Download or read book Questions of Character written by Joseph Badaracco and published by Harvard Business Press. This book was released on 2006 with total page 221 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Through rich analysis of the main characters in "The Death of a Salesman, The Secret Sharer, The Last Tycoon," and other stories, Badaracco addresses complex issues leaders face, such as the soundness of their vision, their readiness to take on responsibility, the depth of their compassion, and their ability to manage success.
Download or read book Questions of Character written by Iskra Fileva and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2016-10-11 with total page 489 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This collection features 26 new essays on character from first-rate scholars in philosophy, psychology, economics, and law. The essays are elegantly written and combine forceful argumentation with original ideas on a wide range of questions, such as:"Is Aristotle's theory of character a moral theory?," "Are character traits in tension with personal autonomy", "How do traits differ from mental disorders?," "What is the role of gossip in character attribution?," and "Can businessmen be virtuous?" The chapters are organized thematically into 5 sections, each prefaced by its own special introduction. In the introductions, the editor brings out often unexpected connections among different lines of argument pursued by the authors and raises important questions for further discussion. The collection as a whole offers students of character a unique opportunity to engage with some of the best contemporary work on the topic.
Download or read book The Heart of Leadership written by Mark Miller and published by Berrett-Koehler Publishers. This book was released on 2013-10-07 with total page 137 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Are you the type of leader people want to follow? You can be—but first, you've got to understand what sets great leaders apart from all the rest. Certainly, leaders need people skills, execution skills, a deep knowledge of industry trends, the ability to articulate a vision, and more—they must be competent—but that's just the tip of the iceberg. What's below the waterline? What's deep inside the best leaders that makes them different? Mark Miller contends it is their leadership character. In his latest enlightening and entertaining business fable, he describes the five unique character traits exhibited by exceptional leaders and how to cultivate them. The Heart of Leadership begins with young and ambitious Blake Brown being passed over for a desperately wanted promotion, despite an outstanding individual performance. Confused and frustrated, he turns to his former mentor, Debbie Brewster. Rather than attempting to solve Blake's problem for him, she sends him on a quest to meet with five of his late father's colleagues, each of whom holds a piece of the puzzle he's trying to solve. As Blake puts the pieces together, he discovers that in the final analysis, a lack of skills isn't what holds most leaders back; skills are too easy to learn. Without demonstrated leadership character, however, a skill set will never be enough. Most often, when leaders fail to reach their full potential, it is an issue of the heart. This is Blake's ultimate revelation. This book shows us that leadership needn't be the purview of the few—it is within reach for millions around the world. The Heart of Leadership is a road map for every person who desires to make a difference in the lives of others and become a leader people want to follow.
Download or read book The Character Gap written by Christian B. Miller and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2018 with total page 297 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: We like to think of ourselves and our friends and families as pretty good people. The more we put our characters to the test, however, the more we see that we are decidedly a mixed bag. Fortunately there are some promising strategies - both secular and religious - for developing better characters.
Download or read book Minding the Store written by Robert Coles and published by . This book was released on 2008 with total page 330 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In a course he taught at Harvard Business School, esteemed psychiatrist Robert Coles asked future money market managers and risk arbitrageurs to pause for a semester and reflect on the ethical dimensions of their chosen profession. Now, for corporate professionals, armchair entrepreneurs and other students of commerce, Coles has gathered a generous and stimulating collection of classic literary reflections on the ethical and spiritual predicaments of the business world.
Download or read book Writing Irresistible Kidlit written by Mary Kole and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2012-12-04 with total page 305 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Captivate the hearts and minds of young adult readers! Writing for young adult (YA) and middle grade (MG) audiences isn't just "kid's stuff" anymore--it's kidlit! The YA and MG book markets are healthier and more robust than ever, and that means the competition is fiercer, too. In Writing Irresistible Kidlit, literary agent Mary Kole shares her expertise on writing novels for young adult and middle grade readers and teaches you how to: • Recognize the differences between middle grade and young adult audiences and how it impacts your writing. • Tailor your manuscript's tone, length, and content to your readership. • Avoid common mistakes and cliches that are prevalent in YA and MG fiction, in respect to characters, story ideas, plot structure and more. • Develop themes and ideas in your novel that will strike emotional chords. Mary Kole's candid commentary and insightful observations, as well as a collection of book excerpts and personal insights from bestselling authors and editors who specialize in the children's book market, are invaluable tools for your kidlit career. If you want the skills, techniques, and know-how you need to craft memorable stories for teens and tweens, Writing Irresistible Kidlit can give them to you.
Download or read book Superstar written by Mandy Davis and published by HarperCollins. This book was released on 2017-06-20 with total page 225 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A Bank Street College of Education Best Children's Book of the Year! “Lester’s first-person narrative is honest and pure.” —Kirkus (starred review) Perfect for fans of Fish in a Tree and Wonder, this uplifting debut novel from Mandy Davis follows space-obsessed Lester Musselbaum as he experiences the challenges of his first days of public school: making friends, facing bullies, finding his "thing," and accidentally learning of his autism-spectrum diagnosis. Lester’s first days as a fifth grader at Quarry Elementary School are not even a little bit like he thought they would be—the cafeteria is too loud for Lester's ears, there are too many kids, and then there's the bully. Lester was always home-schooled, and now he’s shocked to be stuck in a school where everything just seems wrong. That's until he hears about the science fair, which goes really well for Lester! This is it. The moment where I find out for 100 percent sure that I won. But then things go a bit sideways, and Lester has to find his way back. A touching peek into the life of a sensitive autism-spectrum boy facing the everydayness of elementary school, Superstar testifies that what you can do isn’t nearly as important as who you are. “A lovely, heartfelt narrative about the things we’ve lost, and the things we’ve found again.” —Gary D. Schmidt, Newbery Honor winner for The Wednesday Wars “I LOVE LESTER.” —Linda Urban, author of Milo Speck, Accidental Agent and A Crooked Kind of Perfect
Download or read book Return on Character written by Fred Kiel and published by Harvard Business Review Press. This book was released on 2015-03-17 with total page 297 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Does the character of our leaders matter? You may think this question was answered long ago. Countless business authors and analysts have assured us that great leadership demands great character. Time and again, we’ve seen that truth play out, as once-thriving organizations falter and fail under the guidance of leaders behaving badly. Why, then, do so many executives remain skeptical about the true value of leadership character? A winning strategy and a sound business model are what really matter, they argue; character is just the icing on the cake. What’s been missing from this debate is hard evidence: data that shows not only that leadership character matters for organizational success, but how it matters; and concrete evidence that it leads to better business results. Now, in this groundbreaking book, respected leadership researcher, adviser, and author Fred Kiel offers that evidence—solid data that demonstrates the connection between character, leadership excellence, and organizational results. After seven years of rigorous research based on a landmark study of more than 100 CEOs and over 8,000 of their employees’ observations, Kiel’s findings show that leaders of strong character achieved up to five times the ROA for their organizations as did leaders of weak character. Return on Character goes on to reveal: • How leadership character is formed, how it creates value, and how that value spreads throughout the organization • How low-character leaders undermine the success of even the best business plans • How leaders at any level can develop the habits of strong character and “unlearn” the habits of poor character The book also provides a character-building methodology—step-by-step advice and techniques for assessing your own character habits and improving your performance and that of your organization. Return on Character provides the blueprint for building your own leadership character and creating a character-driven organization that achieves superior business results.
Download or read book The 100 Best Business Books of All Time written by Jack Covert and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2016-08-02 with total page 370 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Thousands of business books are published every year— Here are the best of the best After years of reading, evaluating, and selling business books, Jack Covert and Todd Sattersten are among the most respected experts on the category. Now they have chosen and reviewed the one hundred best business titles of all time—the ones that deliver the biggest payoff for today’s busy readers. The 100 Best Business Books of All Time puts each book in context so that readers can quickly find solutions to the problems they face, such as how best to spend The First 90 Days in a new job or how to take their company from Good to Great. Many of the choices are surprising—you’ll find reviews of Moneyball and Orbiting the Giant Hairball, but not Jack Welch’s memoir. At the end of each review, Jack and Todd direct readers to other books both inside and outside The 100 Best. And sprinkled throughout are sidebars taking the reader beyond business books, suggesting movies, novels, and even children’s books that offer equally relevant insights. This guide will appeal to anyone, from entry-level to CEO, who wants to cut through the clutter and discover the brilliant books that are truly worth their investment of time and money.
Download or read book The Memory of Light written by Francisco X. Stork and published by Scholastic Inc.. This book was released on 2016-01-26 with total page 298 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This beautiful novel from the author of Marcelo in the Real World about life after a suicide attempt is perfect for fans of It's Kind of a Funny Story and Thirteen Reasons Why. When Vicky Cruz wakes up in the Lakeview Hospital Mental Disorders ward, she knows one thing: After her suicide attempt, she shouldn't be alive. But then she meets Mona, the live wire; Gabriel, the saint; E.M., always angry; and Dr. Desai, a quiet force. With stories and honesty, kindness and hard work, they push her to reconsider her life before Lakeview, and offer her an acceptance she's never had.But Vicky's newfound peace is as fragile as the roses that grow around the hospital. And when a crisis forces the group to split up, sending Vicky back to the life that drove her to suicide, she must try to find her own courage and strength. She may not have them. She doesn't know.Inspired in part by the author's own experience with depression, The Memory of Light is the rare young adult novel that focuses not on the events leading up to a suicide attempt, but the recovery from one -- about living when life doesn't seem worth it, and how we go on anyway.
Download or read book Character written by Amanda Anderson and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2019-10-23 with total page 177 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Over the last few decades, character-based criticism has been seen as either naive or obsolete. But now questions of character are attracting renewed interest. Making the case for a broad-based revision of our understanding of character, Character rethinks these questions from the ground up. Is it really necessary to remind literary critics that characters are made up of words? Must we forbid identification with characters? Does character-discussion force critics to embrace humanism and outmoded theories of the subject? Across three chapters, leading scholars Amanda Anderson, Rita Felski, and Toril Moi reimagine and renew literary studies by engaging in a conversation about character. Moi returns to the fundamental theoretical assumptions that convinced literary scholars to stop doing character-criticism, and shows that they cannot hold. Felski turns to the question of identification and draws out its diverse strands, as well as its persistence in academic criticism. Anderson shows that character-criticism illuminates both the moral life of characters, and our understanding of literary form. In offering new perspectives on the question of fictional character, this thought-provoking book makes an important intervention in literary studies.
Download or read book Advice to Writers written by Jon Winokur and published by Vintage. This book was released on 2000-05-09 with total page 241 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In Advice to Writers, Jon Winokur, author of the bestselling The Portable Curmudgeon, gathers the counsel of more than four hundred celebrated authors in a treasury on the world of writing. Here are literary lions on everything from the passive voice to promotion and publicity: James Baldwin on the practiced illusion of effortless prose, Isaac Asimov on the despotic tendencies of editors, John Cheever on the perils of drink, Ivan Turgenev on matrimony and the Muse. Here, too, are the secrets behind the sleight-of-hand practiced by artists from Aristotle to Rita Mae Brown. Sagacious, inspiring, and entertaining, Advice to Writers is an essential volume for the writer in every reader.
Download or read book Developing Leadership Character written by Mary Crossan and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2015-12-22 with total page 209 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book focuses on the element of leadership that has largely been neglected in the literature: character. Often thought to be a subjective construct, the book demonstrates the concrete behaviors associated with different character dimensions in order to illustrate how these behaviors can be developed, and character strengthened. Based on research involving over 300 senior leaders from different industries, sectors and countries, Crossan, Seijts, and Gandz developed a model for leadership character that focuses on eleven dimensions. The book begins by setting the context for the focus on character in business, asking what character is and whether it can be learned, developed, molded or changed. Next, the book focuses on each dimension of leadership character in turn, exploring its elements and the ways in which it can be applied in a business setting. The book concludes with a summary of the key insights, an exploration of the interactions between the character dimensions, and a call to the reader to reflect on how to develop one’s own and others’ leadership character. Bridging theory and management practice, Developing Leadership Character will interest students and practitioners alike. Readers will benefit not only from a new, robust theoretical framework for leadership character, but will also learn how character can be developed further.
Download or read book Leading Quietly written by Joseph Badaracco and published by Harvard Business Press. This book was released on 2002 with total page 213 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Badaracco (business ethics, Harvard) observes that the most effective leaders are rarely public heroes or high-profile champions of causes. His study of "quiet leadership," carried out over four years, presents a series of stories describing quiet leaders at work and drawing practical lessons for executives and aspiring corporate leaders. The cases include a hospital CEO dealing with a case of sexual harassment; a bank president under pressure to remove underperforming but longtime employees; and a high-tech marketing rep who learned that his company was dumping obsolete equipment on its small customers. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR
Download or read book What Would Your Character Do written by Ph.D., Eric Maisel and published by Writer's Digest Books. This book was released on 2006-06-01 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Get Inside Your Character's Head &break;&break;Just how well do you know your characters? &break;&break;Test yourself–and your characters–with 30 interactive pop quizzes designed to help you discover exactly what makes your characters tick. &break;&break;Noted author Eric Maisel draws on his technical knowledge of the craft and his background in psychology to show you how to combine character traits, character psychology, and character development to create realistic, memorable, and mutable characters. &break;&break;The 30 real-life scenarios include questions and answers that provide you with a window into your characters' souls. For example: &break;&break; What would motivate your character to tell a lie–a big lie that may have unintended consequences? &break; Is your character the type who would blow the whistle on a corporate cover-up or would she quietly toe the line?&break; How would your character cope with the loss of a parent with whom he was exceptionally close?&break; How likely would your character be to flirt with an attractive stranger in a hotel bar? &break; Is your character the type who would drop everything–and everyone–for a spontaneous road trip? &break;&break;Plus, find out how to develop each scenario further using corresponding prompts and specific psychological insight into areas such as the role friendship plays in a person's mental and physical health, conflict resolution in intimate relationships, and the connection between time-impatience and free-floating hostility. &break;&break;With What Would Your Character Do?, you don't have to guess at your character's responses to the important decisions and unexpected challenges he's sure to encounter in your story. Use and reuse these scenarios on each of your characters until you've got a nuanced, distinct cast that readers will never be able to forget!
Download or read book Blessed Assurance written by Allan Gurganus and published by . This book was released on 1990 with total page 104 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Narrator reflects on his experiences collecting funeral insurance premiums from poor blacks in North Carolina.
Download or read book The Call of Character written by Mari Ruti and published by Columbia University Press. This book was released on 2013-11-12 with total page 218 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Should we feel inadequate for failing to be healthy, balanced, and well-adjusted? Is such an existential equilibrium realistic or even desirable? Condemning our cultural obsession with cheerfulness and “positive thinking,” Mari Ruti calls for a resurrection of character that honors our more eccentric frequencies, arguing that sometimes the most tormented and anxiety-ridden life can also be the most rewarding. Ruti critiques our current search for personal meaning and the pragmatic attempt to normalize human beings’ unruly and idiosyncratic natures. Exposing the tragic banality of a happy life commonly lived, she instead emphasizes the advantages of a lopsided life rich in passion and fortitude. Ruti shows what counts is not our ability to evade existential uncertainty but to meet adversity in such a way that we do not become irrevocably broken. We are in danger of losing the capacity to cope with complexity, ambiguity, melancholia, disorientation, and disappointment, leaving us feeling less “real,” less connected, and unable to metabolize a full range of emotions. Heeding the call of our character may mean acknowledging the marginalized, chaotic aspects of our being, for they carry a great deal of creative energy. Ruti shows it is precisely this energy that makes us inimitable and irreplaceable.
