Written by a team of highly experienced and successful executive leadership consultants, this book offers 10 data-driven insights regarding leadership effectiveness, accompanied by practical and easy-to-implement recommendations that directly serve the development of leadership ability. What makes How Leaders Improve: A Playbook for Leaders Who Want to Get Better Now markedly different from and better than the scores of other books on the topic of leadership? Instead of dedicating their efforts to imparting wisdom on what makes a great leader, the three-person leadership training "dream team" behind this book explain how already-effective leaders can actually get better. How Leaders Improve is a data- and research-driven playbook for how any leader can improve their leadership abilities in a practical, immediate way. Authors Gates, Graddy, and Lindekens-all experienced executive coaches and leadership development consultants-have spent their careers developing leaders, and now they share 10 key insights derived from interviews with leaders who achieved significant improvements in their leadership effectiveness. These data-driven insights are augmented by the authors' knowledge of the science behind human behavior change, as well as their experience in developing leaders. The book serves four audiences: leaders looking to improve themselves; organizational stakeholders with the responsibility of developing leaders; individual coaches or managers who want to boost their effectiveness in developing leaders; and educators in the fields of leadership, communication, organizational behavior, organizational psychology, and related fields. Provides insights based on a sample of leaders who improved significantly over time, supplying findings that are based on actual research, not just opinion or anecdotal "evidence" Offers practical and applicable recommendations for how individual leaders, organizations, and coaches/managers can apply the 10 insights shared in the book Provides a novel framework for determining and assessing who is "ripe" for a leadership development opportunity (the RIPEN model), an effective way for individuals or organizations to determine in which leadership candidates to invest precious development resources Supplies strategies for enhancing one's ripeness for a leadership development opportunity

John Gates recounts his middle school years in his autobiographical memoir, 300 W. Garfield. More importantly, he recalls how he and his classmates discovered dating.