ST. PETERSBURG, Fla., April 26, 2012 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- The Poynter Institute's senior faculty for leadership and management, Jill Geisler, reaches and teaches managers in all professions with the release of her book, Work Happy: What Great Bosses Know (Hachette/Center Street 2012) on June 5. Building on the popular and practical lessons she shares in Poynter seminars and workshops, columns on Poynter.org and podcasts on iTunesU, Geisler has crafted a workshop-in-a-book that's a road map to managerial success.

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Poynter Dean of Faculty Stephen Buckley, who encouraged Geisler to write the book, says, "Leaders of all kinds will learn from Jill's insights, which spring from the clarity of her thinking, her deep experience as a leader, and her fundamental understanding of people. She's a terrific writer, whose down-to-earth language, crisp anecdotes and self-deprecating humor make her book as enjoyable as it is useful."

Geisler, one of the first female TV news directors in the country, draws on her many years of managerial experience, insights drawn from teaching and coaching thousands of leaders, and respected research. Work Happy targets an audience that ranges from aspiring managers to experienced leaders, business school students to human resource specialists -- and, of course, employees who want to work for great bosses.

Among the topics Geisler addresses in Work Happy: What Great Bosses Know are:

• The fast path to power and influence
• What employees never forget
• What employees never forgive
• Top communication tips and traps
• How to take control of your time
• Motivation that really matters
• Secrets to powerful performance management
• Ten steps to making tough conversations easy
• How to manage your boss, peers and stress
• The five symptoms of a healthy workplace

"The message I always share with managers is simple: the most important thing they do is help others succeed.  But to do that takes strong values and a vast array of skills," said Geisler. "My goal in Work Happy is to provide the key tools every manager needs to build strong, positive workplaces for productive, happy employees."

Work Happy is already earning positive reviews from leaders in media and beyond. Bob Schieffer, CBS News Chief Washington Correspondent, says: "I've seen Jill Geisler in action. She has an uncanny ability to unravel the most complicated workplace problems and come up with creative solutions to resolve them. Combine those insights with the fact that she is also a cracker jack writer and the result is a book that will come in handy whether you're running a newsroom or a construction site – I know because I've worked in both."

"Publishers Weekly" offers praise: " ... Rather than a prescriptive, academic book on leadership, Geisler humanizes the text with anecdotes from her own leadership development as a broadcast news director in Milwaukee, sharing her revelations, corrections, and progress. ... This positive, useful work is sure to be a go-to manual for those new to management."

Geisler joined Poynter's faculty in 1998, after a 26-year career in broadcast journalism. She has conducted specialized training and coaching programs for scores of organizations in the U.S. and abroad and frequently speaks on leadership issues, ethics, change management and the status of women in leadership. Geisler holds a bachelor's degree in Journalism from the University of Wisconsin and a master's degree in Leadership and Liberal Studies from Duquesne University. In recognition of her contributions to journalism, the University of Wisconsin honored her with its "Distinguished Service to Journalism" award and the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences inducted her into its prestigious Silver Circle.

For more information or to order advance copies of Work Happy: What Great Bosses Know, visit www.whatgreatbossesknow.com.

About The Poynter Institute

Founded in 1975 in St. Petersburg, Fla., The Poynter Institute is one of the nation's top schools for professional journalists and news media leaders, as well as future journalists and journalism teachers. Poynter offers training throughout the year in the areas of online and multimedia, leadership and management, reporting, writing and editing, TV and radio, ethics and diversity, journalism education and visual journalism. Poynter's News University (www.newsu.org) offers journalism training to the public through more than 200 interactive modules and other forms of  e-learning. It has more than 200,000 registered users in 225 countries. Poynter's Web site,  (www.poynter.org) is the dominant provider of journalism news, with a focus on business analysis and the opportunities and implications of technology.

CONTACT:
Jessica A. Blais
Director of Marketing
The Poynter Institute
jblais@poynter.org
727-821-9494

WORK HAPPY: WHAT GREAT BOSSES KNOW
Hardcover: 368 pages
Publisher: Hachette/Center Street (June 5, 2012)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1455507431
ISBN-13: 978-1455507436

SOURCE The Poynter Institute