You are here

Discovering Leadership
Share
Share

Discovering Leadership
Designing Your Success

Second Edition
Available with:


February 2023 | 608 pages | SAGE Publications, Inc
Discovering Leadership: Designing Your Success, Second Edition is a comprehensive practice-based introduction to leadership that can help students develop the knowledge, skills, and dispositions needed for leadership success. The book is designed to align with a simple but powerful definition of leadership and focuses on five key areas: designing self, designing relationships, designing others' success, designing culture, and designing the future.

Each chapter includes practical applications of leadership theory and research that are essential for leadership success. Beyond the basics, Discovering Leadership prepares students for unpredictable future challenges by building their CORE™—Confidence, Optimism, Resilience, and Engagement—and enriching their skillset with unique value-add topics. These value-add topics include creative processes and techniques, design principles and design thinking, fostering innovation, entrepreneurial leadership, and systems and sustainability. This significantly enhances understanding and potential for future impact. The conversational tone, extensive activities, and exciting features make the book engaging and inspiring for students from any background or major.

By reading Discovering Leadership, students can develop the leadership knowledge and skills necessary to position themselves and their organizations for success.

keywords
#Leadership development, #Practice-based leadership, #Leadership skills, #Essential leadership skills, #Leadership theory, #Building confidence, #Building resilience, #Innovation in leadership, #Entrepreneurial leadership, #Systems and sustainability, #Leadership success, #Future impact, #Engaging leadership content, #Comprehensive leadership guide

This title is accompanied by a complete teaching and learning package. Contact your Sage representative to request a demo.
  • Learning Platform / Courseware
    Sage Vantage
    is an intuitive learning platform that integrates quality Sage textbook content with assignable multimedia activities and auto-graded assessments to drive student engagement and ensure accountability. Unparalleled in its ease of use and built for dynamic teaching and learning, Vantage offers customizable LMS integration and best-in-class support. It’s a learning platform you, and your students, will actually love. Learn more.
    • Assignable Video with Assessment
      Assignable video (available in Sage Vantage) is tied to learning objectives and curated exclusively for this text to bring concepts to life. Watch a sample video now.

  • LMS Cartridge: Import this title’s instructor resources into your school’s learning management system (LMS) and save time. Don’t use an LMS? You can still access all of the same online resources for this title via the password-protected Instructor Resource Site. Learn more.

 
Chapter 1: A Framework for Leadership Success: Design and Your CORE™
Designing Your Leadership

 
Designing Your Leadership by Building Your Core™

 
DEI by Design

 
Designing Your Leadership—First Step: Your Goals

 
 
Module 1: Design Leadership Self
 
Chapter 2: Designing Your Perceptions of Leaders and Leadership
You: Student and Designer of Your Own Leadership

 
Your Brain Is a Lean, Mean, Pattern-Making Machine: You Construct Your World

 
Misconceptions About Leaders and Leadership

 
Effective Leaders Are Like ________________: Characteristics and Traits

 
Effective Leaders Can Do ____________________: Skills, Practices, and Expertise

 
The Credible Leader

 
 
Chapter 3: Designing Your Leadership Capacity
Assess to Better Know Yourself: Does It Matter That You Are a Gold-Red Kangaroo Triangle Guardian?

 
Designing Your Capacity: Three Foundational Mindsets

 
Design Thinking for Your Leadership Toolbox

 
New Challenges . . . Need New Leadership . . . Need You

 
New Leadership Skills in Demand

 
 
Chapter 4 Your Why and What for Leading
Why Do You Want to Lead?

 
DEI by Design—Recognizing Who You Are

 
Your Purpose: Charisms and Flow

 
Learning From Shadows

 
The Process of Influencing Others . . . for What?

 
What Purpose Deserves You?

 
 
Module 2: Design Leadership Relationships
 
Chapter 5: Your Values and Ethical Actions
Getting Leadership Right

 
Ethical Issues and the Student Experience

 
Ethics—The Key Concepts

 
The Roots of Moral Development

 
The Ethical Challenges of Leadership

 
DEI by Design

 
Designing Your Ethical Leadership

 
 
Chapter 6: Decision-Making
Decisions, Decisions, Decisions in Leadership

 
Defining Decision-Making

 
Technical or Adaptive? Types of Problems Leaders Face

 
In Leadership, Decision-Making Is a Team Sport (Much of the Time)

 
Designing Your Approach to Decision-Making: The SOLVE Model of Decision-Making

 
How Did We Get Here? This Was Not the Plan: Barriers to Decision-Making

 
 
Chapter 7: Influence, Power, and Motivation
Influence is (mostly) Not About You

 
The Path to the Goal and Your Style

 
Forms of Influence

 
DEI by Design

 
Designing Your Influence with Individuals and Team

 
Gaining Power in Groups and Organizations

 
Motivation

 
The Leadership Challenge: Designing Leadership Relationships

 
 
Module 3: Design Others’ Success
 
Chapter 8: Creativity, Problem-Solving, and Idea-Generating
Yes, You Really Are Creative

 
DEI by Design

 
Moving From Reactive Problems to Proactive Opportunities

 
Yes, Creativity Will Help (a Lot)

 
Yes, You Can Generate Many, Many Ideas

 
Yes, You Can Find Many, Many Ideas

 
No, You Are Not “Done”: Iteration, Convergence, and Assurance

 
 
Chapter 9: Effective Practices for Leading Others to Success
DEI by Design

 
Practices for Your Follower’s Brain

 
Practices for Followers’ Needs and Motivation

 
Practice Leadership and Management: When Multitasking Really Matters

 
IGNITE as a Leader

 
DELIVER as a Manager

 
Design Others’ Success With a Situational Leadership Approach

 
 
Chapter 10: Utilizing Change Processes Effectively
Identify Levels of Change

 
Change Yourself Before You Can Change Others

 
Change Directly Affects Your Capacity to Lead Effectively

 
Transformational Versus Transactional Leadership

 
Barriers to Change

 
Leading Change

 
 
Module 4: Design Culture and Community
 
Chapter 11 Culture
The Way We Do Things Around Here: Understanding Culture

 
Understanding Organizational Culture

 
Culture at the Societal Level

 
The Leader’s Role and Organizational Culture

 
Contemporary Approaches to Organizational Culture

 
DEI by Design

 
Designing Culture

 
 
Chapter 12 Leading a Team
Just What Is a Team?

 
Types of Teams

 
Envisioning a Great Team

 
DEI by Design

 
From Group to Team: Stages of Development

 
Leading and Being a Team

 
Your and Others’ Role on the Team: What Makes a Good Team Member?

 
When Teams Go Wrong

 
 
Chapter 13 Designing a Culture that Cares
A Culture That Cares

 
Leading With Service

 
DEI by Design

 
Make a Difference: Designing a Culture That Cares

 
Making a Difference Now and Later: Opportunities and Actions

 
 
Module 5: Design the Future
 
Chapter 14 Creating a Culture of Innovation
Why Innovate? Designing the Future

 
Understanding Innovation

 
Diverge for Creativity, Converge for Innovation

 
Creating a Culture of Innovation With Design Thinking

 
DEI by Design

 
Creating a Climate of Innovation With the Dimensions of the Brain

 
 
Chapter 15: Entrepreneurial Leadership
Entrepreneurship: Re-envisioning Leadership

 
The Entrepreneurial Mindset

 
DEI by Design

 
Leading the Entrepreneurial Process

 
The Evolving Role of the Entrepreneurial Leader

 
 
Chapter 16 Systems and Sustainability
Systems and Systems Thinking

 
The Learning Organization

 
DEI by Design

 
Design for Sustainability

 
Sustainable You: Mindfulness and Personal Growth

 
Sustainable Leadership—Authentic Leadership

 

"This book teaches students how to literally build their leadership from within and expand it to the world around them to create and manage change. I like that it begins with individual then grows into relationships, others, community, etc."

Jenny Kuzmic
Ohio State University

"Relevant and useful. I thought that Middlebrooks was masterful in conveying an operational definition of leadership. Also, the first chapter provided the reader with a blueprint and foreshadowing of the entire book."

Gregory Warren
Chapman University

"The contents are well planned, and the content/reading level is appropriate for an undergraduate leadership course. This book includes a greater focus on culture, creativity and decision making."

Amy L. Everitt
Salem State University

"I discovered a leadership text which discusses the nuances of design thinking and leadership within the context of change/improvement."

John C. Hill
University of Kentucky

"A significant overview view of modern leadership theory and practice in language that is understandable and a format that is interactive and engaging."

Samuel S. Hemby
Southeastern University
Key features
NEW TO THIS EDITION:
  • The new edition is available in Sage Vantage, an intuitive learning platform that integrates quality Sage textbook content with assignable multimedia activities and auto-graded assessments to drive student engagement and ensure accountability. Unparalleled in its ease of use and built for dynamic teaching and learning, Vantage offers customizable LMS integration and best-in-class support. Learn more.
  • New Your Why and What for Leading Chapter prompts students to consider their reasons for leading (their “why”) and the world in which they want to lead (their “what”), which together make up their purpose.
  • New DEI by Design sections in every chapter highlight important concepts and integrate them into effective leadership practices, broadening the range of student capacity and efficacy. 
  • New topics and tools to address current issues, such as compassion, empathy, mindfulness, identity, vulnerability, both/and thinking, and crisis leadership.
  • Extensive updates referencing classic and current research add further venues to explore for readers.
     
KEY FEATURES:
  • Two foundational themes emphasized across all chapters of this book:
    • The purposeful design of leadership
    • Developing core competencies to face an unpredictable future
  • Unique design-based framework aligned with the definition of leadership, engages students in the purposeful, mindful design of their own leadership.
  • Practical examples, tools, and an inspirational tone that position students to want to take on leadership roles and continue their leadership learning journey.
  • CORE Attribute Builders consist of engaging, experiential activities that students can actively work on to develop their confidence, optimism, resilience, and engagement.
  • Skill Builder Activities are self-directed activities, tested for learning success in and out of real classrooms, in which students can develop important skills and gain richer understanding of specific concepts.
  • Leadership that Makes a Difference features profile leaders that have had an impact, many of whom students will find unexpected, to broaden students’ conception of who is a leader and what it means to make a difference.
  • Leadership by Design introduces simple yet powerful principles from the design field that leaders can apply to increase their influence and efficacy.
  • A unique section on designing the future highlights cutting-edge topics such as fostering a culture of innovation, entrepreneurial leadership, and seeing the long-term and big picture with sustainability and systems.
  • Myth or Reality? features examine perceptions and misconceptions of leadership and commonly held beliefs through established research and practice.
  • Reflection Questions prompt deeper thinking and discussion about the topics.
Vantage Reference: 
Discovering Leadership- Vantage Learning Platform

Sage College Publishing

You can purchase or sample this product on our Sage College Publishing site:

Go To College Site

Bundles