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The 2012 Leading 4 Life Leadership Fellows addressed the topic of staff engagement: helping to bring out the best in team members, and promoting a spirit of effective cooperation and shared pursuit of common goals. Fellows found the following texts to be especially useful in their work.

Marcus Buckingham and Curt Hoffman, First, Break all the Rules, Simon and Schuster, 1999 This text has formed the basis for ongoing research into how great managers engage employees. It remains an excellent starting point for leaders interested in avoiding common misconceptions about motivating employees. This work formed the basis for what would become the Gallup Q12 engagement process.

Max DePree, Leadership is an Art, Dell, 1989. Short, sweet, and insightful, this collection of essays amounts to a free-form interpretation of the concepts of Servant Leadership first outlined by Robert Greenleaf. DePree best contributes to the conversation with specific examples and a rich articulation of his own exceedingly humanistic view of leading an enterprise. Fellows found the text helpful in considering the dispositions of leaders who empower others.

Gallup, Q12 Meta-Analysis, 2010. Gallup published this research paper to explain the data behind its Q12 survey and research method, which is currently among the state-of-the-art methods for evaluating staff engagement at an enterprise level. Q12 consists of 12 questions that are used to survey staff to assess the presence. of corresponding drivers of staff engagement.

Daniel Pink, Drive. This text provides a compelling look at human motivation (and therefore leadership). Pink faithfully draws upon multiple research studies and perspectives to craft an account of intrinsic motivation, the drive that leads to extraordinary performance and meaningful work lives. He argues persuasively that the ways in which we motivate people to do repetitive tasks do not effectively motivate people with respect to more creative work. He then offers specific guidance for managers seeking to bring out the best in team members under both work scenarios.

Tony Schwartz, Be Excellent at Anything, Free Press, 2010. Originally published under the title, “The Way We are Working isn’t Working,” this book identifies key barriers to full effectiveness, then recommends personal and organizational changes for overcoming them.

Robert Sutton, The No Asshole Rule. Sometimes, the barriers to engagement are team members and their conduct. The author defines “assholes” as people who diminish or demean those with less status or power. He describes specific, bad behaviors and their corrosive effects on an organization and offers recommendations for addressing, mitigating, and preventing occurrences of those behaviors.

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