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Does your organization have soul? Are you passionate about a higher purpose? Do you engage in meaningful dialogue? Are you caring and compassionate? Do you spend time reflecting on critical issues? People in soulful organizations are able to say they demonstrate these behaviors everyday. You can become one of those people by following the advice and guidance in this innovative book. Creating Organizational Soul makes a compelling case for the strong connection between organizational soul and productivity, innovation and results. The intent of the book is to get leaders to take a hard look at where they are and look for ways to get better. The author demonstrates how to create soul in business, social service agencies and education. Included are many examples of exemplary fast-growing companies, large companies, small businesses, not-for-profit organizations and universities that are stepping up and making a difference. You'll learn: The principles of a soulful organization; What a soulless organization looks like; The conditions necessary for creating organizational soul; Success stories of people who have created soul in their organizations; How to get people and organizations to do what they need to do to create organizational soul and achieve extraordinary results. You'll also get tools to help you measure the soul health and sickness of your organization, assess your leadership ability and measure soulful conditions. Of special interest to leaders are the conversation templates that can be used in goal-setting sessions, mid-year and end-of-year reviews with employees.

What is leadership? Simply stated, leadership is the art of getting others to want to do what you believe needs to be done. Leaders gain the confidence of others through their insights, their interpersonal influence, and their competence. Leadership is not about having the power and influence to command those who are subordinate to you. Leadership is a choice any person can make in the moment. What do leaders rely on? Effective leaders need input, processing, and feedback. They need to listen to others: their employees, their peers, their customers, their critics, their shareholders. Leaders need to be open to information of all types: positive, negative, and neutral. Leaders need processing capabilities to discriminate good from bad ideas. They need to generate new responses to changing conditions, and to create new environments for change. This book provides a solid construct for processing information (identify, build, and drive) and a wealth of ideas for generating new responses (107 competencies).

1990 ed. has subtitle: A competitive edge.