7 Entrepreneurial Leadership Workouts

Stephanie Jones is Associate Professor of Organizational Behavior at Maastricht School of Management, consulting, training and teaching MBAs.Martin Tynan is currently VP Human Resources for a global technology organization headquartered in California, USA.

• Acknowledgements; Introduction;1 Workout 1: Letting Go of Autonomy–from Founder-Led to Team Leadership–and Beyond; 2 Workout 2: Anticipating Future Problems–from Solving One at a Time to Coping with Many–from the Here and Now to the Future; 3 Workout 3: Changing Your Focus–from Being Customer- Driven to Problem- Solving 360°–from Looking Outside to Looking Inside; 4 Workout 4: Allowing for Role Evolution–from Lack of Role Clarity to Role Definition; 5 Workout 5: Coping with Risk–from One Single Point of Failure to Juggling Several Products, Processes and People Issues–Understanding Systemic Risk; 6 Workout 6: Managing Culture Change–Understanding Person–Culture Fit from an Additive Start-Up to the Values of a Sustainable Business; 7 Workout 7: Building a Growth Mindset–from Start-Up to Sustainable Growth; 8 Bringing the Workouts to Life; Conclusion : Keeping in Shape: An Ongoing Process; References.

“The authors have created valuable leadership workouts to help raise a business from start-up through robust scale-up. Useful exercises for leaders and teams provide tools to develop specific business ‘muscle groups’ to achieve overall entrepreneurial strength. A must read to reach top condition in the business world!”— Arthur J. Wolak, PhD, author of The Development of Managerial Culture, and Religion and Contemporary Management, member of the Board of Governors of Gratz College“The blending of empirical commentaries and practical experiments makes this an intelligent, approachable and pragmatic text, creating a dynamic book that will engage entrepreneurs and entrepreneurial faculty. The authors demonstrate the value of theory for practitioners without any oversimplification or condensation. Indeed, this is an example for other academics on making theory relevant to practice.” — Prof David Bevan, Director of Postgraduate and Doctoral Programme in Sustainable Innovation, St Martin’s Inst. of Higher Ed., Malta“As a practitioner and entrepreneur, leading my own team in my start-up business–I like the theme and concept. I would definitely recommend it. As a student I have read many self-help leadership books. I see this as an inspirational read, with lots of ideas. It’s not trying to explain theory, but is very strong on practice, so this book would be suitable for Executive MBAs or other practical courses.” — Thomas Noel Collister Jackson LLB LLM Solicitor, Partner at Smart Law Solicitors LLP, Cofounder of Pardus Bloom Ltd“Reading through this, I found the book interesting and informative. The sections on driving culture, describing culture in big business settings, were especially intriguing. When an organization reaches a certain size, the culture becomes organic above and beyond the founder or executive. This title demonstrates this concept well.”— Edward Buckingham, Professor, Monash Business School, Melbourne, Australia