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Improv Leadership identifies five core competencies every leader can practice to build trust, encourage risk-taking, promote creativity, and create an environment in which people truly love their work. Endicott and Miller offer a toolbox of skills that can help every person motivate teams to greater commitment, more passion, and better performance.
List of contents
Cure for the Common Leader
How to Overcome the Cost of Leadership as Usual
1. All Part of the Job
2. Why the Best Leaders Learn to Improvise
The Five Practices
3. Story Mining: The Beginning of Coaching is Knowing Your Players
4. Precision Praising: Going beyond “Good Job” to Bring Out People’s Best
5. Metaphor Cementing: Building a Bridge to Get Your Point Across
6. Lobbing Forward: Helping People See All They Can Be
7. Going North: What Makes a Detour the Fastest Way Home
8. The New Normal: Acquiring the Habits That Help People Love Their Work
About the author
Stan Endicott is the vice president and lead coach at Slingshot Group, a staffing and coaching firm for the local church. Stan has coached hundreds of today’s young leaders, produced several major worship albums, and directed teams for several internationally-known ministries including Samaritan’s Purse and Saddleback Church.
David A. Miller is the vice president of Slingshot Group Coaching where he serves as lead trainer utilizing the IMPROVleadership coaching strategy with ministry leaders around the country. He has served as a pastor, speaker, teacher, and coach in diverse contexts, from thriving, multi-site churches to parachurch ministries.
Summary
You already know that there's no script for effective leadership...
That's why Improv Leadership reveals five skills that will help you unleash your own leadership potential on every unexpected challenge and status quo.
Anyone can read books and apply lessons, but only the best can develop what they know to bring out the best in any person or circumstance. These natural leaders understand the key principles of connecting, coaching, and communicating and use these ideas to build strong teams.
In Improv Leadership, Stan Endicott and David Miller share five leadership competencies that all great, improvisational leaders have:
- Story Mining--how to uncover a person's story and let it shape the way you lead them
- Precision Praising--how to craft praise to inspire, motivate, and even course-correct your team
- Metaphor Cementing--how to create concrete illustrations to "cement" an idea in someone's mind
- Lobbing Forward--how to challenge people to look beyond today to what might be in the future
- Going North--how to use indirect influence to redirect a person's perspective
IMPROV leaders apply these five competencies to initiate powerful conversations, create memorable moments with forward momentum, and craft personal coaching strategies that help people, and teams, grow.
The five competencies of IMPROV Leadership are not rigid steps to follow. They are fluid and can be applied to any industry of field. You can't predict every challenge you'll face. There's no playbook that covers every decision. But you can cultivate teams of people who love their work (and each other) and who perform at a high level. And you can lead well in any situation.
Additional text
'Improv Leadership isn't a book about you--it's about your team! The practical and powerful leadership principles David and Stan share in these pages will teach you how to bring out the best in your team and empower them to do their best work.'
