Bridge the Gap: Breakthrough Communication Tools to Transform Work Relationships from Challenging to Collaborative

Jennifer Edwards and Katie McCleary

McGraw Hill, 256 pp., $26

Navigating professional relationships can be tricky. Your colleagues aren't necessarily your friends, yet you must learn to get along with co-workers—in other words, bridge the relationship gap. In their book, Edwards and McCleary, who have 40 years of combined experience training and coaching clients, share strategies for using clear and structured communication to bridge the gap between you and colleagues you may not understand. Each chapter ends with reflection questions and an action item to help you put the strategies into practice and eventually improve workplace interactions.

From Problem to Possibility: Action and Research for Leading Up to Continuous Improvement

Mary Ann Jacobs and Remigia Kushner

Rowman & Littlefield, 184 pp., $35

When Jacobs was a principal in an elementary school, she developed the L.E.A.D.E.R. model to help students deal with their own problems. In this book, she and Kushner illustrate how the model is useful for everyone at all levels for problem solving. Beyond breaking down the L.E.A.D.E.R. framework, the authors present examples, research, and practices that will help readers enact continuous improvement in their companies. "The leader in service to the continuous improvement of the organization is primarily mission-centered and mission-driven. That leader is a problem solver," Jacobs and Kushner write.