Improv Leadership: How to Lead Well in Every Moment

There's no script for effective leadership. But you don't need one.

Anyone who's learned the basics of an instrument can follow a chord chart or play from sheet music, but only musicians who have carefully developed their talent can improvise. Instead of being limited to the notes on the page, great improvisers draw on the theory and techniques they've learned in the past to create something original in the present.

The same is true of great leaders. Anyone can read a few books and apply the lessons, but only the best leaders can bring out the best in any person, in any situation. These improvisational leaders understand the key principles of connecting, coaching, and communicating and use these ideas to build strong teams.

In Improv Leadership, Stan L. Endicott and David A. Miller share five leadership competencies:

• Story Mining--uncovering a person's story and letting it shape the way you lead them
• Precision Praising--crafting praise to inspire, motivate, and even course-correct your team
• Metaphor Cementing--using concrete illustrations to "cement" an idea in someone's mind
• Lobbing Forward--challenging people to look beyond today to what might be in the future
• Going North--using indirect influence to redirect a person's perspective

IMPROV leaders apply these five competencies to initiate powerful conversations, create memorable moments, and craft personal coaching strategies that help people grow. Improv Leadership cultivates teams of people who love their work (and each other), who perform at a high level, and who stop the disruptive carousel of staff turnover.

Stan L. Endicott and David A. Miller have worked together to identify the overarching competencies of effective leadership and develop concrete tools to help every reader become a leader who understands how to grow teams one moment and one relationship at a time. The five competencies of IMPROV Leadership are not rigid sequential steps, nor do they apply only to specific industries or fields. Instead, this book will meet the felt need for leadership growth with "evergreen" principles that can be successfully introduced into any situation.

You can't predict every challenge you'll face. There's no playbook that covers every decision. But with practice in Improv Leadership you can lead well in every situation.