such as creativity, wisdom, well-being, flow, humor, gratitude, forgiveness, emotional intelligence, spirituality, authenticity, and courage, the authors summarize the research demonstrating the performance impact of PsyCap. They go on to provide the PsyCap Questionnaire (PCQ) as a measurement tool, and the PsyCap Intervention (PCI) as a development aid. Utility analysis indicates that investing in the development of PsyCap as presented in this book can result in a very substantial return. In total, Psychological Capital provides theory, research, measurements, and methods of application for the new resource of psychological capital, a resource that can be developed and sustained for competitive advantage.