You're a manager. A leader. You come to work and are faced with challenges from the moment you walk through the door (not to mention the ones that followed you home the previous evening). Some of these challenges are internal, some are external. They will also change across your life span and career span.

How are you doing in your response to these challenges? Are you clear on what they are? Could you become more effective at responding to each? What actions will you commit to, in order to move forward?

Up to now, much leadership development within organizations has been through the use of competency models. You've probably experienced this. It will have been decided what behaviours your organization wants to see in its leaders - if they are to be effective. Like the NHS 16 Qualities. The organization then creates and runs a 360 feedback on each manager, the results of which often need an expert to interpret the wad of pages of data. You, the manager probably came away with a few insights and then put the report at the bottom of a deep drawer. And forgot about it.

There is another way. One that you own and that therefore you are far more involved in. It ceases to be something that's done to you - it becomes something you do. Our approach is to engage you in setting the agenda yourself. You become the expert. And you see where you need to act - and how.

With the 18 Challenges:

• You create an agenda for your development that is both simple and that you own.
• You get practical process to help you coach yourself to develop in the leadership challenges that you have identified.
• You identify the interferences - the internal and external blockages - to leadership effectiveness and help you to reduce or remove their impact.

This is the ONLY leadership book that is designed so that you only have to read the chapters you want and need and you can leave the others until you are ready or you need them.

Most leadership books focus either on the theory around leadership or underline the business importance of different aspects of leadership. This book is not about trying to come up with new theories; it is about making the existing theories and models accessible to everyone in a way that helps them put them to work.

This is the book that will allow you to:

Understand

what the key challenges of leadership are

Reflect on your ability to tackle each

Develop your ability to be more effective

Act to become a better leader