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Alexis Fox
Chief Empowerment Officer, Lighter

LEADERSHIP CRASH COURSE

10 TED Talks and 9 books you shouldn’t miss

Taking the head of the table doesn’t always feel natural, but sometimes you just have to sit down in that chair.

Within the first semester of teaching a course on leadership at Emerson College, I realized that I wasn’t practicing what I preached. So, I took a leap and changed everything.

I abandoned a beautiful house and predictable life in the suburbs. And without any training in technology, I left my stable job to start a tech company. Two years later, I’ve got a world-class team, and the platform we built has been used in over 100 countries.

Whatever your path, leadership is about tuning into your own unique frequency, finding your power there and gathering momentum for something that is bigger than any one person.

Teaching leadership is like teaching a class on love, happiness or democracy. It’s a nebulous, hard-to-pin-down subject. Like love, happiness or democracy, we know it when we see it. We can sense when it is real, and we smell when it isn’t.

Leadership starts in our cells, in our spirits, in the moments when we are most alone. The journey goes something like this:

  1. You start to believe that you have the power to change the future.
  2. You create a vision for that future.
  3. You inspire and motivate others to join you in creating that future.
  4. Y’all do the hard work of execution.

And then, you repeat.

People from all over have asked me for leadership resources. Below is the list that I’ve sent by email far and wide. Now, it is in this blog, for you.

May these brilliant TED Talks and life-changing books guide you on your journey. May you believe in your vast abilities to help shape the decades ahead. There is much work to be done. The world needs you, and there is little time to lose.

TED

  1. Power of Vulnerability
  2. Living Beyond Limits
  3. How Great Leaders Inspire Action
  4. Your Body Language Shapes Who You Are
  5. The Key to Success? Grit.
  6. Lead Like the Great Conductors
  7. Everyday Leadership
  8. Tribal Leadership
  9. Listen, Learn….Then Lead
  10. How to Start a Movement

Books

  1. How to Win Friends & Influence People
  2. Big Magic
  3. 7 Habits of Highly Effective People
  4. Lean In
  5. Social Animal (This one’s not about leadership per se, but it explains a lot about us humans.)
  6. Join the Club
  7. Good to Great
  8. The Path
  9. Comfort with Uncertainty

What leadership teachings inspire you? I’d love to know.

[Thank you for the edits, Lara!]