No Yelling: The 9 Secrets of Marine Corps Leadership You Must Know to Win in Business

No Yelling: The 9 Secrets of Marine Corps Leadership You Must Know to Win in Business, Wally Adamchik, FireStarter Speaking and Consulting, 2006

Filled with real-life examples, this book looks at leadership secrets from an organization that knows a few things about it, the US Marine Corps.

As leader, your job is to articulate the goals for your group (division, company, department, etc.). Do it several times a year, not just at the yearly staff meeting. The job of your subordinates is to turn those goals into reality. Give them a chance to do it. Resist the temptation to rush in and personally fix every problem that comes along. Doing so only reinforces the message that you don't trust your subordinates.

Is your Employee Manual supposed to be followed by all employees, or is it optional for certain employees? Consequences for not following the rules have to apply to everyone, or why bother? Create some kind of system for giving potential leaders more and more responsibility. When you retire (or die) someone will be ready to take up your duties.

Every employee has a different way to get motivated; find out what they are. Some respond better to face-to-face meetings, while others might prefer e-mails. What is your leadership style? If you like one-on-one meetings, think twice about standing up in front of everyone at the annual staff meeting.

Get out from behind your desk every now and then. Walking the shop floor and talking to your employees as people might just show them that you honestly do care about them. It's the little things that will inspire your people to give that extra bit of effort.

Like the title says, there is no need to yell at people to be a good leader. This book makes it simple and easy to follow. Even if you can't do all the things in this book, doing just some of them can only help. This should be on every manager's reading list.