Leadership By Encouragement

Leadership By Encouragement [Book Review] If we're a team, how come I'm not on it? This question conveys, perhaps, the most unexpressed feeling in our companies. After reading Dinkmeyer and Eckstein, I think it's clear the answer to this haunting question is that as individuals and organizations, we may not know the meaning of encouragement and surely don't know how to practice it. Most of us go through like using the word daily. But we use it frothily, employing it in the service of bland, mild support. "I have to encourage Charley to be more punctual." Put that passive notion away as you read this book. These pages are about people and organizations caring, stretching, engaging, and taking significant emotional risks. To encourage, whether others or ourselves, is to make courageous. I'm convinced that, true to the perversity of human nature, many challenges that frighten us the most are precisely those we find exhilarating when we put our heads down and gut them through. Jacques Maritain, the French theologian and philosopher, wrote "The man of courage flees forward." Dinkmeyer an Eckstein help us flee forward, and that's nothing but good news for us and our organizations. If we are to add value to our teams, our teams are to add value to the organizations, and our organizations are to add value to our larger world, then we have to learn to give and receive what is uniquely good about ourselves and our associates. In other words, we have to share our gifts. We know that, for many of us, the workplace is not a climate which enhances the expression of gifts - either those we're confident of or those we haven't refined and are afraid of even trying. The authors know this, too, yet don't allow us to get mired in negativism. They have prescriptions that are specific and workable. The hands-on practicality of Leadership by Encouragement can be found on virtually every page, but let me mention a few features that are particularly outstanding. First of all, each of the eight chapters concludes with a triad made up of (1) key points, (2) applications of leadership by encouragement, and (3) encouragement skills. This triad ensures that the main points are summarized and that the reader isn't left hanging without action steps to take and competencies to develop. Chapter 5, "Leaders as Encouragers and Motivators," is a gem. It contains a framework for establishing an encouraging system throughout your organization as well as 20 affirmations of the encouraging leader. I assure you if you work at practicing them, you'll change your life and the lives of your associates dramatically for the better, forever. Chapter 4 includes fresh insights and guidelines for conducting positive performance reviews. The appendix alone is worth the price of admission. There, in a few pages, is a short course for encouraging yourself and others toward distinctive performance. The Encouragement Circle Process is one of its elements you may find helpful. I certainly do. For a long time, I have believed the effective executive is someone who combines an attention to detail with taking the broad, long view. In a parallel view, Dinkmeyer and Eckstein have shown their wisdom by giving us a book that reintroduces us to a mega-concept grown common by its familiarity - encouragement - and clarifies how it can be put to uncommon good use. Allan Cox President, Allan Cox & Associates, Inc. a Chicago based firm specializing in top management team effectiveness and executive development.