leadership Archives - Big-Hearted Leadership

Best Leadership Books

May 28, 2020/in Blog/by Donn Sorensen

Sharing my views and experience throughout Big-Hearted Leadership has been incredibly rich and meaningful, and it means a great deal to me that it has helped so many current and aspiring leaders in our communities. And, while I’m honored to share my philosophy on effective leadership, I embrace the input of other thoughtful individuals on the subject as well. If you’re looking to add additional management books to your collection, I’m sharing my own personally curated list for some of the best leadership books:

Leaders Eat Last: Why Some Teams Pull Together and Others Don’t by Simon Sinek

The concept behind the title comes from the military practice of Marine Corps officers getting in line for their meal after all of those with lower seniority have been served. This daily ritual underscores the importance of leaders’ willingness to sacrifice their own comfort for the good of those they serve, and it makes for a powerful analogy as the central tenet of the book. Sinek is a well-respected thought leader on the subject of organizational behavior, and his TED talk “Start with Why” consistently ranks in the 25 most popular.

Wooden on Leadership: How to Create a Winning Organization by John Wooden with Steve Jamison

Team sports make for an excellent and practical study of organizations and leadership, and I can’t think of many in a position to offer insights along those lines than universally revered college basketball coach John Wooden. Wooden is a prime example of the humble leader who instills the philosophy of putting the good of the team first in all of his players, and his fundamentally sound advice serves as a valuable playbook for the leadership team of any organization.

Crucial Conversations: Tools for Talking When Stakes are High by Kerry Patterson, Joseph Grenny, Ron McMillan, and Al Switzler

While this one is not strictly categorized as a leadership book, I still include it among the best leadership books I own. It’s a great primer on communication, specifically aimed at providing a strategy for maintaining logic and balance in crucial, high pressure interactions. Any leader or aspiring leader would benefit from a read or a review of this straightforward and practical book.

Dare to Lead: Tough Work. Brave Conversations. Whole Hearts. by Brene Brown

Another pop-culture icon and hugely popular TED talk creator, Brene Brown has earned her reputation as a psychology guru of sorts. She is a researcher and professor at the University of Houston, and in this, her most recent #1 New York Times Bestseller, she writes “I define a leader as anyone who takes responsibility for finding the potential in people and processes, and who has the courage to develop that potential.” Her work speaks to cultivating and empowering leaders or aspiring leaders by encouraging vulnerability and bravery, and her background, research and experience provide the credibility to make her presentation compelling.

Delivering Happiness: A Path to Profits, Passion, and Purpose by Tony Hsieh

Written by the founder of hugely successful internet retailer Zappos.com, this book underscores the concept that passion for one’s work is the key to fulfillment, happiness and success. Hsieh recounts his foundation, his missteps, and his ultimate success in a book that is both witty and moving, but it is his focus on intentional and thoughtful creation of an organization’s culture that makes this such a valuable read for leaders of all kinds.

Shoe Dog: A Memoir by the Creator of Nike by Phil Knight

As a brand, Nike has gone from barely noticeable to iconic, and that journey in itself sparks interest. Add in that the creator and long-time CEO of the brand is notoriously private and in this book offers up a remarkably in-depth look into his life and the early, struggling days of the company, and this becomes a must-read. Knight urges those seeking career advice early in life to find their calling–what they must-do–rather than a career or a job, and this along with his obvious passion for his work make this not just a favorite book of mine but one that both Bill Gates and Warren Buffett count among their picks for the best leadership books as well.

Leadership Keynote Speaker and Author Donn Sorensen speaking at event

Big-Hearted Leadership with Donn Sorensen: Balance

April 2, 2020/in News/by Donn Sorensen

Originally published on Gazelle Magazine | April 3, 2020

by VICKI FRENCH BENNINGTON

Photo by David Kilper

Balancing your home and personal life with your work life can sometimes be a struggle. But yet, if you don’t work on creating and maintaining that equilibrium, something (or someone) will suffer.

Health care industry leader Donn Sorensen knows how important it is to create the right balance, which will in turn, help you achieve happiness in all areas of your life. And once you’ve achieved your life balance, how do you maintain your balance as a leader?

Sorensen says providing a sound organizational structure that supports your people shows them that you care. The quality of people’s work experience, which will influence the quality of their lives, is tied to the quality of the structure their leader provides. He let us in on some of the principles he’s learned and developed into his own leadership roles over the course of his more than 30-year career.

How can you insure balance within the work place? One way is to define goals and make sure the entire team is working toward those same goals. If you don’t have a good structure in place, your employees will be without direction, goals and accomplishments. This is not a good balance for the employees or for the organization.

How do you know if you have a good structure in place? Simply ask yourself if you are successful as an organization. Are your employees happy because you have the right policies, protocols and procedures? Does the community support and embrace you? If you answer yes to these questions, you are probably on the right track.

How does the organizational method LEAN help a company and its employees stay in balance? Two of LEAN’s core principles are the continual educational development of employees, and granting employees on every level the input into their work processes to halt production if they identify a threat to quality. Originally developed by Toyota of Japan, it eliminates waste, simplifies processes, and maintains only the procedures and actions that add value – but never at the expense of employees. And you don’t have to be in manufacturing for it to work. The method works almost universally – no matter what your business.

How do you project “or sell” a new structure to others? Be confident, always enthusiastic, compassionate and empathetic. Believe in what you are doing, and do it now. Once you’ve provided the proper framework, your people will be happier, and business will improve.

Sorensen’s career has helped to produce many things: success for the health care organization he works for, expanded health care services to more patients, care closer to home, improved patient experience, and the development of management teams with big hearts and a high level of expertise and satisfaction. As executive vice president of operations for Mercy Health and regional president of Mercy’s West region, he works diligently to improve the overall patient experience at Mercy, and to develop strong and compassionate leaders.

Sorensen is a Fellow of the American College of Medical Practice Executives and a former board chair for the American Medical Group Association. For more information on “Big-Hearted Leadership,” visit donnsorensen.com. Sorensen’s book, “Big-Hearted Leadership,” goes into more detail concerning the art of balance, and how finding that magic mix can make for a more satisfying career, a happy, fulfilled life – and a successful and profitable organization.

Living Big-Hearted Leadership

May 24, 2019/in Uncategorized/by Donn Sorensen

Howard White, Vice President of the Jordan brand at Nike, embodies the principles of a Big-Hearted Leader. In his podcast episode of This I Believe, he shares more on his driving philosophy on humanity: “I believe every single person deserves to be acknowledged, however small or simple the greeting.”

LISTEN HERE

In Real Life – Social Interaction

May 2, 2019/in Blog/by Donn Sorensen

I’ve always been a huge advocate of face to face contact whenever possible. It provides a more effective platform for communicating, it feels more sincere, and it allows for greater clarity–all of which reduce the likelihood of a misunderstanding and make a more compelling case for succeeding at an intended accomplishment. It seemed intuitive to me that the loss of eye contact and real-life interaction lowers the connectivity and mutual understanding involved in an interaction, and my professional and personal experience have proven that suspicion to be true. Beyond the intuition and the support of communication theory, however, it appears that there are concrete biological indicators to validate these suppositions. As Susan Pinker explains in her TED talk, social interaction helps us to live longer, healthier lives; watch as she explains more, including how “face-to-face contact releases a whole cascade of neurotransmitters, and like a vaccine, they protect you now in the present and well into the future. So simply making eye contact with somebody, shaking hands, giving somebody a high-five is enough to release oxytocin, which increases your level of trust and it lowers your cortisol levels. So it lowers your stress.” It’s just one more way that being an effective, competent and caring leader not only makes you stronger and better at your job, it also makes for a better life.

Get your copy of Big-Hearted Leadership TODAY!

two people yelling at eachother via megaphones

Moving Beyond Polarization

April 24, 2019/in Blog/by Donn Sorensen

We live in an era during which polarization is becoming the norm, and it can be incredibly disheartening. From partisanship in politics to outrage over what someone hears when listening to an audio clip (remember the Yanni/Laurel debate) to longstanding sports rivalries, this concept is ingrained in our modern culture. Yet this is also a completely avoidable phenomenon. By setting intentions for ourselves, we can apply the principles of Big Hearted Leadership and overcome this impulse. We can show grace for others and still maintain a strong position of our own. And when we do, amazing things can happen. In the below video clip, Malcolm Gladwell gives a powerful example of this as he explains how crime has significantly decreased in Brownsville, New York due to the firm yet graceful methodologies employed by the housing commissioner.

One glowing light man raising his hand among other people on light green pastel color background with reflections and shadows .

Doing Well by Doing Good

April 11, 2019/in Blog/by Donn Sorensen

There exists a commonly held conception that compassion and empathy are at odds with indicators of financial success, and this is a notion that we need to work hard to combat because it is simply not accurate. Doing well by doing good is not only feasible, it is probable both in business and in life. Acting in an ethical manner makes for sound, long-term productivity and reliability, and these translate into growth in profitability and market share. This is a concept I address in the first chapter of my book–structure is imperative, and being ethical and heartfelt are fundamental to creating reliable, effective structure.

Because I operate in this manner, it was no surprise to me to learn about the benefits of being mindful of environmental, social and governance (ESG) factors in investing; think of factors relating to how corporations treat their workers, build trust and foster innovation, respond to climate change, and manage their supply chains. According to the UN document Who Cares Wins (backed by prominent investment firms worldwide including Credit Suisse and Morgan Stanley), “Companies that perform better with regard to these issues can increase shareholder value by, for example, properly managing risks, anticipating regulatory action or accessing new markets.” Additionally, according to Forbes contributor and investment professional Georg Kell, not only is “good corporate sustainability performance associated with good financial results,” but also “in many important markets, including the U.S. and the EU, ESG integration is increasingly seen as part of fiduciary duty.“

The bottom line is that approaching leadership, business, life, and even investing with a compassionate philosophy isn’t just the right thing to do. Done correctly and intelligently, it’s also the more beneficial, effective and profitable route to success.

Leading With Empathy

April 9, 2019/in Blog/by Donn Sorensen

As seen in Forbes by Joresa Blount

Ben Horowitz is not your regular venture capitalist. As half of Andreessen Horowitz, one of the largest venture capital firms, he knows a thing or two about surviving the ups and downs of startup life. Horowitz, who is also the author of The Hard Thing About Hard Things, shed some truth of being a CEO.

“Running your own company is incredibly emotionally challenging,” he said. There was a time when he would wake up in the middle of the night trying to figure out a way to save a startup. He admits being a CEO is something you learn on the job. Some founders of startups he has invested in never held that role previously. “It’s easier to teach the innovator how to be a CEO than to teach a CEO how to be an innovator,” he explained. “It’s great to have someone on your board that has actually started a company and been CEO,” said Horowitz.

Since being a great leader is something that happens day to day on the job, Horowitz did have one essential tip for founders, according to MillionaireMatch. “I think people skills seem to be highly underestimated in terms of the stability to run a company,” he said. “The ability to understand other people’s motivation, those you talk to and those you aren’t talking to,” he continued. In an article from 2010, Horowitz noted three key traits of a leader:

The ability to articulate the vision.
The right kind of ambition.
The ability to achieve the vision.

Now, the keyword attached to leadership is empathy. Instead of it being categorized as a soft skill, it’s in the file of essentials if you want to be an effective leader. Donn Sorensen, author of Big-Hearted Leadership, says that empathy is what makes one organization outperform another. Sorensen writes in the section of his book titled Value Vulnerability, “Instead of being the kind of leader who makes him or herself unapproachable or unassailable, you should be the first person to say when you’ve screwed up. In other words, give them your weaknesses, not just your strength.” Sorensen lays out what qualities a great leader should have which includes genuineness, integrity, emotional intelligence, resolve, courage and most of all tenderness and enthusiasm. “The common mistake is they focus on themselves and their own success, trappings of the office and return on investment. Those may be fine, however a CEO will not be highly successful unless they focus on their people and put them first,” said Sorensen.

Embrace March Madness

March 27, 2019/in Blog, March Madness/by Donn Sorensen

As we welcome and embrace all things March Madness, it’s a great time to reflect on the importance of character. In sports, in life, and in leadership, a person’s character trumps almost any other factor at play in any given scenario. This is why I believe so strongly in being a big-hearted leader and why I feel compelled to spread not only that belief but the reasoning behind it and the inspiration I find in it with other current and aspiring leaders. Beloved UCLA basketball coach John Wooden embraced a compassionate leadership philosophy, and it showed in the players he developed as well as his teams’ impressive performance (his career coaching win-loss percentage is a remarkable .804 and he led UCLA to win a record 10 National Championships). During this NCAA tournament season, I honor and admire his legacy, his character based philosophy, and his demonstrated success in his distinguished career.

Being Genuine Online

March 11, 2019/in Social Media/by Donn Sorensen

I have a chapter in my book entitled “Turn Your Organization into a Force for Good,” and it’s a concept I feel very strongly about. Leaders have the ability to galvanize entities into action, and it’s important to optimize that potential to do good in our communities. In the same regard, I really find it to be a moral imperative that as leaders, we offer as much positivity and inspiration to others as we’re able.

While this certainly applies to our organizations and communities, it extends beyond that into the realm of social media as well. The current climate of what can best be described as conflicting and full of animosity is toxic, and we can all do better. Whether we are leaders or aspiring leaders in our professional lives or not, we can apply the principles of Big Hearted Leadership to our individual presence on social media to make a concerted effort at changing the nature of the conversation.

Being generous in your genuineness is one of the five pillars of Big-Hearted Leadership, and applying this principle to our social media lives could go a long way towards improving the climate. As a society, we value vulnerability and the courage to be authentic in others, yet it can be incredibly hard for us to exhibit these qualities ourselves. Big-Hearted Leaders take this risk, and they do it wholeheartedly and with enthusiasm. If each of us vows to increase our willingness to be genuine, and we extend this to our social media channels, we will transform the content our social circles are consuming, thereby initiating momentum for them to feel emboldened to become more genuine in their interactions. We are the authors of social media’s fate, so let’s make it a force for good.

Get your copy of Big-Hearted Leadership today.

Leadership Keynote Speaker and Author Donn Sorensen

Big-Hearted Leadership in a New World

February 7, 2017/in News/by bizzybizzy1

Download the article from AMGA

One of the most memorable tunes in the classic musical, Damn Yankees, opens with a coach telling his
players, “This game of baseball is only one-half skill. The other half is something else, something bigger.
You gotta have heart.” This important message from a leader inspiring his team is particularly resonant in health care, where a combination of heart and skill are essential. In this issue focusing on leadership, we thought we’d ask an AMGA leader who has written about skill and heart to provide some insight.

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