Discovering Leadership: Designing Your Success

Prepare your students to lead the future.

Discovering Leadership: Designing Your Success provides a practical, engaging foundation and easy-to-understand framework for individuals to purposefully design leadership. This action-oriented text starts with the self and helps students understand their individual strengths, styles, and skills through numerous reflection opportunities. Next, the text explores the relational aspects of leadership and best practices for motivating and inspiring followers. Finally, the text concludes by examining how leaders can transform their communities and create lasting, positive change. Practical applications and activities in each chapter help students develop their confidence, optimism, resiliency, and engagement. Regardless of your students’ background or major, they will gain the knowledge and skills they need to become thoughtful, impactful leaders.

Table of Contents:
Chapter 1: A Framework for Leadership Success: Design and Your CORE™ Designing Your Leadership Designing Your Leadership by Building Your Core™ DEI by Design Designing Your Leadership—First Step: Your Goals Module 1: Design Leadership Self Chapter 2: Designing Your Perceptions of Leaders and Leadership You: Student and Designer of Your Own Leadership Your Brain Is a Lean, Mean, Pattern-Making Machine: You Construct Your World Misconceptions About Leaders and Leadership Effective Leaders Are Like ________________: Characteristics and Traits Effective Leaders Can Do ____________________: Skills, Practices, and Expertise The Credible Leader Chapter 3: Designing Your Leadership Capacity Assess to Better Know Yourself: Does It Matter That You Are a Gold-Red Kangaroo Triangle Guardian? Designing Your Capacity: Three Foundational Mindsets Design Thinking for Your Leadership Toolbox New Challenges . . . Need New Leadership . . . Need You New Leadership Skills in Demand Chapter 4 Your Why and What for Leading Why Do You Want to Lead? DEI by Design—Recognizing Who You Are Your Purpose: Charisms and Flow Learning From Shadows The Process of Influencing Others . . . for What? What Purpose Deserves You? Module 2: Design Leadership Relationships Chapter 5: Your Values and Ethical Actions Getting Leadership Right Ethical Issues and the Student Experience Ethics—The Key Concepts The Roots of Moral Development The Ethical Challenges of Leadership DEI by Design Designing Your Ethical Leadership Chapter 6: Decision-Making Decisions, Decisions, Decisions in Leadership Defining Decision-Making Technical or Adaptive? Types of Problems Leaders Face In Leadership, Decision-Making Is a Team Sport (Much of the Time) Designing Your Approach to Decision-Making: The SOLVE Model of Decision-Making How Did We Get Here? This Was Not the Plan: Barriers to Decision-Making Chapter 7: Influence, Power, and Motivation Influence is (mostly) Not About You The Path to the Goal and Your Style Forms of Influence DEI by Design Designing Your Influence with Individuals and Team Gaining Power in Groups and Organizations Motivation The Leadership Challenge: Designing Leadership Relationships Module 3: Design Others’ Success Chapter 8: Creativity, Problem-Solving, and Idea-Generating Yes, You Really Are Creative DEI by Design Moving From Reactive Problems to Proactive Opportunities Yes, Creativity Will Help (a Lot) Yes, You Can Generate Many, Many Ideas Yes, You Can Find Many, Many Ideas No, You Are Not “Done”: Iteration, Convergence, and Assurance Chapter 9: Effective Practices for Leading Others to Success DEI by Design Practices for Your Follower’s Brain Practices for Followers’ Needs and Motivation Practice Leadership and Management: When Multitasking Really Matters IGNITE as a Leader DELIVER as a Manager Design Others’ Success With a Situational Leadership Approach Chapter 10: Utilizing Change Processes Effectively Identify Levels of Change Change Yourself Before You Can Change Others Change Directly Affects Your Capacity to Lead Effectively Transformational Versus Transactional Leadership Barriers to Change Leading Change Module 4: Design Culture and Community Chapter 11 Culture The Way We Do Things Around Here: Understanding Culture Understanding Organizational Culture Culture at the Societal Level The Leader’s Role and Organizational Culture Contemporary Approaches to Organizational Culture DEI by Design Designing Culture Chapter 12 Leading a Team Just What Is a Team? Types of Teams Envisioning a Great Team DEI by Design From Group to Team: Stages of Development Leading and Being a Team Your and Others’ Role on the Team: What Makes a Good Team Member? When Teams Go Wrong Chapter 13 Designing a Culture that Cares A Culture That Cares Leading With Service DEI by Design Make a Difference: Designing a Culture That Cares Making a Difference Now and Later: Opportunities and Actions Module 5: Design the Future Chapter 14 Creating a Culture of Innovation Why Innovate? Designing the Future Understanding Innovation Diverge for Creativity, Converge for Innovation Creating a Culture of Innovation With Design Thinking DEI by Design Creating a Climate of Innovation With the Dimensions of the Brain Chapter 15: Entrepreneurial Leadership Entrepreneurship: Re-envisioning Leadership The Entrepreneurial Mindset DEI by Design Leading the Entrepreneurial Process The Evolving Role of the Entrepreneurial Leader Chapter 16 Systems and Sustainability Systems and Systems Thinking The Learning Organization DEI by Design Design for Sustainability Sustainable You: Mindfulness and Personal Growth Sustainable Leadership—Authentic Leadership

About the Author :
Tony Middlebrooks, Ph.D. creates tools, explores and teaches at the intersection of leadership, innovation, creativity and design as Associate Professor and Director of Graduate Programs for Horn Entrepreneurship at the University of Delaware. Dr. Middlebrooks has created and taught more than 35 different courses for all collegiate levels, as well as numerous experiential abroad programs. He presently teaches leadership theory and practice, decision-making, creativity and innovation, and social entrepreneurship. He received both the University of Delaware Excellence in Teaching and Excellence in Advising Awards, and regularly helps faculty develop their teaching.   Previously Dr. Middlebrooks co-developed the Organizational and Community Leadership program at UD, the doctoral program in leadership as a professor at Cardinal Stritch University, and spent ten years prior in non-profit leadership positions.   Dr. Middlebrooks has published numerous articles and book chapters, and has delivered hundreds of presentations. He is co-author of Public Sector Leadership, co-creator of the Idea Fan Deck and Design Thinking Cards, and has served as Symposium Editor for the Journal of Leadership Studies since 2011.   A firm believer that leadership learning can benefit everyone and can make a difference, Dr. Middlebrooks consults and facilitates workshops for a wide variety of organizations and audiences.  His current scholarly interests focus on methods of leadership education and the integration of leadership, creativity, and design thinking.  Dr. Middlebrooks has a Ph.D. in Educational Psychology from the University of Wisconsin at Madison. He resides in Wilmington, Delaware with his wife and collaborator Dr. Jules Bruck. Dr. Scott J. Allen is the Reid Chair in Management at John Carroll University, where he is an Associate Professor. He teaches courses in leadership, management, executive communication, and the future of work. He has published more than 50 book chapters and peer-reviewed journal articles. He presents at academic conferences and has written four books. His most recent book is Captovation: Online Presentations by Design. Outside his academic endeavors, Scott speaks, consults, coaches leaders, facilitates workshops, and leads retreats across industries. Mindy S. McNutt, Ph.D. is an Associate Professor of Leadership at Wright State University in Dayton, Ohio. She earned her B.A. in Communication, M.S. in Personnel Counseling, and Ed.S. in Educational Leadership from Wright State; and her Ph.D. in Higher Education Administration from Bowling Green State University.  Currently she teaches in all three leadership programs at Wright State, the undergraduate program in Organizational Leadership, the Master of Science in Leadership Development, and the Doctorate in Organizational Studies.   Dr. McNutt has engaged in leadership curriculum development for over 30 years for high school youth, undergraduate curricular and extra-curricular programs, and most recently served with several faculty colleagues to write the proposal for the Doctorate in Organizational Studies. At Wright State and at several area community colleges, she has held a variety of leadership positions including, among others, academic vice president, campus dean, and dean of student services and institutional advancement. Additionally, Dr. McNutt is or has been involved in a number of boards and committees at the local, state, and national levels. Among her varied research interests are leadership education, transformational leadership, women in leadership, leader values, and a current project examining the relationship between values and organizational culture.   She has been involved in several projects of significance: serving as an Associate Editor of the International Leadership Association Building Leadership Bridges book entitled LEADERSHIP 2050: Contextualizing Global Leadership Processes for the Future; and collaborating with a nation-wide team to create and serve as faculty for the international Leadership Education Academy.   Dr. Morrison is currently a professor of Organizational and Community Leadership in the School of Urban Affairs and Public Policy at the University of Delaware in Newark, DE. His research interest focuses on issues surrounding senior leadership accountability. Currently, he is researching the effectiveness of CEOs in preparing for the possibility of a natural disaster. He has published two books and over 80 manuscripts in a variety of professional journals. In addition, Dr. Morrison has presented over 90 papers at regional, national, and international conferences. He is currently serving on 3 refereed editorial boards for academic journals as well as the executive editor of the Journal of Education for Business. He has been the recipient of 7 outstanding teaching awards in the College of Education and the College of Human Resources at the University of Delaware. Within the leadership major at the University of Delaware, his teaching focuses on preparing future leaders to initiate change within organizations by adopting a new set of principles and practices that have emerged in recent years.

Review :
"This book teaches students how to literally build their leadership from within and expand it to the world around them to create and manage change. I like that it begins with individual then grows into relationships, others, community, etc." "Relevant and useful. I thought that Middlebrooks was masterful in conveying an operational definition of leadership. Also, the first chapter provided the reader with a blueprint and foreshadowing of the entire book." "The contents are well planned, and the content/reading level is appropriate for an undergraduate leadership course. This book includes a greater focus on culture, creativity and decision making." "I discovered a leadership text which discusses the nuances of design thinking and leadership within the context of change/improvement." "A significant overview view of modern leadership theory and practice in language that is understandable and a format that is interactive and engaging."