Leadership authorities James M. Kouzes and Barry Z. Posner say employees perform best when their contributions are genuinely appreciated. Unfortunately, the two contend, most executives have not mastered the decidedly soft-management skill of "encouragement" that fosters such behavior. In Encouraging the Heart, they examine how this type of compassionate supervision is becoming a critical part of successful management today, and through example and suggestion they describe how readers can establish the process in their own businesses.

This is not a book about glad-handing and backslapping, gold stars, and payoffs. It's about the importance of linking rewards and appreciation to standards of excellence. It's about why encouragement is absolutely essential to sustaining people's commitment to organizations and outcomes. It's about the hard work it takes to get extraordinary things done in organizations, and it's about ways to enhance your own ability in--and comfort with--recognizing and celebrating the achievements of others.

All too often, simple acts of human kindness are often overlooked and under utilized by people in leadership roles. Advising mutual respect and recognition of accomplishments, Encouraging the Heart shows us how true leaders encourage and motivate those they work with by helping them find their voice and making them feel like heroes. Recognized experts in the field of leadership, authors James Kouzes and Barry Posner show us that, through love, leaders can encourage, and indeed allow those around them to be their very best. Both practical and inspirational, Encouraging the Heart gives readers a thoughtful approach to motivating individuals within an organizational structure.
Read Chapter 3 or Chapter 12, or see The Encouragement Index.

This is a great book if you are in a leadership role now, or if you aspire to be in one in the future.
It affirms my beliefs about trusting others and recognizing others for their accomplishments.
A quick read, and an excellent reference.

This book is highly recommended. We used it at our church for a leadership training class. Everyone who read it found it to be particularly helpful and relevant. It has some challenging points and has some great ideas.

Continuing their `Leadership is a Relationship' philosophy, best-selling authors, (The Leadership Challenge and Credibility), Kouzes & Posner focus this book on the 5th of their five essential practices for exemplary leadership - Encourage the Heart. After demonstrating that even the best performers are `starved for recognition' and will respond positively to a heart-felt "thank you", the authors provide descriptions and examples of the seven essential components of the Encouraging the Heart practice, devoting a chapter to each of the following:
1. Set Clear Standards
2. Expect the Best
3. Pay Attention
4. Personalize Recognition
5. Tell the Story
6. Celebrate Together
7. Set the Example
But, reading about how others do it is never enough, and the so the last part of the book takes the reader beyond tools and techniques, with a "Finding Your Voice" chapter coming before the listing of "150 Ways to Encourage the Heart" of others.

If you believe that money is the prime motivator of exceptional performance, you may want to spend a few quiet hours with this easy-to-read, how-to manual for getting to the heart of individual performance. This book is recommended for anyone wanting to learn a foundational process for relational leadership. Dennis DeWilde, author of "The Performance Connection"

I did not read this book. I am a corporate librarian and was asked to purchase it for one of our senior vice presidents.

* The famous journalist Walter Lippman once said, "The final test of a leader is that he leaves behind in others the conviction and will to carry on."

* That is the test for all of us, not only those is a managerial position, but all of us. A leader may be the guy in a suit and tie down in the corner office, but a leader can also be the sixty year old woman working as a cashier who knows not to put our bread and canned goods in the same bag.

* Every one of us leads, whether directly or indirectly, in the actions we perform every day. Whether we know it or not, right now, each of us is showing something the right way to be or the wrong way to be.

* James M. Kouzes and Barry Z. Posner, discuss in their bestselling book The Leadership Challenge, the five principles they have found in leaders who have teams that get "extraordinary" things done:

* These leaders:

* Challenge the Process

* Inspire a shared vision

* Enable others to act

* Model the way

* And, Encourage the Heart.

* But what does it mean to "encourage the heart?"

* Encouraging the Heart shows how, with a few main ideas, how each of us - management or not - can take the initiative to bring common courtesy and kindness into the workplace, and how effective that everyday emotional bond between human beings can translate into a successful, more productive, and generally happier workplace.

* And as we all know, the more content the team is, the better that team will be. And a successful team is often attributed to the successful leader of that team. Encouraging the heart forms that connection, and helps boost the overall strength of the team as well as the strength of the leader.