Marcus Warner - Rare Leadership in the Workplace: Four Habits that Improve Focus, Engagement, and Productivity

The bedrock of leadership is being the right kind of person, not simply the person with the right ideas. Without a cultivated core, leaders will not mature with their responsibilities and opportunities to serve. Rare Leadership in the Workplace guides leaders through the critical rooted growth that enables them to lead their teams to new heights.

Roger Parrott

President of Belhaven University and author of The Longview: Lasting Strategies for Rising Leaders

I loved Rare Leadership in the Workplace! Marcus and Jim make a compelling, scientifically verified case that the key to mature, effective leadership is the high-powered fuel of joy. This book will convince you of that truth and provide a practical roadmap to returning to joy each day so you can do your most exceptional work.

Jordan Raynor

National bestselling author of Called to Create and Master of One

Just about every book on leadership relives the same worn messageinspire, motivate, be a visionary, get great results. Rare Leadership in the Workplace is that one leadership book in a thousand you should actually read and apply.

Chuck Blakeman

Author of Making Money Is Killing Your Business

As a business owner and CEO, I learned long ago my business exists for more than profit. It must be a force for good in the world around us. Rare Leadership in the Workplace by Marcus Warner and Jim Wilder adds brain science to the fundamental leadership principles that instruct us to seek true successcontentment with joy.

Martin Ozinga III

Chairman, Ozinga

In Rare Leadership in the Workplace, we get some simple yet profound answers. In my blue-collar world, I need practical concepts I can personally implement and teach to my staff. This book is possibly the most concise and relevant book on leadership I have ever read. It doesnt bog down the reader with theory but helps us tap into the deep reality that mature leaders create effective work cultures and that joy is a powerful force in the workplace.

Dave Hataj

Author of Good Work; president and owner of Edgerton Gear, Inc.

Jim Wilder is an unsung hero with remarkably powerful concepts that are truly life-changing. Rare Leadership in the Workplace is an absolute must-read for business leaders who strive for uncommon impact in their world. This book is an instruction manual on doing life differently as a business leader from a truth-focused point of view. The RARE habits are incredibly applicable throughout countless facets of life, and in the workplace, these habits will carry you to extraordinary success!

Jeff Reeter

Entrepreneur, business leader, speaker, author

Rare Leadership in the Workplace, written as a primer that is both practical and profound, is full of ideas that will revitalize a leaders style, recommit them to the desire to innovate, and finally release them to constantly evaluate. Offered in a pull-push format, the approach offered by Warner and Wilder is partly qualitative and partly quantitative. Its formulaic approach is easy to adapt and more importantly encouraging to adopt. It truly is a refreshing and timely offering that will strengthen the leadership toolbox of individuals and institutions.

Krish Dhanam

Former Vice President of Ziglar Worldwide; CEO of Skylife Success; coauthor of Hardheaded & Softhearted (with the former president of Microsoft)

2021 by
JIM WILDER AND MARCUS WARNER

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form without permission in writing from the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.

Some content in this book was adapted from content previously published on lifemodel.org.

Edited by Elizabeth Cody Newenhuyse
Interior design: Puckett Smartt
Cover design: Erik M. Peterson
Cover image of trees copyright by ykononova/Shutterstock (254219002). All rights reserved.
Jim Wilder photo: Christopher Kamman

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Wilder, Jim, author. | Warner, Marcus, author.

Title: Rare leadership in the workplace : four habits that improve focus, engagement, and productivity / Jim Wilder, Marcus Warner.

Description: Chicago : Northfield Publishing, [2021] | Includes bibliographical references. | Summary: Combining theology, cutting-edge brain science, and decades of counseling and consulting experience, Rare Leadership shows you how to take your leadership and team to the next level. Whether you are burnt out or just looking to improve, it will revive your leadership and equip you to lead healthy, happy, and effective teams--Provided by publisher.

Identifiers: LCCN 2020053384 (print) | LCCN 2020053385 (ebook) | ISBN 9780802421906 (print) | ISBN 9780802499318 (ebook)

Subjects: LCSH: Leadership. | Organizational behavior.

Classification: LCC HD57.7 .W5237 2021 (print) | LCC HD57.7 (ebook) | DDC 658.4/092--dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020053384

LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020053385

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What separates the leaders we love to follow from those we have to follow? The answer comes down to one word: maturity. We love following leaders who handle themselves like adults. At best we tolerate leaders who are immature, because they add trouble to the problems we already face.

The best leaders are not just visionaries, they are mature people. They handle relationships and tasks with excellence. There is a secret to this type of maturity. These people have learned how to run their lives on the high-octane fuel of joy. That may be surprising to you. There arent a lot of leadership books citing joy as the key to success. But relational joy is crucial to leadership effectiveness. When leaders recognize that joy is not simply the icing on the cake of a good day, but the fuel that drives what they do, it can sustain them through the hard issues and the weight that comes with leadership.

Motivation is all about emotion. Leaders who constantly motivate themselves and their team with negatives like fear, anger, and shame will not thrive for long. Leaders who learn to love the people they are working with, handle their emotions with competence, and keep themselves and others inspired by what brings joy become leaders we love to follow.

In this book we want to help you become a more effective leader. What makes a leader effective are the accumulated skills and habits we use without ever thinking about them. When you develop the skills and habits related to maturity, they become a part of you and start showing up automatically which greatly increases your effectiveness.

You can grow both your ability to live with joy and your ability to lead with maturity, and we want to help. These two goals are actually inseparable. Mature people handle the hardships of life well because they know how to remain relational under stress, act like themselves when problems arise, and return to joy after their emotions get triggered. None of this is possible without learning skills and building habits that increase your ability to run on the fuel of joy.