The Promises of Giants: How YOU can fill the leadership void --THE SUNDAY TIMES HARDBACK NON-FICTION & BUSINESS BESTSELLER--

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In the blinks ahead, we’ll explore some of those promises. Keeping them will give you a roadmap that will let you achieve your goals, distinguish yourself as a leader, and make the world a better place. And as a giant, it’s crucial to understand your innate power because of the second truth Amaechi discovered: that you can use this power to empower and elevate others – or leave a trail of unintended destruction in your wake. Wise, challenging and inspiring, The Promises of Giants is a much-needed book that will resonate with you long after you have finished reading it. -- Fiona Cannon OBE, Managing Director Sustainable Business, Lloyds Banking Group It may be easier to work with machines, but the words that will define organizational success in the future are transformation, innovation, disruption, and resilience. These are human words, intrinsically tied to properties that only humans can manifest, at least for now. And organizations that are serious about winning appreciate that every moment an employee feels less human, they are less and less able, not to mention willing, to demonstrate those qualities that are so important.

First, why is inclusion important - because without true inclusion, minorities spend most of their time and energy in not being themselves, pretending to be someone else, for e.g. hiding an accent that is associated with an unpopular location, worrying about not being accepted, or being bullied as compared to giving their best to the job and to the organization. Without true inclusion, organizations lose a lot of productive contributions.For example, have you taken the time to unearth all the hidden assets and liabilities that will affect the outcome? And how much thought have you given to the people and the spaces you’re working in? Success isn’t just about personal achievement, after all. It’s about creating environments that foster the potential in everyone. The Promises of Giants is a challenge to anyone who aspires to make a difference in their environment. Over fourteen promises, it seamlessly intertwines personal anecdotes and workplace and social observation with the latest research, to provide practical, proven tips and strategies to empower you to maximize your own potential and inspire others. It is not a self-help book. It is a how-to guide for winning, rooted in the belief that the most unlikely of people, in the most improbable of circumstances, can become extraordinary. The author John Amaechi is a former NBA player turned psychologist and management consultant. Being 6'10" tall and bulky, John is considered as a giant. As a giant, even the slightest swing of your arm or jerk of your elbow can give an unsuspecting passerby a bloody nose. Hence giants need to be extremely cautious and mindful of even the slightest move they make. Leaders are like giants - and need to be so by choice. Every behavior of theirs has huge impact on people around them - their words, their body language, their actions, decisions etc. So like giants, leaders need to be cautious and self-aware of every behavior of theirs. And leaders can do so by making certain promises to uphold certain leadership principles. In this book, John takes us through 14 such promises. THIS IS ONE OF THE MOST POWERFUL BOOKS EVER WRITTEN ABOUT LEADERSHIP." Adam Grant, #1 New York Times bestselling author of THINK AGAIN and host of the TED podcast WorkLife

If you want to transform those environments to support success, you need to make some promises – to yourself and to others. These blinks will guide you through seven of those promises, so that you can actively support yourself in reaching your full potential, while helping others do the same.You can’t be a “conditional” giant. It would be brilliant if you could, because being a giant has obvious advantages. The appearance of having power alone feels pretty great for most people. The fact that this appearance is often accompanied by higher salaries, prestigious titles, and increased resources? All the better. Join John Amaechi OBE as he shares insights from his new leadership book ‘The Promises of Giants’ on what it takes to develop as a leader in an increasingly complex and challenging world. John takes us through his own experiences as a ‘giant’ and brings this to play in a thought provoking and stimulating call for leaders to step up to the responsibility of their roles. In one exercise he shared, the audience is asked to jot down the words they associate with a) LGBT+ and B) women. Then they are asked to jot down the words others think about the same topic. This is an eye-opening exercise. It shows how deep our biases run. There are 14 different promises in the book – covering all the bases from the promise to “View myself critically but not cruelly” to “Act with vigilance against my biases”, to “Be Present”. These discussions are insightful, penetrating, and though provoking. When we ignore the unique complexities of the humans in our human resources and box them into their job descriptions, we create a grim existence where people are not quite full people. When we illuminate those complexities, we avail ourselves of an entirely new range of possibility. We create conditions in which the most unlikely of people, in the most improbable of circumstances, can become extraordinary.