Your Leadership Story
Book

Your Leadership Story

Use Your Story to Energize, Inspire, and Motivate

Timothy J. Tobin
Berrett-Koehler, 2015

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Editorial Rating

8

Qualities

  • Applicable

Recommendation

Negative stories about corporate leaders can damage their reputations and undermine their leadership impact. Leaders can’t lead without their colleagues’ regard. Monitor what people think of you, and be ready to replace whispered negative hearsay with positive facts. Prepare to tell a good “leadership story” about yourself in words and deeds. Marriott vice president and leadership development expert Timothy J. Tobin teaches you how to develop and convey your story. His worksheets, self-questions and resource appendix are very useful. Although some of his ideas may seem hard to implement – like asking your colleagues to assess your leadership and finding ways through your actions to tell a great story about yourself without blowing any faint reputation for a respectable level of humility – his message is solid: Leadership isn’t something you just do; it is something you must reflect on carefully. getAbstract recommends his advice to emerging and experienced leaders and to those who want to know more about how to shape their reputation.

Summary

Having a Positive “Leadership Story” Is Critical

All leaders have leadership stories whether they know it or not. Your leadership story is “the collection of events, perspectives and behaviors that represent who you are as a leader. It evolves from your unique experiences.” And it makes a difference in your career. Take Bill, a competent corporate leader who believed in delegating. He trusted the members of his team and was confident they could handle their assignments. As part of his job, Bill “reviewed and tracked his company’s financial statements, as he thought he should.” Yet, due to his delegating style, he relied on the fiscal experts in his company to manage the details of everyday financial operations.

One day, during a meeting that Bill didn’t attend, another executive asked one of those experts if Bill knew about the firm’s current financial reports. The expert’s answer indicated that Bill didn’t get involved in the details. Quite to Bill’s detriment, this negative description about his supposed lack of interest in financial details quickly became an unattractive aspect of his leadership story.

After he became aware of this blot on his reputation, ...

About the Author

Timothy J. Tobin is VP of global learning and leadership development at Marriott International.

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