Small Leadership

Some call them creative geniuses. Others label them workaholics. Either way, if you’re going to keep up with them, you’d better be moving quickly. These driven individuals are the movers and shakers building the world around us. Somehow, they’re able to capitalize on opportunities before others even notice them. Fueled by endless passion and ideas, they have unlimited energy to get things done. While we might not understand them, we can’t help but notice that they have something special inside. That’s The EntreSpirit.

Dirty Little Secrets of Family Business comes clean with much-needed info on nitty-gritty issues such as entitlement; letting employees go when they just aren’t working out; compensation; including your kids in the business; shareholder agreements; selecting the next leader; deciding whether to keep the business or sell it; exit strategies for outgoing leaders; money matters; succession planning; communication; conflict resolution; establishing an effective board; and transitioning to the next generation.

When Mark Rampolla filled a notebook with potential start-up ideas, his wife asked him some tough questions. What about this idea is exciting, beyond the possibility of a profit? How will it fit into a life that makes you and your family happy? How will it change the world? Eventually Mark found his great idea: coconut water. He had seen the developing world use coconut water, but this valuable resource was being discarded in the US. While taking on the beverage industry was a big goal - high-hanging fruit - it was worth the risk.

All too often, simple acts of human kindness are often overlooked and under utilized by people in leadership roles. Advising mutual respect and recognition of accomplishments, Encouraging the Heart shows us how true leaders encourage and motivate those they work with by helping them find their voice and making them feel like heroes.

In this revolutionary guide, Stanford University professor and international best-selling author of inGenius adapts her popular course material to teach everyone how to make imaginative ideas into realities.

After founding or co-founding over 15 start-ups and investing in another 50 early stage ventures as an angel investor, author Howard Love came to understand that a start-up unfolds in a predictable pattern. The more aware entrepreneurs are of this pattern, the better able they will be to capitalize on it.

As you face daily choices that require yes or no decisions, there are times when you feel paralyzed - either from fear of making the wrong choice or because of too many seemingly equal options. Social entrepeneur Jeff Shinabarger helps you break through these moments of tension and transition with proven ways to move toward good choices.

In Selling Naked, Hubble Contacts cofounder and co-CEO Jesse Horwitz shows entrepreneurs and enterprise companies alike precisely how to conceive, launch, and grow an e-commerce brand by using paid marketing social media channels. Horwitz shows entrepreneurs how to test consumer interest before spending a dime by placing mock ads on Facebook and other social media. Using this method, Hubble Contacts got an astonishing 2,000 signups in four days, and as a result, raised $3.5 million in seed money.

This audiobook focuses on the business story of Walt Disney and the company he built. Combining a unique blend of entrepreneurship, creativity, innovation, and a relentless drive to bring out the best in his teams, Walt Disney created one of the most successful ventures in business history. Outlining the specific processes of the company, Goldsby and Mathews provide the listener with the tools they need to embrace their own entrepreneurial leadership style, to lead effectively, to be more innovative, and to build a successful organization.

Our work-driven culture encourages us to take the entrepreneurial bait, but how can you know whether being an entrepreneur will end as a dream come true or a nightmare from which you cannot awake? Building on Bedrock will help answer that question. This book focuses on when you should take the leap and whether entrepreneurship is even the right thing for you. Based upon research, but told through the stories of American businessman and entrepreneur Sam Walton and others, this book discusses the who, what, when, where, how, how much, and why of successful entrepreneurs.

Whether you're rolling out a new product from a city-view office or rolling up your sleeves to deliver a social service in the field, learning why and how to embrace failure can help you do better faster. Smart leaders, entrepreneurs, and change agents design their innovation projects with a key idea in mind: ensure that every failure is maximally useful. In Fail Better, Anjali Sastry and Kara Penn show how to create the conditions, culture, and habits to systematically, ruthlessly, and quickly figure out what works in three steps.

This audiobook aims to demystify leadership and outlines a specific regimen that will empower you to build your leadership skills. Kaplan tells real-life stories from his own experience of working with various types of leaders seeking to improve their effectiveness and make their organizations more successful. He asks probing questions, provides exercises, and suggests concrete follow-up steps that will help you develop your skills, create new habits, and move you toward reaching your unique leadership potential.

Many factors shape the success or failure of a new business, whether it's a stand-alone start-up or a venture inside a larger corporation. But the most important and least understood of these factors is the personality of the entrepreneur - the particular combination of beliefs and preferences that drives his or her motivation, decision making, and leadership style. And your builder personality is the one resource you can directly control in growing a business that wins. Simply put, who you are shapes how you build for growth.

Traditional workplace conversations - which are based on a parent-child model - stymie growth and erode commitment. The Showkeirs advocate instead authentic conversations that are based on an adult-adult model. These conversations tell the truth, let go of the illusion of control, and view people as in charge of their own motivation. The result is a conversation revolution that creates greater commitment, real accountability for results, and improved organizational performance.

Coach your small group leaders. Lead Small: Five Big Ideas Every Small Group Leader Needs to Know (narrated by Reggie Joiner) is full of both personal insight and practical advice. It clarifies the responsibilities of small group leaders of children and teenagers and delivers five proven strategies for leaders. Most small group leaders want to do something significant and are itching to make a difference. This is the audiobook for them. Because when we lead small, we make a big impact on the faith of the next generation.

The traditional attitude toward creativity in the American business world is to "think outside the box": to brainstorm without restraint in hopes of coming up with a breakthrough idea, often in moments of crisis. Sometimes it works, but it’s a problem-specific solution that does nothing to engender creative thinking more generally. Inside the Box demonstrates Systematic Inventive Thinking (SIT), a method that systemizes creativity as part of the corporate culture. SIT requires thinking "inside the box", working in one’s familiar world to create new ideas independent of specific problems.

Family business enterprises, found in virtually every country, are the backbone of most economies. However, the leadership challenges they present are complex and unique. Most executives and family members in these firms eventually discover that their education and years of hard work have not prepared them to address many of the interpersonal demands that come with the territory. After years of study and reflection, David Bentall came to realize how ill equipped he had been to be a part of the solution for his own family business.

Adam Braun began working summers at hedge funds when he was just 16 years old, sprinting down the path to a successful Wall Street career. But while traveling as a college student, he met a young boy begging on the streets of India. When Braun asked the boy what he wanted most in the world, he simply answered, "A pencil." This small request became the inspiration for Pencils of Promise, the organization Braun would leave a prestigious job at Bain & Company to start with just $25 at the age of 24.

Each of us would like to create the company of our dreams, and thus, over time, achieve professional success and financial freedom. The problem is identifying what you don't know. This unknown, this uncertainty, is what keeps so many from venturing out to create their own successful enterprises. That fear of failure, limited business knowledge or any myriad of excuses to keep you from reaching for your dreams. Now compound this for women.

Discover how to create exceptional customer service and a superior customer experience, learning from the greatest companies of our time.