Weekly Leadership Contemplations

Amanda Ridings, BSc 1983

This is a book for our times. It is for leaders, coaches and other practitioners who are searching for inspiration as they reflect on their leadership experiences and practice. It is a collection of fifty two short pieces, written to invite you to connect with similar moments in your own life and work and to consider them more probingly.

The book is meant to be read slowly – it is a written ‘thought for the week’. The narratives are prompted by the author’s personal experiences and by thought-provoking themes brought to her attention by her executive coaching clients or by events in the world. Many of them highlight the ‘gap’ between our leadership aspirations and our ability to live up to them, and gently challenge the reader to hold themselves to account and to tackle this disparity. Throughout the book, readers are encouraged to make contact with their finest leadership spirit, and to anchor their choices in it.

'Weekly Leadership Contemplations is a collection of 52 short pieces connected to leadership, work, living. Each piece is well crafted and interesting in its own right. They drew me in and had me reflecting on elements of my own leadership practice. Each piece ends with a couple of questions to contemplate and Amanda invites us to read one piece a week. I plan to do this as I work through the book again as I sense that relaxing into the embedded wisdom within this book will breathe new life into my leadership practice. I cannot endorse this book strongly enough.’                           

Professor Timothy B Kelly, Dean, School of Education & Social Work, University of Dundee

‘Weekly Leadership Contemplations is a much-needed reference for leaders to enhance their skill set, reinforce it, and understand its true power. The stories and their related questions help you to express your unique energy and sharpen your vision. Amanda set out to write a book to ‘support reflection about leadership in all its forms’ and indeed has given us a rich collection of thoughts, practices, and observations on the kind of vital leadership our planet needs more of – now and always.’                                                                                                                               

Judy Ringer, author of Turn Enemies Into Allies: The Art of Peace in the Workplace

ISBN: 9781800460652