Act Like a Leader Think Like a Leader – You aspire to lead with greater impact. The problem is you’re busy executing on today’s demands. You know you have to carve out time from your day job to build your leadership skills, but it’s easy to let immediate problems and old mind-sets get in the way.
Herminia Ibarra—an expert on professional leadership and development and a renowned professor at INSEAD, a leading international business school—shows how managers and executives at all levels can step up to leadership by making small but crucial changes in their jobs, their networks, and themselves. In Act Like a Leader, Think Like a Leader, she offers advice to help you:
- Redefine your job in order to make more strategic contributions
- Diversify your network so that you connect to and learn from a bigger range of stakeholders
- Become more playful with your self-concept, allowing your familiar—and possibly outdated—leadership style to evolve
Ibarra turns the usual “think first and then act” philosophy on its head by arguing that doing these three things will help you learn through action and will increase what she calls your outsight—the valuable external perspective you gain from direct experiences and experimentation. As opposed to insight, outsight will then help change the way you think as a leader: about what kind of work is important; how you should invest your time; why and which relationships matter in informing and supporting your leadership; and, ultimately, who you want to become.
Packed with self-assessments and practical advice to help define your most pressing leadership challenges, this book will help you devise a plan of action to become a better leader and move your career to the next level. It’s time to learn by doing.
Book Review by yodalaylee
I don’t often write reviews, but after finishing Chapter 2 of this book, I realized I just had 2 epiphanies, 2 chapters deep. Unheard of for me. So far, this book has made me realize that I need to look around me and think objectively about myself to start acting and thinking like a leader. Not only a leader, but a person in society.
A leader in society. I have sticky notes littering the pages and am constantly thinking about ways I can use what Ibarra is saying in the text to act on improving my relationships (professional and personal) and work to be the best leader I can be – without boxing myself into a stereotype. I recommend this book to anyone who is wanting to improve themselves, both professionally and personally. So glad I bought this book.
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About the Author
Herminia Ibarra is an expert on professional and leadership development. She is the Cora Chaired Professor of Leadership and Learning at INSEAD, the founding director of The Leadership Transition executive education program at INSEAD, and the author of Working Identity: Unconventional Strategies for Reinventing Your Career (Harvard Business Review Press, 2003).
Originally published: 2015