It’s January of a new year. That’s 365 unused days lined up in the customary orderly pattern of weeks and months waiting for your input.

What will you do with them?

If you’re a leader and want to drive change, make an impact, lift performance, or rescue a sagging bottom line, Terry William’s The Brain Based Boss could make 2013 the year your annual resolution to become a better boss comes true.

The Brain Based Boss is an imminently readable and actionable text. It’s provoking. It’s thoroughly researched, and it relates to us. This is for New Zealanders by a New Zealander, and where possible, articles and data reference up-to-date local sources.

Why yet another ‘how to lead’ text?

Because, says Terry, managing people is not primarily about getting them to do ‘x’ or even ‘y’ on time. Neither is it about ‘communication’. Nothing activates the delete function faster than a random email or three rah-rahing up the workers to do their best in these ‘challenging times’.

Instead, says Terry, it’s about becoming a leader. This book is not more about the old adage ‘don’t do what I do but do what I say’. If we want to inspire we need to be inspiring! We need to actively use our brains.

Aside from the challenge to creatively reinvent ourselves, Williams maps out where to place management effort for maximum return. Do you issue ‘one-size-fits-all’ messages and directives to your employees? Or do you focus on those whom you know you can forge a genuine relationship with?

Terry explains that research shows 26% of all employees are actively engaged, 28% are actively disengaged and 46% are ambivalent. Those, he says are the ones ripe for targeting. Rather than reaching out to hire a new super-wunder-kinde to lead your entire workforce smiling through the morass of ho-hum to a-ha, focus on your Martins, Marthas, and Marshas who dutifully present themselves on a daily basis for another dose of mumble-mumble mediocrity.

Terry builds a compelling case for consciously changing leadership styles - a blend of carefully documented research and personal story telling drawn from his years of delivering front line training and business experience to dare management to do something different.

Take 5 principles, add structure and fascinating information...

Based on five principles: self awareness, mastery, autonomy, purpose and influencing others, the book is structured to deliver satisfying servings. Each chapter introduces an idea, provides supporting research based evidence and stories, as well as techniques and activities (Stop - Think - Act) to develop and integrate it.

Read and you’ll find out why it’s better to be hard working rather than smart, or why the ability to exercise self-discipline is an indicator of positive mental health and potential achievement. Along the way you’ll be introduced to gems such as American psychologist, Walter Mischel’s ground breaking 1960’s ‘marshmallow test’ on pre-schoolers. (Subsequent follow-up showed those able to postpone or delay gratification as youngsters had the highest likelihood of fulfilling their goals as adults. These were leaders in the making. Click to see the original footage on You Tube.)

The Brain Based Boss is serious infotainment; good to read, good to mull over and more than good enough to act on. To change the ‘same old same old’ in your workplace, change yourself.

Find out more

• Check out the book in the Thomson Reuters NZ catalogue
• Visit Terry William's website

What others have said about The Brain Based Boss ...

“This is a refreshingly written work that provides key insights into how managers can greatly enhance their success in leading people. In a simplified manner backed up by excellent research studies quoted for validation and summarised with ideas for application, Terry provides some great insights tinged with his own brand of light humour to bring to life a very practical tool for all leaders.”

Derek Good, CEO, Rapid Results