(July 24, 2024) urges you to read a daily dose of Dick Daniels from his hot-off-the-press book,
to see book recommendations in all 20 management buckets (core competencies).
Recalibrate Your Calling Every DayFor years, I’ve urged leaders to “get a daily dose of Drucker”—insights every day from Peter Drucker (1909-2005), the father of modern management. (Read my review of
The Daily Drucker.)
But that was the 20th century, Pearson! What are you recommending for the next generation of leaders and managers? I’m glad you asked!
Dick Daniels has done it again! Two of his earlier books captured my “book-of-the-year” honors. Will
The 365 Day Leader get top billing in 2024? (Stay tuned.) In the meantime, you will love this “daily dose of Dr. D.” Every day features a short “snapshot of what exemplary leaders consistently do.”
Examples:•
LEADERSHIP DELUSION! “Have You Ever Had a Coach? The leadership delusion is to assume everyone needs a coach except you.” (Day 3)
•
MUSEUM TERMINOLOGY. “A ‘Curator’ is defined as the keeper or custodian of a museum or other collections. Leaders are ‘Curators’ of organizational culture which is the collection of the company’s vision, mission, values, and strategy.” (Day 15)
•
ETHICS MADE EASY. “Wrong is never right even if everyone does it. Right is never wrong even if no one does it.” (Day 17)
•
PRIORITIES. “The capacity of a leader increases when they protect their time and their priorities to address the important more than the urgent.” (Day 23)
•
FINAL INTERVIEW QUESTIONS. “The Professional Competence Question: Can they do the job? The Personal Drive Question: Do they want to do the job? The Cultural Fit Question: Will we like them while they do the job?” (Day 30)
•
THE TOXIC TEAM MEMBER. “Waiting too long while making well-intended attempts to bring the toxic member up, brings everyone else down.” (Day 36)
•
KNOW YOUR TEAM. “If you don’t know the uniqueness of each direct report, then you will never understand how to uniquely develop them either.” (Day 44)
•
NO JOKE! “It’s no joke that leaders are human… It’s no joke that leaders make mistakes… It’s no joke that great leaders admit it!” (Day 50)
•
LEADERSHIP WORDS MATTER. “Tomorrow, you may not remember what you said today, but some of your words may stick with a team member forever.” (Day 55)
Oh, my. Each day—each short bellringer—is a team engagement conversation waiting to happen. The wisdom oozes off the page. The insights are fresh. The leadership poke-in-the-ribs, well…convicting! More examples:
•
Day 60: Three Questions to Ask Before Signing the Offer Letter • Day 85: The Eisenhower Matrix (the four quadrants: Do, Schedule, Delegate, Delete)
• Day 160: When Plan “A” Doesn’t Work
• Day 161: I’m Leading. What Could Go Wrong?
Did I mention gut-checks and pokes-in-the-ribs? Pick a page—any page—and you’ll be reminded to “recalibrate your calling every day.” (I love that!) But you’ll also be compelled to leverage these lifelong learning principles as you invest in developing your direct reports.
•
LEADERSHIP DEVELOPMENT CONSEQUENCES. “It’s so much better to develop your supervisors, managers, and leaders even if they leave, rather than not develop them and they stay.” (Day 56)
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THE EMOTIONAL QUESTION. “Is this the best time, place, person, and level of intensity to express what I am feeling in this moment?” (Day 199)
•
THE DANGER OF THE 15%. “Some leaders are often right. It’s a powerful gift to be a subject matter expert and be right even 85% of the time. The danger is when a leader assumes they are right 100% of the time. It becomes a personal blind spot 15% of the time when they are wrong but think they are right.” (Day 200)
•
LOOKING FOR THE SILVER BULLET. “Leaders would love a guaranteed quick solution for difficult problems. There are no quick fixes for complex issues. Start by looking for the root cause. That just might be the silver bullet.” (Day 206)
I’m a big fan of Dick Daniels. Read my reviews of his other three books and you’ll see why this gifted leader and author received a stunning endorsement for
The 365 Day Leader from
Marshall Goldsmith, the Thinkers50 #1 Executive Coach.
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Hardwiring New Leadership Habits: Does Development Develop? by Dick Daniels
[ ]
Leadership Core: Character, Competence, Capacity (Leadership Multipliers), by Dick Daniels
[ ]
Leadership Briefs: Shaping Organizational Culture to Stretch Leadership Capacity, by Dick Daniels
I had the privilege of writing a one-page preface for
The 365 Day Leader. I wrote, “So why do we need 365 daily nudges on leadership? The late Zig Ziglar wrote, ‘People often say that motivation doesn't last.
Well, neither does bathing—that’s why we recommend it daily.’
I’m loving my daily dose of Dick Daniels!”I mention my preface—reluctantly—because I just posted this gem on my office wall:
TOO ARROGANT OR TOO HUMBLE?
“What is one thing you could do differently
to avoid arrogance and practice genuine humility?”
(Day 362)
Trust me. Leadership is messy, and as Daniels promises,
“Every leader will face at least one impossible situation during their leadership tenure.” We need all the help we can get and gratefully—help has arrived! Leverage the introduction in
The 365 Day Leader and review the six “How To” steps for your weekly staff meeting—to help your team answer the “So What?” questions of exemplary leadership.
Brilliant!TO ORDER FROM AMAZON, click on the title for
The 365 Day Leader: Recalibrate Your Calling Every Day, by Dick Daniels.
Note: You may be able to purchase the book at a discounted price at Ingram Spark: hardcover or paperback.
YOUR WEEKLY STAFF MEETING QUESTIONS:1) Planning an early fall team or board retreat? Read my blog, “Team Retreat Engagement Plan: 4 Books by Dick Daniels,”
[to be reposted in 2026] for an idea on how to inspire team members to summarize a book chapter in four minutes. (Hint: You’ll need a few Starbucks cards!)
What inspires you to read a leadership book? A crisis or an opportunity? 2) In 2015, I cajoled 42 friends and colleagues to be guest bloggers for my
Drucker Mondays blog—a 52-week journey through the book,
A Year with Peter Drucker: 52 Weeks of Coaching for Leadership Effectiveness, by Joseph A. Maciariello.
[to be reposted in 2026]. Each Monday in 2015, we featured a Drucker fan and his or her favorite snippet from the week's topic.
What’s your favorite Druckerism? IDEAS: In “The Drucker Bucket” chapter of Mastering the Management Buckets, I list five ways to engage your team in practicing the art of leadership and management: 1) Stand and read, 2) Boot and read, 3) Email and read, 4) Post and read, and 5) Brown bag and read.
Mastering 100 Must-Read Books
Part 15: Feeble Faith and Flabby WorshipBook #85 of 100: The CureFor your team meeting this week, inspire a team member to lead your “10 Minutes for Lifelong Learning” session by featuring Book #85 in
Mastering 100 Must-Read Books.
The Cure:
What If God Isn’t Who You Think He Is
and Neither Are You
by John Lynch, Bruce McNicol and Bill Thrall
Books #82 through #86 spotlight five soul-strengthening books to connect you with the God of the Universe.
The Cure gently describes (in story and commentary) two profound fork-in-the-road choices. One fork: a
“Pleasing God” sign points me to a giant building labeled “Striving Hard to Be All God Wants Me to Be.” The door has a title, “Self-Effort.”
• Order from
Amazon:
The Cure •
Download the 100 Must-Read Books list (from John and Jason Pearson).
The other option:
“The Room of Grace!” The authors write, “Grace! That word appears 122 times in the New Testament. The Judaizers in the Apostle Paul’s day hated it. They feared what it would do if it got loose. ‘Paul, you can’t tell them this!’ they said. ‘These people are immature, lazy and have little religious background. They’ll abuse as soon as they can. They’ll live Christianity-lite. These people are weak and want to do whatever they want. And believe me, what they want is not good.’”
CLICK HERE FOR BOOKS BY JOHN
Issue No. 658 of Your Weekly Staff Meeting (Oct. 3, 2025) features a new book coming Oct. 7—describing the four seasons of a CEO. The “...
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