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Providing "back up" for your own position by building bench strength in your direct reports is a proven way to move your own career forward.  The converse is also true - failing to have adequate back up will prevent you from moving ahead.  This seems like a common-sense, "no-brainer", right?  Then why doesn't every executive do this consistently?

Some executives are very competent themselves, but fear internal competition from their subordinates, and therefore hire "B" players who don't pose a threat.  Some others are work dynamos, perhaps even workaholics, who get everything done themselves, but don't delegate well.  They don't hire strong beneath them, because they don't truly think they need excellent people -they only assign grunt work to others and keep all the important tasks on their own plate.  Still others inherit a so-so team, but aren't really change agents, so they go with the flow, and keep the old team rather than take risks and invest effort to "topgrade" with "A" players.

True leaders aren't threatened by strong subordinates; they thrive and derive inspiration by hiring very capable people who help the whole team move to the next level of performance.  Leaders seek people who complement their own skills, filling in where they might have a shortcoming or lack critical knowledge.  One of our favorite things to hear from a client is "I want to hire someone smarter than me."  It isn't really about the new hire being smarter, it is about the collective intelligence of the team, and what it takes to have a balance of skills and knowledge.

A good way to ensure that you are building a solid bench is gap analysis - of your own skills, and of your team's skills.  Imagine the ideal department, functional group or company leadership team.  As if you were designing and staffing it from scratch.  Every hire would be perfect.  What are the capabilities of that team?  Now look at what is missing in your current team.  Are the gaps serious enough to warrant a strategic replacement hire, or can you upgrade the competency of the people who are there now?  Either way, optimizing the team's capability is the only way to move forward. 

Strong leaders know that by positioning one or more successors that can take over their own job, they are also sending a message to senior management that they are ready to move forward too.  Succession planning is a self-fulfilling action.

We will be featuring reviews of these books in coming months in an effort to provide you with the latest business tips, tricks, and trends.

    1. Drive: The Surprising Truth about What Motivates Us

By Daniel H. Pink

Pink examines motivation and finds that the most powerful drives come from within, and are more important to us than material compensation.

2. Linchpin

By Seth Godin

Touted as Godin's best book yet, Linchpin is also his most personal. The uber-guru and mega-blogger aims his message squarely at the growing ranks of anxious employees who wonder what lies ahead for them and their jobs.

3. Louder Than Words: Take Your Career from Average to Exceptional with the Hidden Power of Nonverbal Intelligence

 By Joe Navarro

Navarro breaks down body language, bad habits and behavioral ticks essential to understanding what is really going on in a company, a business meeting or even a phone call. Navarro also recommends how to use these forces to get ahead on the job.

4. Rework

 By Jason Fried and David Heinemeier Hansson

Dubbed as "inspirational" and a "mini manifesto," "Rework" comprises hundreds of simple rules for success.

5. Delivering Happiness

By Tony Hsieh

 Tony is the CEO of Zappos and in this book he talks about culture in an organization being the primary driver for business success. It's very easy to read and it's actually like reading a story.

6. The Referral Engine: Teaching Your Business To Market Itself

By John Jantsch

Jantsch, the Duct Tape Marketing author, identifies humans' inherent need to refer and recommend, and offers some really good nuts-and-bolts suggestions for getting closer to customers and eliciting their kudos.

7. I Live in the Future & Here's How It Works

By Nick Bilton

Bilton, a talented journalist and lead writer for the New York Times' "Bits'' blog, doesn't know everything, nor does he know where everything is headed, but he boasts an excellent sense of culture, context and technology as he smartly surveys the digital landscape.

8. The Mesh

By Lisa Gansky

Gansky makes the case for how technology is changing our view of ownership and that sharing will become much more commonplace. The Mesh is as big an insight as Chris Anderson's The Long Tail.

9. Gamestorming

By Dave Gray, Sunni Brown, and James Macanufo

This book provides over 80 games that can be used in generate ideas, explore ideas, and decide which idea move us closer. The book also describes the qualities games have so that readers can develop their own games to match the situation.

10. The Upside of Irrationality: The Unexpected Benefits of Defying Logic at Work and at Home

By Dan Ariely

The provocative follow-up to the New York Times bestseller Predictably Irrational. The book looks at: Why large bonuses can make CEOs less productive? How confusing directions can actually help us? Why is revenge so important to us? Why is there such a big difference between what we think will make us happy and what really makes us happy?