Encouraging the Heart

Human-centered leadership insights from the leading experts on the subject

In the newly revised second edition of Encouraging the Heart: Igniting Purpose and Providing Meaningful Recognition, renowned leadership experts and best-selling authors James Kouzes and Barry Posner deliver an incisive and practical playbook for leaders who want to inspire their followers to achieve extraordinary things. They've packed the book with real-world examples, practical ideas, and eye-opening advice drawn from over four decades of work with countless business leaders.

Encouraging the Heart is not a book about incentive systems or reward programs. It goes beyond those things to discuss universal leadership principles that will help elevate your people to new levels of productivity, engagement, and performance. It's a hands-on roadmap containing behaviors, principles, practices, evidence, and examples that will form the foundation of a repeatable process you can put into place at your own organization.

Inside the book you'll find strategies for:

• Setting clear standards aligned with your organization's purpose
• Paying attention to exemplary actions and telling memorable stories that motivate action and enact change
• Noticing exemplars of values and standards and publicly praising them with personalized feedback and appreciation that encourages others to live up to their example
• Setting a personal example of meaningful ways to recognize others and celebrate values and victories

Encouraging the Heart is a must-read for leaders of all kinds, regardless of position or function, at organizations of all sizes, in the public and private sectors who wish to help those around them realize their full potential.

About the Authors

Jim Kouzes and Barry Posner are authors of several award-winning and bestselling books, including: The Leadership Challenge; Everyday People, Extraordinary Leadership; A Leader's Legacy; The Truth About Leadership; and Credibility, as well as the widely used Leadership Practices Inventory (LPI). Together, they are among the most trusted sources on leadership development.