The 2nd Language of Leadership

This book focuses on the behavioral and personality areas that can be used to strengthen one's skills and to make wise decisions about when and how to lead. It was written for the working professional who wants to learn what he or she can do by working with their personality to become more satisfied with and masterful in their leadership roles. Good leaders have learned to succeed over time by acquiring the needed range of personal skills, much like one learns a second language. Geared for entry and mid-term leaders, this book is an empirically based training guide to acquire knowledge and implement a plan to help increase one's leadership skills. Within the framework of 10 chapters, this book: * promotes a shared recognition of the role that personality plays in leadership by reviewing a case study of representative leadership situation that both identifies familiar personal struggles and organizational changes; * offers a way of thinking about how personality in general and the Big 5 in particular fills in the gaps and connects the pieces when it comes to how people become effective leaders; * illustrates how--within the Big 5 framework--to use the 2nd language approach to leverage natural personality strengths and manage weaknesses in an effort to build greater leadership effectiveness; * makes available 2nd language tools including effective intervention strategies and goal setting techniques based on enabling philosophies to understand what makes this approach accessible and practical to use; and * reassures that most leadership failures are reversible and that through using the 2nd language approach, these inevitable and sometimes necessary setbacks afford clarity about how to use your style to the best advantage.

Michael P. Quirk is the director of Behavioral Health for the Population Services Division of Group Health Cooperative of Puget Sound.