New Book on our Shelves: The Leadership Challenge

 Book overview

The main part of the book discusses the five actions that Kouzes and Posner identify as being key for successful leadership:

Model the way

Modeling means going first, living the behaviors you want others to adopt. This is leading from the front. People will believe not what they hear leaders say but what they see leader consistently do.

Inspire a shared vision

People are motivated most not by fear or reward, but by ideas that capture their imagination.
Note that this is not so much about having a vision, but communicating it so effectively that others take it as their own.

Challenge the process

Leaders thrive on and learn from adversity and difficult situations. They are early adopters of innovation.

Enable others to act

Encouragement and exhortation is not enough. People must feel able to act and then must have the ability to put their ideas into action.

Encourage the heart

People act best of all when they are passionate about what they are doing. Leaders unleash the enthusiasm of their followers this with stories and passions of their own.

Book of the Month: From Survival to Recovery

From Survival to Recovery Hardcover

Growing Up in an Alcoholic Home

Hardcover, 308 pages

Item: 3023

ISBN-10: 0910034974

ISBN-13: 9780910034975

Publisher: Al-Anon Family Group Headquarters, Inc.

Published Year: 1994

Online Price: $16.00 Each

Description:

How is it like to grow up in an alcoholic home?

"I have no idea. To survive, I blocked out the pain . . .

in fact, I blocked out everything!"


"Lonely."


"The only person I can honestly say is probably an

alcoholic is my mother, and she didn't have much effect

on me because she left me the day I was born."


"Terrifying!"


"I thought I had escaped and was determined never to

marry a man like my alcoholic father. I didn't. I

married a man like my mother instead."


"Confusing! Embarrassing! Mixed up!"

"I never saw Dad's bottles or noticed his drinking, but

my children did! I was crushed. I felt deceived. Worse,

I felt stupid!"


"I thought adult children were whiners. Then I

discovered I was an adult grandchild, and my mother's

abuse of me was related to grandfather's drinking. A

whole new world of understanding opened up for me."


Al-Anon adult children tell their stories -- with pathos and humor, with courage and rigorous honesty. They lift the many veils of family denial revealing the pain, recovering the past, and renewing the hope for all of us.
Read more: http://www.hazelden.org/OA_HTML/ibeCCtpItmDspRte.jsp?item=3941&sitex=10020:22372:US

Moodswing: Dr. Fieve on Depression

source: http://www.enotalone.com/article/19010.html
Book Description

Fifteen years ago, this groundbreaking book provided new hope for those whose lives were devastated by moodswings and depression. Now, in this newly revised and updated edition, Dr. Ronald R. Fieve, the pioneer in the treatment of depression in America, offers an even brighter prognosis. Major advances in drug therapy have provided dramatic chemical "cures" that alleviate symptoms faster, more efficiently, and at a lower cost that ever before.


In this revised and expanded Moodswing, Dr. Fieve sheds new light on the causes and symptoms of specific mood disorders, including manic depression, seasonal depression, and PMS. Then, through case studies, he illustrates the effective use of the latest diagnostic methods and drug treatments. He also provides fascinating information on:

Why creative types are often prone to manic-depressive disorders - the results of a fifteen-year follow-up study.

How manic depression, alcoholism, and substance abuse go hand in hand.


How presidents, Pulitzer Prize-winning playwrights, and Wall Street wizards can benefit from "manic advantage," but crumble when their moods crash.


The revolutionary uses of one of psychiatry's greatest wonder drugs: lithium, as well as new material on the latest antidepressant drugs.


Why teenage and adult suicide is on the upswing and what friends and family can do to prevent it.


Why traditional psychoanalysis in the treatment of depression is, in many cases, no longer necessary.



About the Author
Ronald R. Fieve, M.D.

Internationally renowned psychiatrist Ronald R. Fieve, M.D. is the pioneer in the use of lithium for manic depression in America. A graduate of Harvard Medical School, he served his residencies in internal medicine at New York Hospital and in psychiatry at Columbia-Presbyterian Medical Center. He is professor of clinical psychiatry at Columbia University, the founder of the former Foundation for Depression and Manic Depression and current executive medical director of the new Foundation for Mood Disorders.