Leadership Conversations: Challenging High Potential Managers to Become Great Leaders

Often the very same skills and traits that enable rising stars to achieve success "tenacity, aggressiveness, self-confidence" become liabilities when promoted into a leadership track. While managers' conversations are generally transactional and centered on the task at hand, leaders must focus on people, asking great questions and aligning them with the vision for the future. Leadership mindsets and skills can be developed, and Leadership Conversations provides practical guidance for connecting with others in ways that transform each interaction into an opportunity for organizational and personal growth.

• Identifies four types of conversation every leader must master: building relationships, making decisions, taking action, and developing others
• Provides an action plan for boosting your personal leadership potential, as well for developing leadership skills in others
• Draws on the authors' rich experience coaching and working with leaders at a wide range of organizations, including NASA, the U.S. Navy, intelligence agencies, Boeing, Gillette, Bausch & Lomb, and Georgetown University

Leadership Conversations is required reading for both high-potential managers looking to make it to the next level and leaders looking to develop their people.

Alan S. Berson is an executive coach, leadership consultant, speaker, and professor. He has held leadership, strategic planning, and marketing roles at Fortune-500 firms including Gillette, Bausch & Lomb, and Marriott. He is a Learning Director at Wharton Executive Education and was an Adjunct Professor at Georgetown’s McDonough School of Business. He lives in Potomac, Maryland.

Richard G. Stieglitz is a business consultant and speaker. He started, built, and sold a company that helped government and industry executives lead change. Previously, he was a submarine officer in the US Navy and an executive in the aerospace and computer industries. He is the author of three books and publishes a monthly leadership e-letter. He lives in Potomac, Maryland.