Nathan Magnuson's New Book Teaches, Inspires And Builds Your Leadership Confidence

New to your leader role? Or, already a leader, but looking to hone your skills? Then, the new book, Ignite Your Leadership Expertise: Become the Trusted Advisor Others Seek, by Nathan Magnuson, is the book for you.

With 10 leadership topics and easy to read within two hours, this book will both teach you and inspire you. Plus, it will give you the confidence to become a leader and/or improve your leadership capabilities. You will learn actionable techniques you can put into play the next day.

If you don't want to read the book in one sitting, follow Nathan’s suggestion to read one or two leadership topics (one topic per chapter) at a time, and then reflect on and practice the techniques he teaches. Perhaps read one topic per month and spend virtually the entire year learning something new and devoting a whole month to each topic to really solidify your newly learned skills.

The book covers these topics and more:

Trust
Leading by example
Listening
Asking powerful questions
Coaching
Culture

At the end of book, Nathan shares valuable links for recommended reading on leadership, career and life topics. And, sprinkled throughout are motivating leadership quotes.

Nathan Magnuson

A few days ago, Nathan kindly answered these questions about his new book:

Question: Tell me more about how you selected the topics you decided to cover in your book.

Nathan: I didn't think much about leadership until I was a senior in college. On the recommendation of some friends, I took a leadership class in my final semester with Dr. Jeff Myers, to whom this book is dedicated. That class was where I realized I wanted to pursue leadership as a career. By now, I've spent about a decade in corporate leadership development. During this time, I've noticed that many people become very interested in leadership at some point in their career journey. Maybe they read a book, attend a talk or participate in a development program at work. Sometimes they encounter a leadership challenge for the first time they don't know how to handle. One of the things that has surprised me is how many of these folks consider themselves novices at leadership but are strong experts in other areas.

My goal with this book is two-fold. First, it's to decentralize leadership expertise by demonstrating how we can all become leadership experts - starting right where we are. My second goal is to show the difference between knowing and influencing. On its own, leadership expertise won't actually make much of a difference unless people trust you. As Theodore Roosevelt famously stated, "People don't care how much you know until they know how much you care." Each topic in this book aligns with those themes.

Question: How often do you believe someone looks to a person for influence when that person may not even know they are fulfilling that leadership role?

Nathan: I think it happens much more frequently than most people think. Younger kids look up to older kids to a tremendous degree. Young professionals pay attention to their colleagues who know what they're doing. Even mature leaders have their own professional and industry heroes. On a basic level, we all have friends and acquaintances we share our personal and vocational challenges with. That's essentially an invitation to allow the other person to influence us.

One of the last sections in the book is called "The Applause of a Single Human Being." It doesn't always feel like it, but if we only knew the extent of our own influence, we'd take ourselves a lot more seriously!

Question: How best do you balance being “generous with your applause” with not wanting to share too much praise that it becomes ineffective?

Nathan: That's a great question - I'm actually asked this more than you'd think. John Maxwell said that encouragement is the oxygen of the soul. You simply can't give too much of it! I've often said that if you have to ask yourself if you're giving your team enough praise, you aren't. Studies show that praise has a direct correlation with employee engagement. Sustain the praise, sustain the engagement. The best part is that it's free to give! The only time praise becomes cheap is if the it isn't genuine or if you praise work (or effort) that isn't good.

Question: What critical leadership lesson did you learn from observation during your military service?

Nathan: In the book, I share that one essential (and free) ingredient to growing a leadership expertise is to learn by observation. The military gave me more lessons by observation than I can count! Almost everyone was given some form of leadership responsibility, which meant I was constantly surrounded by living, breathing case studies. Some were exceptional, some left a bit to be desired. Almost all were a work in progress.

Like I mention in the book, any leadership mistake you can learn from someone else, you can avoid making yourself. Probably the biggest lesson I learned in the military that has been reinforced in the corporate world is that if you can only lead when you have authority, your influence will be low and your impact will be minimal.

Nathan Magnuson is a corporate leadership consultant, author and communicator. His writing “career” began as a kid with a monthly family publication of Nate’s News and continued with various blog, article and book projects along the way. His articles are posted on NathanMagnuson.com and in various leadership publications. Ignite Your Leadership Expertise is his first book publication.

Nathan has worked in a staff or consulting role with several Fortune 500 companies and large public service organizations, including Accenture, MASCO, FBI, and Defense Intelligence Agency. Nathan is also a military veteran, having served a tour with the Army Special Operations in Operation Iraqi Freedom.

Thank you to Nathan for sending me an advance copy of his book.

Comments

A Guide For How To Dream Big And Win In Business

In Dream Big and Win , author Liz Elting shares the lessons she learned ― both the successes and failures ― while building a billion-dollar company from scratch. She explains why you need not only passion and purpose to win big, but also: a willingness to take decisive action grit sweat equity determination positive attitude Elting’s fascinating story began with her entirely self-funded business launch that started in a dorm room. By possessing a disciplined set of principles and focusing on carefully developing her leadership skills throughout the process, she was able to achieve her goal of becoming #1 in the translation market that was already dominated by established competitors. Today, Elting is the Founder and CEO of The Elizabeth Elting Foundation, which creates scholarship opportunities for entrepreneurial young women, funds exciting women-led startups and social businesses, and supports women-led organizations that foster women’s success through educational prog...

How To Be An Impact Player In The Workplace

Within the workplace there are Contributors and Impact Players – each representing a distinct way of working – the first leads to a job well done while the other carves a path to true leadership and generates immense value. More specifically, Liz Wiseman , author of the new book, Impact Players , explains that: While others do their job, Impact Players figure out the real job to be done. While others wait for direction, Impact Players step up and lead. While others escalate problems, Impact Players move things across the finish line. While others attempt to minimize change, Impact Players are learning and adapting to change. While others add to the load, Impact Players make heavy demands feel lighter. “ Impact Players is written for aspiring leaders, striving professionals who want to be more successful at work, increase their influence, and multiply their impact,” explains Wiseman. “It is also a book for today’s leaders, those managers who want t...

Business And Life Lessons My Father Taught Me

On this Father's Day , I thank my dad for teaching me the following business and life lessons : Listen - Growing up, I thought my Dad was perhaps shy or quiet. Really, he was just a great listener. I believe that's what made him so wise. He would listen to anyone. Young or old. New acquaintance or friend. Provide - My Dad provided for me. Music lessons. Vacations. Summer camp. Boy Scouts. He gave. He put others' needs first. Today, I find in volunteering likely the same satisfaction he felt when he provided. Educate - My Dad's passion was education. He loved to learn. He loved even more to teach. He lived to help other people learn. In the workplace, providing learning opportunities is one of the most powerful things you can do for an employee. Mentoring is equally powerful. Train & Prepare - All those years of hearing, "Have you done your homework?" and "practice your trombone," served me well....

The Five Critical Roles You Need To Build A Winning Team

The book, Team Players , by leadership expert and New York Times bestselling author, Mark Murphy , explains why a team needs more than strong leaders—it needs the right mix of five roles and talents to succeed. In addition, Murphy reveals that the secret to extraordinary teams isn’t making everyone the same—it’s embracing and leveraging fundamental differences through those five distinct team roles. No amount of teambuilding, trust, or cohesion can overcome having the wrong mix of people in the room. The five essential roles and talents are : The Director assumes a leadership role within the team, guiding its direction and making important, difficult, and even unpopular decisions. The Achiever immerses themselves in the details of accomplishing tasks and getting things done, with a keen eye for delivering error-free work. The Stabilizer keeps the team on track with meticulous planning, processes and procedures, clear timelines, and organization. ...

Seven Ways To Stay Motivated

To learn how to stay motivated, read High-Profit Prospecting , by Mark Hunter . It's a powerful read that includes counter intuitive advice and cutting-edge best practices for sales prospecting in today's business world. Today, I share one of my favorite sections of the book where Hunter describes his seven things motivated people do to stay motivated : Motivated people ignore voices in their lives . These might be people in the office and friends who have bad attitudes. They're out there, and if you're not careful, they'll control you, too. Motivated people associate with highly motivated people . Just as there are negative people in the world, there are also positive people. Your job is to make sure you spend as much time with the positive people as possible. Motivated people simply look for the positive in things . Positive people count it an honor to live each day, learn from others, and impact positively those they meet. Positive people take great satisfaction...

The Five Critical Roles You Need To Build A Winning Team

The new book, Team Players , by leadership expert and New York Times bestselling author, Mark Murphy , explains why a team needs more than strong leaders—it needs the right mix of five roles and talents to succeed. In addition, Murphy reveals that the secret to extraordinary teams isn’t making everyone the same—it’s embracing and leveraging fundamental differences through those five distinct team roles. No amount of teambuilding, trust, or cohesion can overcome having the wrong mix of people in the room. The five essential roles and talents are: The Director assumes a leadership role within the team, guiding its direction and making important, difficult, and even unpopular decisions. The Achiever immerses themselves in the details of accomplishing tasks and getting things done, with a keen eye for delivering error-free work. The Stabilizer keeps the team on track with meticulous planning, processes and procedures, clear timelines, and organi...

Discover How Ken Blanchard Changed The Way The World Leads

I would be hard pressed to find a leader, someone who studies leadership, or an aspiring leader who during the past 43 years hasn’t read the iconic and business classic The One Minute Manager (1982) or the updated new addition, The New One Minute Manager (2015). For decades, these two books, both co-authored by Ken Blanchard and Spencer Johnson , have helped millions achieve more successful professional and personal lives. Now, in Chapter 9 of the new biography of Ken Blanchard, you’ll discover the story behind the idea and ultimate launch of the original The One Minute Manager . Chapter 9 is in the insightful and intimate biography, Catch People Doing Things Right , authored by Martha C. Lawrence . In it and through extensive access to personal papers, letters, and interviews spanning six decades, she reveals how Blanchard became a leadership guru and bestselling author of more than 70 books. Lawrence shares insights and intimate details about Blanchar...

How To Play Bigger And Be A Category King In Business

"The most exciting companies create. They give us new ways of living, thinking, or doing business, many times solving a problem we didn't know we had -- or a problem we didn't pay attention to because we never thought there was another way," explain the four authors of the dynamic new book, Play Bigger . They add that, "the most exciting companies sell us different. They introduce the world to a new category of product or service." And, they become category kings . Examples of category kings are Amazon, Salesforce, Uber and IKEA. Play Bigger is all about the strategy that builds category kings. And, to be a category king you need to be good at category design : Category design is the discipline of creating and developing a new market category, and conditioning the market so it will demand your solution and crown your company as its king. Category design is the opposite of "build it and they will come." Key traits of category design...

Six Leadership Actions To Leverage Employees' Differences To Strengthen Teams

The new book, All The Difference: Six Leadership Actions To Bridge Perspectives, Strengthen Teams, and Create Value , teaches how leaders can turn their team's individual differences into deeper trust, greater creativity, and winning results. “The greatest risk of unmanaged difference isn’t conflict: it lies in the ideas, insights, and opportunities that may never surface,” explain the book’s authors, Susan MacKenty Brady , Stuart D. Kliman , and Lt. Gen. (Ret.) Leslie C. Smith . They suggest that you look around your team to fully see people with different communication styles, perspectives, cultural norms, and capabilities. These differences are expressed in all kinds of ways, such as casual gestures in a meeting, a colleague's opinion on a current event, or an intense work style. Often, those differences can lead to friction, even conflict. You may try to manage around them. But, for you and your organization to fully leverage the strengths of your team’s diffe...

The Science And Secrets Of High-Performing Teams

Ron Friedman ’s new book, Superteams , is the best book about teams and team building that I have ever read and have reviewed on my blog. It’s all about what the best teams do differently. It’s packed with counterintuitive insights, surprising science, and real-world lessons "from the most comprehensive study of elite groups ever conducted" reports Friedman. Read through it once and then keep it handy to refer to repeatedly. The 50-plus strategies for how a team does its best work are invaluable. Friedman surveyed thousands of teams and pinpointed the precise habits that separate the best from the rest. He reports that “the results upend everything we think we know about teamwork. It turns out that the most successful teams aren't the ones that collaborate most, get along best, or put in the longest hours.” What really sets them apart, according to Friedman, is the way they: Manage their energy and attention. Bring out the best in one another. Keep improving...

Eric Jacobson On Management And Leadership

Search This Blog