First published in 1996. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

Look around your office. Turn on the TV. Incompetent leadership is everywhere, and there's no denying that most of these leaders are men. In this timely and provocative book, Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic asks two powerful questions: Why is it so easy for incompetent men to become leaders? And why is it so hard for competent people--especially competent women--to advance? Marshaling decades of rigorous research, Chamorro-Premuzic points out that although men make up a majority of leaders, they underperform when compared with female leaders. In fact, most organizations equate leadership potential with a handful of destructive personality traits, like overconfidence and narcissism. In other words, these traits may help someone get selected for a leadership role, but they backfire once the person has the job. When competent women--and men who don't fit the stereotype--are unfairly overlooked, we all suffer the consequences. The result is a deeply flawed system that rewards arrogance rather than humility, and loudness rather than wisdom. There is a better way. With clarity and verve, Chamorro-Premuzic shows us what it really takes to lead and how new systems and processes can help us put the right people in charge.

"How can I develop an elite leadership team when there's hardly any time to get my real work done?" This is a universal lament from business leaders in fast-paced organizations... until they apply the unique and time-efficient practices outlined in this book. Competent is Not an Option shows you how to adapt the talent development process used by championship sports teams to produce all-star leaders in your business. What if you could ... * Compress a year's worth of leadership development activities into one month? * Build leadership capabilities every day, even during phone calls, giving presentations, or in breaks between meetings? * Ignite hidden leadership capacity to achieve goals you've given up on or never even contemplated? * Turn mind-numbing meetings into engaging skill-building sessions? What sports teams know-about mindset shifts, practice methods, and elite talent development habits-isn't taught in any business school or corporate training department. Apply the principles in this book and you will develop an elite leadership team who can out-think, out-practice, out-learn, out-innovate, and out-perform your competition. What Elite Performers say about Competent is Not an Option: "...For any businesses lacking time to develop elite leaders, Competent is Not an Option delivers an innovative solution by adapting player development methods from sports. It's a game-changer." -- Billy Beane, VP/General Manager, Oakland A's "...Art Turock does a tremendous job of taking the concepts he learned from our coaching clinics and translating them to the business world. Competent is Not an Option is a fantastic resource to help develop your talents and maximize your abilities." -- Pete Carroll, Head Coach, Super Bowl Champion Seattle Seahawks "This book is not a collection of sports analogies. You will learn ingenious ways to adapt sports team's talent development practices to systematize the art of performing at the highest level." -- Jim Donald, CEO Extended Stay, Past CEO, Starbucks

As a Chinese proverb says 'The fish rots from the head' and so it is with businesses and other organisations - the buck starts and stops in the boardroom. This third edition of Bob Garratt's bestselling book that highlights the importance of effective corporate governance has been extensively updated following the corporate scandals of the early 2000s - Enron, WorldCom, Tyco - and the abysmal boardroom standards that the credit crunch and ensuing global financial crisis brought to light. This new edition builds on the Learning Board model developed by the author and now widely used internationally by corporations and public sector organisations such as the NHS. The result is a thought-provoking and highly practical book that will be invaluable to all those with responsibility for corporate governance - and also those who subject them to scrutiny. What Sir Adrian Cadbury, whose committee's groundbreaking report on corporate governance was published nearly twenty years ago, said about the first edition remains as true today as ever: 'No director can afford to ignore this book'.

Over the past two decades, efforts to improve schools have significantly modified role expectations for principals. Today, school-level administrators are expected to be both visionary leaders and competent managers. Based on the conviction that administration is an amalgam of leadership and management, The School Principal emphasizes the need for practitioners to apply conceptual skills to make "what to do" decisions, to apply technical skills to make "how to do" decisions, and to apply relational skills to engage in democratic decision making. Kowalski frames the book with a discussion of the nature of schools, the roles of principals, and their need to improve schools. The book then provides a balanced treatment of leadership and management, covering issues of personal behavior, instructional leadership, relationship building issues, finances, facilities, personnel management, pupil services, and maintaining safe schools. The text closes with discussion of the vital aspects of practice for contemporary principals, addressing problem solving, collaborative change strategies, and personal commitment to being a principal. Special Features: Vignettes introduce the subject matter in the context of common challenges faced by practitioners. Knowledge-Based Questions and Skill-Based Activities prompt readers to engage with and reflect on the chapter content. The School Principal aligns with the Educational Leadership Consortium Council (ELCC) Standards. Treating principals as concurrently visionary leaders and competent managers, this excellent text addresses the needs of aspiring and practicing principals, providing the tools to build effective and efficient schools.

"Great teams are comprised of ordinary people that are empowered and inspired. They are empowered to solve hard problems in ways their customers love yet work for their business. They are inspired with ideas and techniques for quickly evaluating those ideas to discover solutions that work: they are valuable, usable, feasible and viable. This book is about the idea and reality of "achieving extraordinary results from ordinary people". Empowered is the companion to Inspired. It addresses the other half of the problem of building tech products?how to get the absolute best work from your product teams. However, the book's message applies much more broadly than just to product teams. Inspired was aimed at product managers. Empowered is aimed at all levels of technology-powered organizations: founders and CEO's, leaders of product, technology and design, and the countless product managers, product designers and engineers that comprise the teams. This book will not just inspire companies to empower their employees but will teach them how. This book will help readers achieve the benefits of truly empowered teams"--