The+Art+of+Winning+Commitment+10+Ways+Leaders+Can+Engage+Minds,+Hearts+and+Spirits

13: 9780814407851
 * Reviewed by:** Jamie Torner
 * Book Name:** The Art of Winning Commitment 10 Ways Leaders Can Engage Minds, Hearts, and Spirits
 * Book Author:** Dick Richards
 * Book Title:** The Art of Winning Commitment 10 Ways Leaders Can Engage Minds, Hearts, and Spirits
 * Publisher and Year Published:** AMACOM; 2004
 * ISBN:** 10: 0814407854

__**Key Terms and Definitions**__


 * Commitment (4 types)-**
 * Political:** Commitment to something in order to gain something else
 * Intellectual:** Commitment of the mind to a good idea
 * Emotional:** Commitment that arises out of strong feelings
 * Spiritual:** Commitment to a higher purpose


 * Ten Leadership Competencies** (each correspond with a commitment type described above, except political):


 * Winning Intellectual Commitment=Four Leadership Competencies**
 * 1. Insight-** seeing what is, in a new way.
 * 2. Vision-** an ideal image of identity and the future.
 * 3. Storytelling-** presenting the story in an unforgettable way.
 * 4. Mobilizing-** transforming energy into committed action.


 * Winning Emotional Commitment=Three Leadership Competencies**
 * 1. Self-Awareness-** attentiveness to one's self.
 * 2. Emotional Engagement-** the ability to create a flow of productive feeling between the leader and her followers, and among the followers themselves.
 * 3. Fostering Hope-** creating the feeling that something desirable is possible or likely to happen.


 * Winning Spiritual Commitment=Three Leadership Competencies**
 * 1. Rendering Significance-** drawing the connections from the leader's insight, vision and story to a higher meaning and purpose.
 * 2. Enacting Beliefs-** translating beliefs and principles into leadership activities, not as a religious statement, but as an endeavor of good leadership that wins high commitment.
 * 3. Centering-** the discipline of bringing in rather than leaving out.

Dick Richards utilizes interviews with 20 leaders to draft a detailed synopsis of what they have found to be 10 significant types of leadership competencies and how they have expressed them to achieve results that benefit the greater good. The leaders that Roberts chose vary in their fields of expertise ranging from business professionals to sports coaches and spiritual leaders but each have affected great positive change, respectively. Additionally, Roberts categorizes each of the 10 leadership competencies into a specific range of commitment behavior that will result when the competency is utilized properly. In presenting material that can be used in a variety of leadership situations and offering suggestions about how to lead properly in order to have the most lasting and long-term affects, Roberts shares a wealth of knowledge, collected first hand from the leaders living it, to help others lead to their maximum potential. Additionally, Roberts' book breaks down the deeper impact of leadership, both on leaders and those they wish to have follow them. Finally, Roberts makes the case that effective and beneficial leadership happens when leaders engage their followers minds, hearts and spirits.

This book provides anecdotes from 20 respected leaders about how they lead from their minds, hearts and spirits. Their stories and the author's analysis of them offer a critical and doable "how to" for the reader to model and attempt within his/her own leadership strategies. Each chapter outlines one of the 10 leadership competencies and expands to examine the trait or activity, offer practical solutions/suggestions on how to practice it and when one will know it has been practiced successfully. The key points from each chapter are outlined here:


 * Ch. 1-** Defines key terms and categories. Outlines the process of the book and how the book is broken down into chapters based on leadership competencies. This chapter also differentiates the four types of leadership commitment (i.e. political, intellectual, emotional and spiritual).
 * Ch. 2-** Begins to examine the 1st leadership competency needed in winning intellectual commitment: INSIGHT. Stories are shared to demonstrate the ways in which insight works (e.g., sudden insight, not so sudden insight, insight from within). The role that intuition plays with respect to insight is shared, along with personal examples of this occurrence from the books interviewees. Tools for developing insight are offered. They include: asking a vital question, gathering and pondering, reflecting, unearthing a passion, and trusting intuition.
 * Ch. 3-** Discusses the 2ND leadership competency needed in winning intellectual commitment: VISION. Shares different types of vision (i.e. self referent/to benefit oneself/one's company versus noble/to benefit others) and stories from books interviewees to relate the concepts to actions. Tools for developing visions are suggested. They include: articulating a vision yourself, steering a group process, allowing a vision to emerge and adopting a vision.
 * Ch. 4-** The 3RD leadership competency needed to win intellectual commitment is explored: STORYTELLING. The process of telling stories within a leadership context is outlined. Leaders tell stories of themselves, the present and their hopes for the future, and how and why they need others to participate. The leaders participating in the book share a number of stories...about how they use stories to lead and how other's stories have affected them as followers. Tools for developing storytelling prowess are shared. They include: exercising imagination, relying on imagery, risking being a person, becoming conversant with myth, using every point of contact and beginning in the comfort zone.
 * Ch. 5-** Examines the final leadership competency needed to win intellectual commitment: MOBILIZING. The leaders responsibilities for mobilizing people are shared: 1. Enroll people. 2. Educate them. 3. Help them find capable actions they can do to help feed into the insight and vision of the leader/group. 4. Do 1-3 while projecting trust, respect and optimism. Invite emotional, spiritual commitment to follow this intellectual commitment. Specific examples are shared (from the books interviewees) that demonstrate the act/s of mobilizing and tools for others are offered. They encouraging the right things, setting high expectations, letting go and encouraging the best in others.
 * Ch. 6-** This chapter begins the foray into the 1st leadership competency needed to win emotional commitment: SELF-AWARENESS. The interview participants document the processes they used to get to a place of high self-awareness. Tools for increasing one's own self-awareness are offered. They are: finding the barriers, tuning into the body, slowing discussion down, reviewing experience, shunning "I feel that" and practicing an art form.
 * Ch. 7-** Explores the 2ND leadership competency needed in winning emotional commitment: EMOTIONAL ENGAGEMENT. Discussions ensue about how one becomes emotionally engaged (e.g. making time for emotion, managing oneself, using oneself creatively and practicing empathy). The concept and practical application of empathy is analyzed and tools for developing emotional engagement are shared. They are: practicing empathy, focusing on similarities, speaking the unspeakables and hanging out.
 * Ch. 8-** The 3RD and final leadership competency needed in winning emotional commitment is discussed: FOSTERING HOPE. The author states that leaders foster hope in four ways:1. With their own optimism about the current circumstances and the possibilities of others. 2. With success and action. 3. With their own hopeful stories. 4. With the power of their hope for the future. Personal narratives that highlight these four points are shared from the leaders interviewed for this book. Tools for fostering hope in others are shared and include: celebrating success, doing the impossible, assuming self-responsibility, listening to self-talk, hanging out with optimists and getting a good nights sleep.
 * Ch. 9-** The 1st leadership competency needed to win spiritual commitment is examined: RENDERING SIGNIFICANCE. The book's interviewees share stories about their own experiences with this, such as going through trials and finding one's passion and how one's ego must be managed. Tools for rendering one's own significance are shared and include: following your bliss, uncovering a moral objective and creating a sacred autobiography.
 * Ch. 10-** The 2ND leadership competency needed to win spiritual commitment is discussed: ENACTING BELIEFS. The author shares that most leaders have the following beliefs in common: 1. Divine involvement in world affairs. 2. Service is important. 3. People are good. The participating leaders share stories in this chapter that speak to these beliefs and tools for enacting beliefs are offered: articulating beliefs, connecting actions with beliefs and choosing a process.
 * Ch. 11-** The 3RD and final leadership competency needed to win spiritual commitment is explored: CENTERING. The author moves through a leadership scenario where a leader is described as flowing through almost all of the leadership competencies previously discussed. In the end, tools for developing centering skills are offered and include:developing centering consciousness and improvising.
 * Ch. 12-** The final chapter of the book suggests that leaders do three things to improve as leaders: 1. They use their strengths to their advantage. 2. They bring their entire self to their leadership and use who they are to get what they need. 3. They learn new leadership skills- always. The chapter also concludes four things: 1. People commit to people, not to tasks or causes. 2. It is more important to know the needs of those you seek to "follow" you than to know what exactly you all are going to do. 3. Time alone is time well spent for any leader. Reflection helps leadership. 4. If a leader wants to be supremely effective s/he needs to engage minds, hearts and spirits. Finally, the author suggests next steps to improving one's leadership abilities, one of which is getting a leadership mentor for one's self.


 * This book is worth the read! I found the writing to be engaging (shocker!) and very practical to the topic and types of leadership that anyone would want to practice, regardless of which field or in which specific vein. The book is broad enough to be extremely helpful to many while being specific enough to provide the reader with a series of sets of tools to practice outside of reading. The personal narratives made the book even more touching and life like. I respected the authors use of 20 leaders from different leadership sectors all contributing in some way to the book and the process of leadership. Utilizing these interviews also makes a case for the benefits of diversity in leadership.**