Bookclub

I am a passionate and enthusiastic reader and want to share the lessons I have learned from some of the great leadership books of our time. Interesting and useful concepts and strategies are then included in my training and speaking programmes.

Updated fortnightly with new reflections and recommendations.

“Reading is to the mind what exercise is to the body.” - Joseph Addison

Lead It Like Lasso by Marnie Stockman and Nick Coniglio
Kathryn Hemming Kathryn Hemming

Lead It Like Lasso by Marnie Stockman and Nick Coniglio

“Leadership is about empowering others to achieve greatness”

3 Main Messages:

  1. Leadership is changing and those who empower others and build great teams exemplify humility, resilience, honesty and vulnerability.

  2. “Clarity of vision is critical in order for everyone to aim for the same target.”

  3. Believe in the best in people and build teams who believe in each other.

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Belonging by Owen Eastwood
Kathryn Hemming Kathryn Hemming

Belonging by Owen Eastwood

“To feel a sense of belonging is to feel accepted, to feel seen and to feel included by a group of people, believing that we fit in, trusting that we will be protected by them.”

3 Main Messages

  1. The measure of our lives is the impact we have on others

  2. When we feel that we belong we have more energy, focus and creativity

  3. Clarity and alignment among teams is built in the stories we tell around the fire

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The Score That Matters by Ryan Hawks and Brook Cupps
Kathryn Hemming Kathryn Hemming

The Score That Matters by Ryan Hawks and Brook Cupps

“When we focus on our internal scoreboard, we embrace the reality that we are constantly becoming, never arriving.”

3 Main Messages:

  1. Choose carefully who you surround yourself with and what information you are consuming daily as these will shape who you are and how you think.

  2. By focusing on the process, rather than the end product, you will be aligned with your values and be both happier and more successful as a result.

  3. Use your values to set a standard and then consistently live up to it.

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Grit by Angela Duckworth
Kathryn Hemming Kathryn Hemming

Grit by Angela Duckworth

“Nobody wants to show you the hours and hours of becoming. 

They’d rather show you the highlight of what they’ve become.”

3 Main Messages:

  1. Ultimately grit is more important than talent

  2. In order to improve we need to ‘hungrily’ seek feedback!

  3. The most successful people are altruistic and succeed due to a combination of purpose and pleasure

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Fortitude by Bruce Daisley
Kathryn Hemming Kathryn Hemming

Fortitude by Bruce Daisley

“Fortitude is the strength that we draw from feeling in close synchrony with those around us, from feeling part of something meaningful that is bigger than us.”

3 Main Messages:

  1. Those who have experienced adversity are often more driven

  2. We need community to drive us, inspire us and support us

  3. The success of an individual is dependent on the team around them

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Play by Stuart Brown
Kathryn Hemming Kathryn Hemming

Play by Stuart Brown

“Once people understand what play does for them, they can learn to bring a sense of excitement and adventure back to their lives, make work an extension of their play lives, and engage fully with the world.”

3 Main Messages:

  1. All mammals learn and grow through play.

  2. Various forms of play are vital in reducing stress and maintaining brain health.

  3. Parents, schools and employers have a responsibility to encourage play everyday.

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Positive Provocations by Roberts Bizwas Deiner
Kathryn Hemming Kathryn Hemming

Positive Provocations by Roberts Bizwas Deiner

“Great coaching is built on creating a relationship that feels safe for the client - not safe from challenge but safe enough to be challenged.”

3 Main Messages:

  1. Coaches need to continue to build their practice and challenge their own thinking and assumptions.

  2. Questions are key!

  3. There are times when the laws of coaching require bending

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Emergent Strategy by adrienne maree Brown
Kathryn Hemming Kathryn Hemming

Emergent Strategy by adrienne maree Brown

“My dream is a movement with such deep trust that we move as a murmuration, the way groups of starlings billow, dive, spin, dance collectively through the air - to avoid predators, and, it also seems, to pass time in the most beautiful way possible.”

Main points:

  1. We need to pay attention to the interconnected nature of the natural world and replicate this in societies and workplaces

  2. By paying attention to how we behave on a small level, this will impact on a large level

  3. It is time to start rethinking our systems

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Supercommunicators by Charles Duhigg
Kathryn Hemming Kathryn Hemming

Supercommunicators by Charles Duhigg

“We want to learn how the people around us see the world and help them understand our perspectives in turn” 

3 Main Messages:

  1. Communicating is all about listening to what is being said and what is being left unsaid.

  2. By asking more questions we build trust and understanding.

  3. Communication is improved by slowing it down. 

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The Courage To Be Disliked by Ichiro Kishimi and Fumitake Koga
Kathryn Hemming Kathryn Hemming

The Courage To Be Disliked by Ichiro Kishimi and Fumitake Koga

“For a human being, the greatest unhappiness is not being able to like oneself” 

3 Main Messages:

  1. The water in the well is always the same temperature, it just feels different because of outside conditions

  2. We need to discard other people’s tasks

  3. Healthy inferiority is comparison with one’s ideal self

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Daring Greatly by Brené Brown
Kathryn Hemming Kathryn Hemming

Daring Greatly by Brené Brown

“Only when we’re brave enough to explore the darkness will we discover the infinite power of our light.”

3 Main Messages:

  1. We all cover shame with learned behaviour

  2. Vulnerability is uncertainty, risk and emotional exposure

  3. To be wholehearted is to have courage, compassion and connection

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Time To Think by Nancy Kline
Kathryn Hemming Kathryn Hemming

Time To Think by Nancy Kline

“Perhaps the most important thing we could do with our life and with our leadership was to listen to people so expertly, to give them attention so respectfully they would begin to think for themselves, clearly and afresh.”

3 Main Messages:

  1. What we pay attention to grows.

  2. Giving everyone a turn increases the intelligence of groups.

  3. The quality of your attention determines the quality of other people’s thinking.

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The Coaching Habit by Michael Bungay Stanier
Kathryn Hemming Kathryn Hemming

The Coaching Habit by Michael Bungay Stanier

“Building a coaching habit will help you and your team reconnect to the work that not only has impact, but has meaning as well.” 

3 Main Messages:

  1. Our advice is not as useful as we think it is

  2. Simple questions will support others in self-development

  3. There are 3 types of coaching: projects, people and patterns

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The Culture Map by Erin Meyer
Kathryn Hemming Kathryn Hemming

The Culture Map by Erin Meyer

“It is only when you start to identify what makes your culture different from others that you can begin to open a dialogue of sharing, learning, and ultimately understanding. ”

3 Main Messages:

  1. We are often blind to our own cultural norms

  2. Understanding each other is the key to narrowing cultural differences

  3. Naming differences and developing core cultural agreements is crucial

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Raise Her Up by Debra E. Lane and Kimberly Cullen
Kathryn Hemming Kathryn Hemming

Raise Her Up by Debra E. Lane and Kimberly Cullen

“Not only is it harder for women to acquire leadership positions, but when they do achieve them, they struggle with issues like perfectionism, imposter syndrome, and a need to prove they are worthy of the opportunities.”

5 Main Messages:

  1. Women need to build self awareness to increase strengths and learn from weaknesses

  2. Women should learn to lean into their own authentic style of leadership

  3. It takes courage to be a trailblazer

  4. Connectedness helps build courage

  5. Leaders need to be purpose-driven and resilient

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Invisible Women by Caroline Criado Perez
Kathryn Hemming Kathryn Hemming

Invisible Women by Caroline Criado Perez

“Routinely forgetting to accommodate the female body in design - whether medical, technological or architectural - has led to a world that is less hospitable and more dangerous for women to navigate. ”

3 Main Messages:

  1. When men are making the decisions, they do not bring a woman’s perspective to the table

  2. In many situations it is not that the data is being ignored - it simply doesn’t exist

  3. What is frustrating in many countries is a death sentence for women in other places. 

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The Moment of Lift by Melinda Gates
Kathryn Hemming Kathryn Hemming

The Moment of Lift by Melinda Gates

“Sometimes all that’s needed to lift women is to stop pulling them down”

3 Main Messages:

  1. To find out the real issues you need to talk to people and get to know them

  2. A backward society is one where decisions for women are being made by men

  3. Often the surface problem is underpinned by the REAL root problem

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The Talent Code by Daniel Coyle
Kathryn Hemming Kathryn Hemming

The Talent Code by Daniel Coyle

“Operating at the edge of your ability, where you make mistakes - makes you smarter”

3 Main Messages:

  1. Deep practice involves slowing down and chunking skills

  2. Huge success are born when a spark is lit inside by watching someone else setting an example

  3. Great teachers car deeply about their students and adapt their techniques as appropriate

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When the Adults Change Everything Changes by Paul Dix
Kathryn Hemming Kathryn Hemming

When the Adults Change Everything Changes by Paul Dix

“Schools that believe children should get what they deserve respond to poor behaviour differently to schools that believe children should get what they need”

3 Main Messages:

  1. Consistency of behaviour and expectations of individual teachers and across schools is necessary to create a safe space.

  2. Children respond best to those who show that they genuinely care.

  3. The old methods of punishment are outdated and damaging and we need to build restorative practices instead.

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Multipliers by Liz Wiseman
Kathryn Hemming Kathryn Hemming

Multipliers by Liz Wiseman

“The person sitting at the apex hierarchy is the genius maker, not the genius.”

3 Main Messages:

  1. Multipliers build people up and increase intelligence and capacity in others

  2. Diminishers act in self interest and think that “really intelligent people are a rare breed.”

  3. Even well intentioned leaders can display Accidental Diminisher tendencies

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