The Vima Team has selected the following books to share with our friends, clients and guests. They have added value to our understanding of how executives, managers, and informal leaders can lead their organizations more effectively.

Click on any of the titles listed below to learn more about the selection and author, and if you like, to purchase the book through Amazon.com.

Suggested Reading List

Light Bulbs for Leaders- Barbara Pate Glacel and Emile Robert, Jr.

This book is part novel, part workbook. Brimming with insights, ideas, tools and step-by-step guidelines, this guide book helps teams master the skills needed to overcome impasses in the team learning process and then achieve ever higher levels of team performance and productivity. This business best-seller is described as an enlightening and entertaining read and a valuable blueprint for transforming any organization into a learning organization: a must-have management and training resource.

The Deep Blue Sea - Wilfred Drath

The title of the book is a useful analogy. What we see of leadership is the waves and whitecaps of the ocean. What matters is the whole ocean. Drath argues that all leadership is shared leadership. He demonstrates how this is true and explains the principles of Personal Dominance and Interpersonal Influence. While honoring the usefulness of these principles, he also demonstrates their respective limitations. The last principle, Relational Dialogue," is advanced as an emerging third principle. It is a powerful work for everyone who thinks seriously about the task of leadership development. I experienced it as a necessary companion work to any of the other books on this list.

Leadership & Spirit - Russ S. Moxley

Russ Moxley has done a great service for all who practice, think about, and teach leadership. He has produced a masterful work, which pulls together thoughts from a wide variety of authors on this subject. He has woven this through personal experience and presented a useable model of leadership that promises to allow each of us to bring all of our capabilities to the work place. If you care about organizational performance, you need to read this book and put the model to work for you.

The Courage To Teach - Parker J. Palmer

This book is for the serious student of leadership. As the title suggests it's about teaching. However, the atmosphere established in the classroom is easily adapted to any leadership situation. The importance for leadership is the 6 paradoxical tensions which must be held together to generate the energy of life. Inviting the group you are trying to influence to hold these tensions is a challenge worth facing.

Encouraging the Heart: A Leader's Guide to Rewarding and Recognizing Others (The Jossey-Bass Business & Management Series) - James M. Kouzes, Kouzes Posner, Barry Z. Posner

Jim Kouzes and Barry Posner have taken one of the five leadership characteristics which they explained in their earlier work, The Leadership Challenge, and presented a set of principles, practices and examples which show how to energize people to excel and reach for greater heights. What's the magic, you ask? Jim and Barry explain that results come from truly caring for people. By exercising this most elusive aspect of leadership, leaders motivate higher performance from their people. Leaders must show that they genuinely care about others and appreciate their dedication.