Foreword
In Getting Ahead: Three Steps to Take Your Career to the Next Level, Joel Garfinkle hits upon three significant and important aspects of leadership—perception, visibility, and influence. Like Joel, I stress developing perception or taking control of how others see you (your reputation) and exerting your influence no matter what level you are at in the organization (effectively influencing up) as an integral part of my own leadership philosophy.
With this book, Joel takes us on an incredible learning journey in his exploration of taking control of how others see us—or our reputation. Our reputation, what other people think we've done lately, is basically a scorecard kept about us by others. It's when our coworkers, customers, friends, and sometimes strangers grade our performance—and report their opinions to the rest of the world. Although you can't take total control of your reputation, there's a lot you can do to maintain and improve it. Joel explores this concept to its fullest here in Getting Ahead.
Another fascinating aspect of leadership explored in Getting Ahead is exerting influence in the organization—no matter what level you are at! Peter Drucker once said, “The great majority of people tend to focus downward. They are occupied with efforts rather than results. They worry over what the organization and their superiors ‘owe’ them and should do for them. And they are conscious above all of the authority they ‘should have.’ As a result they render themselves ineffectual.” ...
