Description: Successful leaders know that leadership is less often about having all the answers--and more often about asking the right questions. The challenge lies in being able to step back, reflect, and ask the key questions that are critical to your performance and your organization's effectiveness. In What to Ask the Person in the Mirror, leadership expert Robert Kaplan presents a process for asking the big questions that will enable you to diagnose problems, change course if necessary, and advance your career. He lays out areas of inquiry, including questions such as: Do I clearly articulate my vision and top priorities to my employees and key constituencies?; Does the way I spend my time enable me to achieve my top priorities?; Do I give subordinates timely and direct feedback they can act on? Do I actively seek feedback myself?; Have I developed a succession roadmap?; Is my organization's design aligned with the achievement of its objectives?; and Is my leadership style still effective, and does it reflect who I truly am? Packed with real-life situations, this accessible and practical guide helps you learn to ask the right questions--and work through the answers in ways that are right for you. By asking these questions, you can tackle the inevitable challenges of leadership as you craft new strategies for staying on top of your game.
Brief description: Robert S. Kaplan, Senior Fellow and Marvin Bower Professor of Leadership Development, Emeritus, at the Harvard Business School, is codeveloper of both activity-based costing (ABC) and the Balanced Scorecard (BSC). Kaplan joined the HBS faculty in 1984 after spending sixteen years on the faculty of the business school at Carnegie-Mellon University, where he served as Dean from 1977 to 1983. He has coauthored several books, including The Execution Premium and Alignment (both with David P. Norton).