Kicking Leadership’s Gluteus Maximus

I’m proud to be on the launch team for Bill Treasurer’s new book, A Leadership Kick In The Ass. Here’s an overview of the book, written by Bill.

Leading other people, for a host of reasons that we’ll explore, is really, really hard. Indeed, the sheer glut of leadership books may be the best evidence of how hard leadership truly is. If it were easy, budding leaders wouldn’t be so thirsty for leadership advice. Rather than try to glamorize the topic, I intend to strip it down so you can have a more grounded, authentic, and reality-based view of what it takes to lead. Unlike other leadership books you may have read, my new book, A Leadership Kick in the Ass, proposes that:

• leadership is easier to get wrong than to get right;
• leaders are often their own worst enemies and often get in their own way;
• the most enduring and transformative leadership lessons come from humiliating leadership
• experiences well-navigated;
• not everyone is cut out to lead (but everyone can grow in their leadership influence);
• to be most effective, leaders need both confidence and humility;
• deficiencies in either cause poor or damaging leadership.

A good ass-kick can provoke a great comeback. Sprinkled throughout the book are stories about people who succeeded, not in spite of their kicks, but because of them. Heavyweight boxer Mike Tyson famously once said, “Everybody has a plan until they get punched in the mouth.”

By definition, a swift kick in the ass is painful. Essential as they are to the leadership maturation process, the learning starts after you pick yourself up off the mat. A leadership kick in the tuckus can be the moment where everything changes for you as a leader. But these moments can also be the starting point where you assess your strengths, clarify your values, and develop an authentic and true leadership voice and style.

Above all, benefiting from A Leadership Kick in the Ass requires choosing adaptability over obstinacy. It means assuming responsibility for your own actions and the consequences they bring. It involves having the courage to soberly acknowledge the leader you are today while you diligently work to be a better leader tomorrow.

The only way to bring out the best in those you’re leading is to lead with the best of yourself.

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Since 1991 Bill has conducted over 500 corporate workshops designed to strengthen people’s leadership skills, improve team performance, accelerate innovation, and help executives behave more courageously. Among his clients are Accenture, Saks Fifth Avenue, UBS Bank, SPANX, Walsh Construction, Hugo Boss, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the U.S. Forest Service, the National Science Foundation, and the U.S. Veteran’s Administration. Bill’s insights about courage and risk-taking have been featured in over 100 newspapers and magazines, including the Washington Post, NY Daily News, Chicago Tribune, Atlanta Journal Constitution, Boston Herald, Woman’s Day, Redbook, Fitness, and The Harvard Management Update. His latest book, A Leadership Kick in the Ass, will be released on January 16, 2017. You can find out more about Bill at www.billtreasurer.com and http://giantleapconsulting.com.