52 Leadership Gems: Practical and Quick Insights for Leading Others

By John Parker Stewart

A treasure trove of wisdom for leadership success

In this powerful collection of leadership wisdom developed from three decades of interviews, coaching, training, and research with more than 20,000 leaders, the creators of the award-winning LEAD NOW! Leadership Development Model offer time-tested tips and insights to guide your leadership journey through the challenges of today.
Succinct, clear, and easily digestible, each bite-sized gem exemplifies specific factors of the 21 Leadership Dimensions and is accompanied by tips on applying it to your leadership practice, alongside exercises for reflection and integration. A powerful tool for supporting every phase of your organization's leadership development, team improvement, and one-on-one coaching, 21 Leadership Gems offers invaluable insights on:

- Uniting teams behind a common purpose
- Bridging the gap between intention and action
- Achieving greater clarity in meetings and important conversations
- Creating greater employee engagement
- Why transparency is essential to long-term success
- And much more!

To be used as a standalone guide, or as a companion text to other titles in the LEAD NOW! Series—including 52 Leadership Lessons and Lead NOW!—52 Leadership Gems is a treasure trove of wisdom for leaders at all levels, from the newly promoted manager to the CEO.

• Language: English
• Publisher: John Parker Stewart
• Release date: Jan 17, 2022
• ISBN: 9781774582190

Book preview

52 Leadership Gems: Practical and Quick Insights for Leading Others. Second Edition. Newly Revised. Stewart Leadership Series. Award-winning author John Parker Stewart.

Praise for 52 Leadership Gems

"John Parker Stewart’s 52 Leadership Gems is a wonderful compilation of leadership tips and insights vital to leaders and managers at any level. He provides invaluable guidance that will help leaders and managers build a successful career."

Chris Jedrey, former executive director, NASA Headquarters

"52 Leadership Gems is a must-read for all managers who wish to continuously improve their management skills. It is one of the most compelling books on leadership in years. John Parker Stewart has successfully condensed thirty-five years of executive training and coaching to provide insight and practical advice into a common-sense format to enable managers to achieve success and prepare for future uncertainties in today’s competitive marketplace."

Bill Gillan, chief operating officer, Dynanet Corp

"I have had the privilege of attending several of John Parker Stewart’s leadership sessions over the years. Consistently, the aspect that resonates with all participants are the Gems that John shares. For those who have not had the good fortune to witness this firsthand, 52 Leadership Gems is the next best thing. Enjoy the Gems and pass them on."

Kenneth S. Reightler Jr., former astronaut and space shuttle pilot; former president, Lockheed Martin Space Operations

"52 Leadership Gems is a fantastic collection of leadership wisdom presented in a short, condensed format that makes it an easy-to-use reference guide. I am carrying it in my work bag alongside my laptop every day so that I can have proper food for thought! John taught the Gems to my entire executive team and we referred to them often as pillars of our corporate culture. John is a world-class coach—the best one there is."

Tarek a. Robbiati, executive vice president and chief financial officer, Hewlett Packard Enterprise

"Having employed John Parker Stewart as a Leadership Team Trainer several times in the past twenty-five years, I can assure you that what he shares in 52 Leadership Gems are quick insights for leading others that really work. Many were captured from John’s experience transforming and building my very successful leadership teams. John has extracted the key points from his training of over 10,000 students in becoming successful supervisors, managers, and executives. The format is easy to follow—filled with proven advice that is easy to understand, to recall, and to apply. This is one of the most practical books on leadership I have seen in years. These Gems will be very helpful to you and your management team in leading your organization in its climb to new heights of success."

Bill Brett, senior executive, Kennedy Space Center, Florida, and Johnson Space Center, Houston

"52 Leadership Gems provides the essential information for bringing your career to the next level. Looking inside the mind of John Parker Stewart is like having an encyclopedia for executives in your hip pocket. Imagine having more than thirty years of wisdom geared toward the consolidated knowledge of a brilliant and insightful executive coach available to you in a handy, organized, easy-to-use guide."

Ben Bartine, director of delivery, CIBER

An extremely useful collection of easy-to-read and practical insights to guide you through your everyday, challenging leadership situations. Practicing these insightful 52 Leadership Gems will guarantee that you and your team will excel as leaders and managers. John Parker Stewart taught us these Gems as he coached us through the challenges of constant change that all executives are facing today.

Jack Nealon, former chief information officer, National Agricultural Statistics Service, US Department of Agriculture

"John Parker Stewart has provided a way to solve every challenge facing organizations today. Move over, One Minute Manager: here comes 52 Leadership Gems—an essential guide for every leader for what to do next. Keep this book in your top desk drawer; you will find it invaluable. In time of crisis, pull it out and you will find your answer. John has done a masterful job of providing an amazing amount of help in an accessible, quick-to-use guide. It is an outstanding handbook by an exceptional executive coach!"

Rob Roe, managing director, AirWatch, Australia and New Zealand

Other books in the Stewart Leadership Series

LEAD NOW!

A Personal Leadership Coaching Guide for Results-Driven Leaders

52 Leadership Lessons

Timeless Stories for the Modern Leader

52 Leadership Gems: Practical and Quick Insights for Leading Others. John Parker Stewart. Page Two.

Copyright © 2011, 2016, 2021 by Stewart Leadership, LLC

First Page Two edition 2021

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior written consent of the publisher or a license from The Canadian Copyright Licensing Agency (Access Copyright). For a copyright license, visit accesscopyright.ca or call toll free to 1-800-893-5777.

LEAD NOW!™ is a registered trademark of Stewart Leadership LLC.

Cataloguing in publication information is available from Library and Archives Canada

ISBN 978-1-77458-218-3 (paperback)

ISBN 978-1-77458-219-0 (ebook)

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Proofread by Steph VanderMeulen

Cover design by Peter Cocking

Interior design by Setareh Ashrafologhalai

Ebook by Bright Wing Media

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To my good friend and colleague Tarek Robbiati and his exceptional team at CSL in Hong Kong. You all know these Gems so well you can quote them by number!

Contents

Introduction

Part I

The LEAD NOW! Leadership Development Model

The Four Relationships

The Personal Development

Turning Your Insights into Action

Part II

The 52 Leadership Gems

1 It’s Amazing What Can Be Accomplished If You Don’t Care Who Gets the Credit

2 An Action Deferred Is a Tension Retained

3 We Judge Ourselves by Our Intentions, Others Judge Us by Our Actions

4 The Biggest Hurdle to Effective Communication Is the Assumption That It Has Taken Place

5 A Problem Well Defined Is a Problem Half Solved

6 Twenty-Seven Years of Genuine Growth or One Year Repeated Twenty-Seven Times?

7 Four Magic Words: What Do You Think?

8 People Tend to Support What They Help Create or Decide

9 If You Don’t Take Care of Your Customer, Someone Else Will

10 Ask Yourself: What Is It Like to Work for Me?

11 When You’re Green You Grow, When You’re Ripe You Rot

12 Listen with Your Ears and Your Eyes

13 People Care How Much You Know Only When They Know How Much You Care

14 In the Decision-Making Process, Voice Your Opinion Last!

15 Ownership vs. Rentership

16 Beware the No. 1 Syndrome

17 Good Is the Enemy of Great

18 No One Likes Surprises!

19 Swim in Their Tank

20 Doing the Same Thing the Same Way Will Not Produce Different Results

21 What You Do Speaks So Loudly That I Cannot Hear What You Say

22 Remember the Fifth Year of the Bamboo Plant

23 Identify and Build Your Strengths

24 Assign Someone to Play the Fool

25 Allow People the Right to Fail, but Don’t Sanction Incompetence

26 A Leader Who Stands for Everything Stands for Nothing

27 Greatness Is Not Where You Stand, but the Direction in Which You Are Moving

28 Prescription without Diagnosis Is Malpractice

29 Every Transaction Begins with a Relationship

30 Activity vs. Results

31 The Most Important Game of the Season Is The Next One

32 A Fish Rots from the Head Down

33 Just When You Think You Are Winning the Rat Race, Along Comes a Faster Rat!

34 Plan and Achieve Small Wins

35 They Won’t Remember What You Said, but They Will Remember How You Made Them Feel

36 Obstacles Are Things You See When You Take Your Eye Off the Goal

37 A Desk Is a Dangerous Place from Which to View the World

38 Being Good with a Hammer Doesn’t Give You the Right to View the World as a Bunch of Nails

39 Change Is Bad until It Succeeds

40 How You Respond Is the Real Test

41 You Can Buy Hands and Feet, but You Must Earn the Heart

42 Give Them the Ball and Let Them Run with It

43 Silence Is Your Ally, Not Your Enemy

44 A Turtle Moves Only After It First Sticks Its Neck Out

45 Even If You’re on the Right Track, You’ll Get Run Over If You Just Sit There

46 Remember the Voice of David: Seek a Different Opinion

47 Don’t Sacrifice the Entire War for the Sake of Winning a Single Battle

48 Culture Is Defined and Redefined Every Day

49 In Times of Stress, Leaders Tend to Revert to Their Natural Tendencies

50 Tell Them Why

51 The Quickest Way to Strip People’s Dignity Is to Reprimand Them Publicly

52 A Coil Pulled Too Tight Loses Its Spring

Acknowledgments

Index

Landmarks

Cover

Title Page

Copyright Page

Table of Contents

Body Matter

Acknowledgments

Index

Introduction

It has been ten years since we published the first edition of 52 Leadership Gems . We are excited and pleased that it has been received so well by thousands of leaders throughout the world. We are honored to hear countless stories of how this book, along with the other books in the Stewart Leadership Series, has directly benefited so many in taking their leadership skills and teams to the next level.

With this revised and updated edition, we feel confident that you will find it even easier to use these Gems and the LEAD NOW! Leadership Development Model for immediate application to your leadership needs. We have included a more detailed explanation of the LEAD NOW! Model at the beginning of the book and a personal development process that leaders can use to personalize and apply these Gems.

And now, some background on the Gems. Where did these Gems come from? Well, for the past three decades I have taught leadership and management sessions to organizations all over the globe. The audience has spanned CEOs, presidents, political leaders, military commanders, professors, supervisors, students and parents, church groups, and community organizations. The time I had with them ranged from a few hours at a conference or convention to several weeks in an intensive executive development session. In each case, I found that the best way