The NASA way: lessons on leadership, teamwork, and corporate culture. How does NASA take on seemingly insurmountable challenges, recover from tragedy and continue to attract the best and brightest talent? Space exploration is as much a story of leadership and teamwork as it is a story of exploration and discovery. Leadership Moments from NASA delves into the culture of the famed organization and examines the leadership styles and insights of NASA senior executives spanning five decades of human spaceflight to share the lessons they learned from critical moments. How did they prioritize? How did they resolve differences? How did they decide what to do when no one had done it before? How did they build highly competent teams? How did they build organizational resilience? How did they fight complacency and rebuild a culture of safety and innovation? Through the use of NASA oral histories and interviews, this book shows how NASA recovered from tragedy and adversity, and how it developed a culture of competency that continues to attract the best and brightest.

Just as the Wright Brothers combined science and practice to finally realize the dream of flight, Ryan and Robert Quinn combine research and personal experience to demonstrate how to reach a psychological state that elevates us and those around us to greater heights of achievement, integrity, openness, and empathy. It's the psychological equivalent of aerodynamic lift, and it is the fundamental state of leadership. This book draws on recent advances in positive psychology and organizational science to describe four questions that, when asked in any situation, will help us experience the fundamental state of leadership. Engaging personal stories illustrate how the Quinns and others have applied these concepts at work, at home, and in the community. --

Learn to lead, no matter who you are, with the tools, techniques, and inspirational stories found in this guide. Anyone can lead. You don’t have to be a CEO or work in a management position to have influence. Your Leadership Moment provides practical tools, techniques, and inspiration to discover your leadership potential. It combines personal and real-world anecdotes with a framework for Adaptive Leadership that can help anyone learn to lead. In this book, you will discover what a Leadership Moment is, the key concepts of Adaptive Leadership, how to stop perfectly solving the wrong problems and start creatively solving the right problems, and how to make real, positive change. Author and leadership expert Eric Martin has brought leadership development to the lives of hundreds of thousands of people in over one hundred countries. Eric’s work draws on Adaptive Leadership, an unconventional and somewhat provocative leadership practice developed at Harvard by Drs. Ron Heifetz and Marty Linsky—and further refined by Alexander Grashow. Your Leadership Moment teaches Eric’s expansion on Adaptive Leadership in a way everyone can understand. Praise for Your Leadership Moment “Martin combines relentless optimism with hard-nosed realism in powerful stories of people like you and me who saw a leadership opportunity and refused to sit on the sidelines. Each of us has the potential for a leadership moment.” —Dr. Marty Linsky, faculty at Harvard Kennedy School & author of The Practice of Adaptive Leadership “An adaptive leadership truth-telling about defining moments of our times. A compelling read for people and companies who seek to challenge the status quo and survive.” —Lauren Serota, head of performance & talent at Patagonia “Your sense of yourself and what is possible will be elevated on the other side of reading this book.” —Alexander Grashow, author of The Practice of Adaptive Leadership

"Crucible Moments: Inspiring Library Leadership is a well-crafted collection of narratives from high-profile librarians and their journey in leadership"--Publisher description.

A fresh, effective, and enduring way to lead—starting with your next interaction Most leaders feel the inevitable interruptions in their jam-packed days are troublesome. But in TouchPoints, Conant and Norgaard argue that these—and every point of contact with other people—are overlooked opportunities for leaders to increase their impact and promote their organization's strategy and values. Through previously untold stories from Conant's tenure as CEO of Campbell Soup Company and Norgaard's vast consulting experience, the authors show that a leader's impact and legacy are built through hundreds, even thousands, of interactive moments in time. The good news is that anyone can develop "TouchPoint" mastery by focusing on three essential components: head, heart, and hands. TouchPoints speaks to the theory and craft of leadership, promoting a balanced presence of rational, authentic, active, and wise leadership practices. Leadership mastery in the smallest and otherwise ordinary moments can transform aimless activity in individuals and entropy in organizations into focused energy—one magical moment at a time.

Have you experienced an act of courage at the workplace? If so, these true stories will have special meaning for you!

Are you ready for the leadership moment? “Gripping adventure and actionable advice.”—Fast Company Merck’s Roy Vagelos commits millions of dollars to develop a drug needed only by people who can’t afford it • Eugene Kranz struggles to bring the Apollo 13 astronauts home after an explosion rips through their spacecraft • Arlene Blum organizes the first women's ascent of one of the world's most dangerous mountains • Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain leads his tattered troops into a pivotal Civil War battle at Little Round Top • John Gutfreund loses Salomon Brothers when his inattention to a trading scandal almost topples the Wall Street giant • Clifton Wharton restructures a $50 billion pension system direly out of touch with its customers • Alfredo Cristiani transforms El Salvador’s decade-long civil war into a negotiated settlement • Nancy Barry leads Women's World Banking in the fight against Third World poverty • Wagner Dodge faces the decision of a lifetime as a fast-moving forest fire overtakes his firefighting crew.