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Product Description

From the author of the long-running # 1 bestseller StrengthsFinder 2.0 comes a landmark study of great leaders, teams, and the reasons why people follow.

Nearly a decade ago, Gallup unveiled the results of a landmark 30-year research project that ignited a global conversation on the topic of strengths. More than 3 million people have since taken Gallup's StrengthsFinder assessment, which forms the core of several books on this topic, including the #1 international bestseller StrengthsFinder 2.0.

In recent years, while continuing to learn more about strengths, Gallup scientists have also been examining decades of data on the topic of leadership. They studied more than 1 million work teams, conducted more than 20,000 in-depth interviews with leaders, and even interviewed more than 10,000 followers around the world to ask exactly why they followed the most important leader in their life.

In Strengths Based Leadership, #1 New York Times bestselling author Tom Rath and renowned leadership consultant Barry Conchie reveal the results of this research. Based on their discoveries, the book identifies three keys to being a more effective leader: knowing your strengths and investing in others' strengths, getting people with the right strengths on your team, and understanding and meeting the four basic needs of those who look to you for leadership.

As you read Strengths Based Leadership, you'll hear firsthand accounts from some of the most successful organizational leaders in recent history, from the founder of Teach For America to the president of The Ritz-Carlton, as they discuss how their unique strengths have driven their success. Filled with novel research and actionable ideas, Strengths Based Leadership will give you a new road map for leading people toward a better future.

Unique code to accompany book is delivered wirelessly to your Kindle in a separate message. For users of the Kindle for iPhone application, the unique code is delivered to Your Media Library.

Customer Reviews:

• Excellent read
  I greatly enjoyed this personal development book. As one in management, I found this a book that will add to my strengths as I deal with others. Highly recommend. I also enjoyed Walking Through Fire, An Iwo Jima Survivor's Remembrance...more info
• Finding Better balance
  The Chinese have a saying "The bigger the front the bigger the back". That applies to the love affair with major focus on strengths to the exclusion of weaknesses. Since we all have both what is the best way to lead. It seems like learning enough about both sides of ourselves is a good bet for success.
  
  I agree that teams want trust, compassion, stability, and hope. These are interactive relationship concepts and they require the whole of us, the good, bad, ugly, and beautiful to show up. It is critical for us to build on our strengths as this book suggests. AND, it is important to bring our weaknesses to the surface or they stay in the dark, seemy places of our personalities and surface when we are not looking.
  
  Leaders who are aware of their negative behavior patterns and are willing to do some "strength training" to create a balanced way of reacting are in the best place to help others grow.
  
  Therefore, yes, build on strengths and strengthen weaknesses. This gives us the best chances for leaders and teams to flourish.
  
  Sylvia Lafair,PhD author "Dont Bring It to Work: Breaking the Family Patterns that Limit Success"
  
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• Well-Rounded Teams
  "While the best leaders are not well-rounded, the best teams are." That's the big idea in the latest book in the "StrengthsFinder" series, Strengths Based Leadership: Great Leaders, Teams and Why People Follow. This is a keeper--and expertly expands the value of focusing on strengths. Gratefully, it's not a rehash--it adds to the knowledge base.
  
  And wow! Gallup conducted 20,000 in-depth interviews with senior leaders, then another 10,000 interviews with followers. They have the data! Millions, from more than 50 countries, have taken the online StrengthsFinder assessment. The research-based insights and recommendations plow new ground. For example, "the most effective leaders are always investing in strengths." They write, "The odds of an employee being engaged are a dismal 1 in 11 (9%). But when an organization's leadership focuses on the strengths of its employees, the odds soar to almost 3 in 4 (73%).
  
  Leadership is nothing without followers and this new book describes the four basic needs of followers: trust, compassion, stability and hope. "The chances of employees being engaged at work when they do not trust the company's leaders are just 1 in 12."
  
  This is not dry, academic stuff. Four leaders--and their extremely diverse strengths--are profiled, using what they call the four domains of leadership strength: Executing, Influencing, Relationship Building and Strategic Thinking. Example: Wendy Kopp, founder of Teach for America, leverages her Executing strengths (Achiever and Responsibility). Her budget, after just 20 years, is $120 million. She knows the Top-5 Strengths of her key people--and how to leverage those strengths.
  
  Other profiles include the CEO of The Ritz-Carlton (Influencing), the chairman of Standard Chartered Bank (Relationship Building), and the CEO of Best Buy (Strategic Thinking). The core idea for all four very different CEOs: it's all about leveraging the strengths of their team members. "While the best leaders are not well-rounded, the best teams are."
  
  The research also delivers five findings on what strong teams have in common, such as "Conflict doesn't destroy strong teams because strong teams focus on results." Like the two predecessor books from Gallup (StrengthsFinder 2.0 and Now, Discover Your Strengths), this one also includes a unique access code so you can take the StrengthsFinder 2.0 assessment online. However, the new-and-improved upgrade delivers your strengths back to you (via email) with new insights on the four domains of leadership strength (Executing, etc.). The book also includes a three-page commentary on each strength and how to address your followers' four basic needs using your Top-5 strengths.
  
  I encourage each CEO I coach to know and leverage the Top-5 strengths of their direct reports and their board chairs. Understanding strengths is not an option, I insist. Instead, it's one of the 20 critical core competencies in the Team Bucket, one of the 20 buckets in my book, Mastering the Management Buckets. Mastering The Management Buckets: 20 Critical Competencies for Leading Your Business or Non-profit
  
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• An Invaluable Resource for Any Leader
  As a Strengths coach who has studied Leadership for years, I am thrilled to see Gallup come out with a book specific to utilizing Strengths in leadership roles. I can say that this resource is invaluable for anyone who intends to lead others in any situation. The 34 Strengths have not changed, but what this book adds that others don't is a sense of leadership-specific actions that you can take to grow in your Strengths and become the best leader you can possibly be.
  
  Strengths-based leadership is different from other leadership concepts because Gallup assumes that there is no expert who can tell you how to lead better than you can lead from your own strengths; they also assume that there is no expert better than those you lead to tell you what is the most important part of good leadership. Instead of trying each new fad leadership concept, this book encourages you to develop your Strengths and learn how you can best lead from yourself... the expert in you.
  
  -Rebecca (Input, Connectedness, Communication, Ideation, Learner)...more info
• A good leadership book
  A solid book. Of particular interest was the section that describes the Four Domains of Leadership Strength (executing, influencing, relationship building, strategic thinking). My fellow strengths fans should know that the book includes an access code to the StrengthsFinder 2.0 assessment and customized Leadership Guide. You can use this code to take the StrengthsFinder 2.0. After you take it, you get the strengths report and your customized leadership guide. Or, if you took StrengthsFinder in the past, you can simply apply your previous StrengthsFinder results to get immediate access to your customized leadership guide. Overall, a good read and assessment for anyone interested in leadership and strengths. ...more info
• Now I can embrace my inner leader:)
  A great read! The information is accessible to a wide-range of audiences, including the strengths-savvy and the newbies to the strengths world. The examples/stories of the different types of leaders were compelling and it was interesting to see the example that lined up with "my type". Kind of cool to see how each leadership style helped to facilitate the "followers" on the team in different ways. It definitely illustrates the point that there are multiple pathways to successful leadership....more info
• A worthwhile tool
  This is less of a book and more of a tool to use in conjunction with the "strengthFinder". Although this is not what I expected it introduced me to the tool and I found that to be really helpful. The content in this book is ok, but the personal reports you get from taking the strengthfinder are great.
  
  In any case I do think this book helps better understand your reports and gives you great live examples of the strengths successful people honed. ...more info
• `Strengths' is the new currency
  `Strengths' is the new currency. The Gallup group began isolating and understanding people from the talent perspective over a decade ago. Names like Marcus Buckingham, Donald O. Clifton and Tom Rath have brought to light a powerful medium for understanding what excites us and these insights make better work places and happier lives. For business it is about productivity and employee engagement; for employees it is about feeling good about your choice in where and what you do almost every day. Both are big! Strengths Based Leadership by Tom Rath and Barry Conchie takes strengths application to the next level: Leadership and for me, inherently part of this is great management. This work further develops the strengths of teams into four leadership domains. They are: Executing, Influencing, Relationship Building and Strategic Thinking. I found this distilling of a team's strengths into these domains a way to conceptually simplify very important areas of focus and understand where each member might excel in their performance. This seemed especially relevant to the achievement of an organization's strategic plan. Knowing which key individuals bring the most energy to the different aspects of moving an organization forward is not only critical to success, but even more so to keeping a competitive edge.
  The second theme in this work is identifying the "Followers Four Basic Needs": Trust, Compassion, Stability and Hope. This is also a compelling framework for supporting a work environment that helps people act at their best.
  This book will be very helpful if you are interested in strength based applications and not deficit or weakness improvement approaches. I suggest some foundation in strengths based work before utilizing this book, like Strengths Finder 2.0 and Now Discover Your Strengths, to get greater depth on its offering.
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• Talent and Leadership
  This book brought together the most critical factors of running a business, appplying talents to lead an organization. Great science supporting what is considered a soft subject....more info
• Great Addition to StrengthsFinder 2.0
  After introducing my team to StrengthFinder2.0 we were able to identify our strengths and focused a lot of attention on building on these strengths. Unfortunately the piece that was missing, is how to translate these strengths into actual leadership. This really helps newer leaders utilize their strengths to lead their teams. I think this book stands on its own, but if you are introducing this to your leadership team, it works even better as a supplement to Strengthfiners2.0. ...more info