Joelle K. Jay

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Best of the Blog: July Edition

It’s always funny how fast the summer months fly by. Between work travel and family vacation it’s easy to blink and find yourself surrounded by fall! In the spirit of the first practice I outline in The Inner Edge, it’s important to get clarity before we transition into something new – in this case, August. By taking a look back at some of the lessons we’ve already learned we can fully process them and take them forward with us.

In the book I also note that in order to get clarity we first must explore the answers. Following that sentiment, let’s explore some of the answers we’ve discussed on this blog over the last month:

 

How to find what kind of gift you want to be. In “Leading on the Edge: A Quick ‘How To’” I offer a definition of what personal leadership is, and give a few quick tips on how to lead in a way that uses your own unique strengths, or “gifts.” Essentially, as a leader you have many gifts to offer. The real gift you have to give is yourself. What kind of a gift do you want to be?

 

Spreading your enthusiasm to your team. You’ve begun to tackle personal leadership, and you’re feeling more motivated than ever. So how do you spread that motivation to your team of employees? In “3 Ways to Extend Your Inspiration to the Rest of Your Team and Employees” I offer three unique ways to get the initiative going. The first method I mention is perfect for summer as we tackle summer reading lists: start a book club. If you’re reading a leadership book that’s inspiring you, why not invite your team to read a chapter with you each week? You can meet to discuss important takeaways and brainstorm on ways to apply what you’re reading. In The Inner Edge there are specific exercises included with each chapter – why not invite everyone to participate?

 

Learn from a leader, ways to be more engaged in your work. I shared an interview I conducted with the wonderful Stephen M.R. Covey, who says that there are direct economic rewards that go along with functioning in a “high trust environment.” Learn more about what he means, and how you can cultivate that kind of environment in the workplace, from Why Leaders are Losing the Love and How to Get it Back: An Interview with Stephen M.R. Covey.

 

 

I hope this exploration of June gives you the clarity you need to take on August! Check back weekly for more leadership practices, tips, and more.

 

You can connect with Joelle on Twitter and Facebook.

 

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Why Leaders are Losing the Love and How to Get it Back: An Interview with Stephen M.R. Covey

Lately I’ve been concerned about leaders’ engagement in their work – the degree to which they feel motivated and inspired by what they do, and their commitment to doing it well. It’s always been my view that talented leaders thrive when they get to leverage their strengths! A leader’s sense of engagement is the foundation for a rewarding and successful career.

However, the news on engagement lately is grim! I read once that not counting a few cases of high-profile fraud, companies lose more to employee disengagement than they do to theft! Let’s talk about what it would take to help leaders reconnect.

Celebrity speaker and advisor to business leaders worldwide, Stephen M.R. Covey, was gracious enough to speak to me at length about personal leadership. We share a similar philosophy – so much so that he even endorsed The Inner Edge. Read on for his take on personal leadership, trust, and more:

 

Joelle Jay: What role do you think personal leadership plays in our current business environment? Is it really relevant?

Stephen M.R. Covey: I absolutely think that, in times like we have today, this type of approach is more relevant even than ever before. It always was relevant. The fact that we are in this current environment puts a greater premium on inner work and personal leadership. The essence of leadership is really to inspire trust. Personal leadership requires leaders to also trust themselves.

 

JJ: What does that mean, to “trust themselves?”

SC: Trust is sustained from the inside out. We need to return to that foundation for us to succeed. Leaders who trust themselves make the decisions that are right for them, based on their values and character. Then they extend that trust to others. The leader goes first.

 

JJ: How do leaders learn to trust themselves?

SC: We start with ourselves. It takes humility to have integrity. It takes courage to have integrity. We try to be congruent with what we stand for. The sense of power and self-trust that comes from that is extraordinary. That’s why I like your idea of the inner edge. You work inside first.

 

JJ: Sometimes I worry that people think fulfillment, or engagement, is a “soft skill” of leadership and is therefore dispensable. What do you think?

SC: I am approaching this topic as a business practitioner first. I come from a world of running a business, reporting to a board, and trying to make payroll, so I approach it very practically. But I’ve learned that this inside work and the process of creating trust is not just social issue; it is economic. Trust is a hard edge issue. You can quantify and measure the results of a high trust environment, and an environment in which people are fulfilled and engaged. I have seen the economic impact when people move from low trust to high trust – as individuals and in organizations. The difference is profound.

 

 

It’s worthwhile for leaders to consider Stephen’s point. Are you experiencing the economic rewards of a high trust environment? Are your employees fulfilled and engaged? Are you?

 

Related: 5 Practices for Leading from Within

 

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3 Ways to Extend Your Inspiration to the Rest of Your Team and Employees

As someone who has been practicing personal leadership for a while, you have become extremely engaged – which is excellent, because both you and your organization are benefitting from the results! So how do you extend that inspiration to the rest of your team and employees? To help others get there too, you can encourage them to do exactly what you’ve done.

The following are three tips to help you spread your inspiration:

 

Start a book group. Learn the practices of personal leadership one at a time. Every month, you have read a chapter from The Inner Edge and focused on a specific exercise to improve your leadership results. Could you host a lunchtime book club and invite others to read a chapter with you?

 

Love your most valuable leaders. Think about how you’re attending to the best leaders around you – the ones who contribute to your success and that of the organization. Are you taking their dedication for granted, or might they deserve more time and attention? Many organizations are using The Inner Edge as a basis for unique leadership development programs designed for their most powerful leaders. Can you do the same?

 

Spread the news. You know that self-awareness and inner passion to achieve are ingredients vital for successful leaders, and the research backs it up. But personal leadership – the behind-the-scenes work leaders do to advance and excel – is often hidden. Can you be more open about your reflection? Can you share more about your efforts to improve and inspire yourself, so that other get ideas about how they can get motivated too?

 

However you choose to extend the inspiration you’ve taken from The Inner Edge, you’re asking the right question! Leadership is about leading others toward a positive vision. Personal leadership will help you all get there together.

 

 

Related: Five Practices for Leading from Within

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Leading on the Edge: A Quick “How To”

When it comes to leading on the edge, first ask yourself:  What kind of a gift do you want to be?

At first blush, personal leadership may seem self-serving. After all, aren’t we supposed to be serving the organization? Isn’t our role to lead everyone else?

Well, yes and no. Certainly the most emphasized aspects of leadership tend to be external – as in leading a company, leading an project, or leading a team. But personal leadership is another aspect to leadership that is equally important. Again, it’s about leading the self, which is the source of a leader’s success.

First, let’s take a look at what personal leadership is: Personal leadership is ability to define a direction for your life and leadership, and to move in that direction with consistency and clarity over time. In a positive, unselfish way, personal leadership means putting yourself first. Literally speaking, personal means “about you;” leadership means “coming first.” When you practice personal leadership, you “lead from the ‘inside out.” The process involves asking yourself, “How do Ineed to be and act and think in order to be my best?” – a kind of self-driven style well-suited to dedicated leaders who will carry business into the future.

When it comes to efficiently leading others, leading ourselves is critical – just look at the effects of neglecting the leader behind the work. Employee depletion, disengagement, and attrition cost the business world dearly. As Gallup researchers Rath and Clifton report,

This rampant negativity is not only disheartening, it’s expensive: It costs the U.S. economy between $250 and $300 billion every year in lost productivity alone. When you add workplace injury, illness, turnover, absences, and fraud, the cost could surpass $1 trillion per year, or nearly 10% of the U.S. Gross Domestic Product (GDP). These costs are not specific to the United States; they exist to varying degrees in every country, industry, and organization we have studied.

As reported by the American Society for Training and Development, “The cost of replacing a senior executive averages about five times his or her annual salary” For economic reasons alone, organizations have a vested interest in encouraging the aspects of leadership that sustain and support the leaders themselves.

Of course, that’s only part of the picture. Personal leadership doesn’t just save companies money. It taps into that part of the human soul that longs to add meaning to life. As Stephen Covey writes, “Deep within each one of us there is an inner longing to live a life of greatness and contribution – to really matter, to really make a difference.”

As a leader you have many gifts to offer, and the real gift you have to give is yourself. What kind of a gift do you want to be?

By practicing personal leadership, you will discover what’s truly possible for yourself as a leader. Suddenly “leadership” won’t be just part of your job. It will become a way of life.

 

 

Related: Five Practices for Leading from Within

 

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Best of the Blog: June Edition

As I resume blogging again I want to move forward with a new initiative: a “Best of the Blog” round-up for each month. Putting a practice from The Inner Edge to good use, it is my hope that the monthly round-up will help you embody the eigth practice I outline – to keep learning! We’re often so innundated with information that it becomes difficult to absorb the information we read in any given day, or even week or month.

Jack Welch said: “Good leaders are, by definition, voracious learners.”

So in the spirit of learning and leading, read on for five key takeaways from the blog over the last few months:

 

How to lead from within. From the post “5 Practices for Leading from Within,” I shared five practices from The Inner Edge that you can use to lead well and live well, too. In short, the practices are to help leaders find clarity to determine what both short-term and long-term success looks like; to find focus in order to keep your attention on the action items that are top priority when it comes to achieving that success; to take effective action so that you can determine what action items are best to tackle in a day instead of spinning your wheels all day; to tap into your own brilliance in order to not only find out what your unique strengths are, but to find out what practices will bring out those strengths; and to feel fulfillment in a way that enriches your life, and allows you to discover and take responsibility for your own gifts.

 

What is your identity as a leader? In “Identification, Please?” I list many types of leaders, and ask you to be honest with yourself to identity what you can take away from each type. The types include: A business or corporate leader, a professional leader, a community leader, a family leader, an inspiration leader, a thought leader, an action leader, and the leader of your own life. What makes you powerful is developing the image of who you want to be as a leader. The leadership types will help you to sharpen your focus to find out which type of leader you are, and the leader you want to become.

 

Find out what “the secret wish” is. One of my favorite questions to ask clients is: “What is your secret wish?” In the post “The Secret Wish,” I share an exercise to help you find out exactly what your secret wish is. Simply open a spare notebook, turn the page and reflect. Anything is possible. Think about it. Write about it. Dream. Some wishes are easier to grant than others. Simply stating that wish can be enough to help you hone in on what you need to do to make it a reality, even within the same day. Others can take several years to come true, and some never do. But more often than not, just saying the words aloud makes them come alive.

 

How to have it all by defining your “all.” In “Having It All” I expose one of the surefire ways to have it all: find out what your “all” is! So many people ask if it’s possible to have it all. Some people say yes, some people say no. To me, it’s the wrong question altogether. To me, the answer to the question, “Is it possible to have it all?” is not yes or no. It’s simply: “Do you know what your ‘all’ is?” If you can clearly define your “all” in a way that is grounded, realistic, and optimistic, most likely you can have it. If you define your “all” as some unattainable ideal that amounts to the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, then you might not. In the post I lead with an exercise to help you define your “all.”

 

Open up to the spirit of possibility. In “The Spirit of Possibility” I help you channel your own potential and infinite possibility. The only way to know what those are is to trust in more intuitive ways of knowing, being and becoming who you want to be – not just by working your life away, but by learning to wish, hope, think, pray, and be in a different kind of way. Author William Bloom, a meditation master and expert in the field of holistic development, offers a helpful definition of spirituality as “that whole reality and dimension which is bigger, more creative, more loving, more powerful, more visionary, more wise, more mysterious – than materialistic daily human existence.”

 

 

Leaders are busy, and usually the way we read when we’re busy is the first time we skim, the second time we form an opinion, and the third time we really take in what we read. Let this round-up be your quick guide to learning, and leading, well as we move into July!

 

 

You can connect with Joelle on Twitter and Facebook.

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5 Practices for Leading from Within

With the World Business Executive Coach Summit underway I have been thinking a lot about the critical components that go into leadership, and how leaders can use those components to better both themselves and their business.

In the past few years leaders have been presented with a new set of challenges as businesses have been hit hard with a talent crunch, a generational shift, and an economic downturn, and that’s all on top of the usual 21st century challenges of globalization, innovation, and technology. Leaders must rise to the challenge. They must, and they will. But in order to do so successfully, they must learn to not only lead their organizations, but also lead themselves. They must learn to practice personal leadership.

Personal leadership is the leadership of the self. It is the ability to define a direction for your life and leadership, and to move in that direction with consistency and clarity over time. In a positive, unselfish way, personal leadership means putting yourself first. Literally speaking, personal means “about you;” leadership means “coming first.” When you practice personal leadership, you “lead from the ‘inside out.’” The process involves asking yourself, “How do I need to be and act and think in order to be my best?” – a kind of self-driven style well-suited to dedicated leaders who will carry business into the future.

To practice personal leadership, you apply the principles of leadership that make businesses a success…to yourself. So what are these principles, broken down into the critical components and made more digestable for leaders in the digital era who face daily information overload?

Here are five practices for leading from within, from my book The Inner Edge: The 10 Practices of Personal Leadership:

 

Get clarity. What do you want? Getting clarity means being able to connect clearly and instantly to your long- and short-term ideas about success. In business, this practice often equates to setting a company vision. While a vision is a powerful thing, it’s not quite what you need as a leader. You may have a personal vision for yourself, but in addition, you need the skill of getting clarity on that vision again and again over time. Your vision will change as you change. Getting clarity ensures you don’t make changes in a direction you don’t want to go.

 

Find focus. Pay attention to where you’re putting your focus and energy. When you find focus, you fix your attention on top priorities even when the world around you is pulling you away. In business, focus shows up in the form of a strategic plan. The strategic plan makes it possible for everyone in an organization to see in a single document the vision, mission, goals, strategies and so on of an organization so they can all can stay on the same page. As a leader, you also need a one-pager to remind you of your priorities – maybe not down an exhaustive list of tactics, but at least the short list of areas that matter most to you. Having such focus is crucial especially in challenging times.

 

Take effective action. Have you ever spent a whole day busy at work, only to end it wondering if you actually got anything done? You can stop spinning your wheels and start driving with direction, quickly, easily, and with time to spare. Action items are the language of productivity in organizations, but as a leader you need more than a task list. You need to practice the mindsets and approaches to decision-making that help you take only the most effective actions and leave the rest behind. In his research for the book Good to Great, Jim Collins found this kind of results-oriented commitment to action to be one of the hallmarks of leadership in successful organizations. Having witnessed the “the quiet, dogged nature” of effective leaders, he concludes, “Disciplined action without disciplined thought is a recipe for disaster.”

 

Tap into your brilliance. Simply put, find out what’s unique about you, both positive and negative, and use your uniqueness to your advantage. In an effort to grow human capital, organizational leaders are constantly trying to attract and retain talent. When you tap into your brilliance, you make the most of the talents you already have. This practice captures the spirit of what author and former Gallup researcher Marcus Buckingham (Now, Discover Your Strengths and Go, Put Your Strengths to Work) calls “a strengths approach” to leadership. The philosophy is that we are at our best when we are aligned with our strengths.

Based on Gallup’s 40 year study of human strengths as described in Tom Rath’s StrengthsFinder 2.0, “People who have the opportunity to focus on their strengths every day are six times as likely to be engaged in their jobs and more than three times as likely to report having an excellent quality of life in general.

 

Feel fulfillment. In order to be your most effective as a leader, you get to discover what drives you – your values, meaning and purpose – so that you feel fulfilled. “Fulfillment” may not sound like a critical business result, but it is an essential requirement for great leaders.

Stephen Covey writes, “Deep within each one of us there is an inner longing to live a life of greatness and contribution – to really matter, to really make a difference.” Bolman and Deal, authors of Leading with Soul, agree: “Each of us has a special contribution to make if we can shoulder the personal and spiritual work needed to discover and take responsibility for our own gifts.

 

 

You can find the remaining best practices and more tips in The Inner Edge.

I also invite you to join Howard Morgan and myself on Wednesday, June 25 at 4 p.m. EDT at the WBECS 2014 as we discuss what is critical to understand when you are coaching someone who is a different gender than you. You can find more information here. Feel free to Tweet me at @JoelleKJay!

 

 

 You can connect with Joelle on Twitter and Facebook.

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Join the Leading Network (Yours!)

To get an edge – any edge, as a leader, in your life, on the competition, against your old limitations, toward your new self – you don’t have to go it alone.

In fact, you shouldn’t go it alone. You can do so much more with a team.

Call it a Mastermind, your “Dream Team,” an Imaginary Advisory Board, or just a good group of friends and associates, you will all go further faster when you support each other in your goals.

I’m not talking about doing the work, now (although a team is good for that, too). I’m talking about supporting each other in achieving your goals.

Here’s how Cheryl Scott, the former CEO of Group Health Cooperative, and now the Senior Advisor of Global Health at the Bill and Melinda Gates foundation, describes the experience.

“I joined a network of other Chief Operating Officers. We talked about what it was like to be a COO and be the #2. In this network, we started to explore our own personal leadership and personal mastery. It was transformational to me. I had never taken the time to think about it before that. When you’re in your 30s and early 40s, your career means a lot but it’s not necessarily about your own values and how to “leap from where you stand.” In two years of working with [my network], as we worked with great coaches and listened to Peter Drucker and read Peter Senge, it transformed the way I felt about my work. I started to think more purposefully about what I was about, what I brought, why I did what I did and how it connected to [my company] at the time. It really changed a how I thought about leadership. It became more personal.”

You can create your own network by asking yourself a few questions.

• Who do you admire?

• Who inspires you?

• How do you think they can support you?

• How can you support them?

• If you could get these people into a room all at one time and ask them the single most important question you have, how would that help you?

You now have your personal support team. All you need to do is invite them in.

Are you ready to start a Mastermind of your own but aren’t sure how? Join an Executive Mastermind! This unique opportunity is available right now (Deadline: Thursday, April 17! – and leaders are already opting in. Please click here for more information or email Joelle personally at Joelle.Jay@LRI.com for more information.

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Identification, Please?

Who are you as a leader? I don’t mean your title, I mean, what kind of a leader are you?

At IBM, Senior Vice President of Human Resources Randy Maconald shares this advice: “Do not cast yourself in the image of what a leader is supposed to do.” What makes you powerful is developing the image of who you want to be as a leader.

As an individual, it’s important for you be clear about what kind of a leader you are. Everyone is a leader in some way. Throughout this eCourse, I will be referring to “leaders,” and I do not just mean presidents and CEOs. I mean you.

A business or corporate leader. Corporate leaders often hold leadership positions in their organizations: president, vice president, director, manager, or supervisor. You may even own the company. But you can also serve as a leader in your company even without the fancy title by the way you act and interact.

A professional leader. You can be a leader in your profession whether you are a consultant, entrepreneur, or an independent professional like an attorney, speaker, or physician. 

A community leader. You may have a leadership role in public service, as a non-profit board member, in your church, with the Girl or Boy Scouts, or in your neighborhood.

A family leader. As a mother, father, sister, brother, son, daughter, grandparent or cousin, you may take an active part in creating your family environment.

An inspirational leader. You may be a leader among your friends, family and fans by the way you conduct yourself – as reflected by your character, your choices, and your demeanor. 

A thought leader. You could be leading change with original ideas and new ways of thinking.

An action leader. Maybe you’re the one with the energy to make things happen and the charisma to get others to do the same.

The leader of your own life. No matter who you are or what you do, you get to take the lead in your life. No one else will do that for you. No one else can. You may or may not have a fancy suit, a name plate on the door, and an assistant just outside. But every single one of us is leading a life, which may be the most exciting kind of leadership of all.

In what ways are you a leader?

Did you enjoy this profile? You may be interested in the eCourse, Getting an Edge: 21 Ways World Class Leaders Share Their Secrets for Leading and Living Well. Each of 21 profiles just like this one comes in a separate email – once a day for 21 days. Click here for more information.

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Look for the Perfect

“Everything works out for the best.”

“If it’s meant to be, it will happen.”

Have you ever uttered these words? While many people believe at some level that “things happen for a reason,” they act as though they don’t trust the idea. If it really is true that that everything works out for the best, then every situation is perfect in some way.

Here’s an example.

Zach, an attorney, discovered this when he learned his business partner, Kareem, was leaving the practice. Zach and Kareem had built a business from scratch; he thought growing it big was what they both wanted. But people change. Kareem changed. He didn’t want a business anymore. He didn’t want the headache and the pressure. Now he just wanted to join a bigger firm, not build one.

Zach was determined to talk him out of it. He tried everything to help Kareem see the possibilities, and he tried to see every possibility for himself. But Kareem’s answer was no. He had decided. He was leaving.

After the emotions subsided (anger, resentment, denial, and determination), Zach took the practice over by himself.

“Well, at least one positive thing came out of this,” Zach thought as he signed the documents. “Now I get to be president.”

But Zach got to be a lot more than that. As he started to shoulder the practice on his own, he became more confident as a businessman. He took the practice in his own direction. He made bold decisions, branched out and hired more attorneys. The business grew, as did his reputation and profits. Best of all, he maintained a friendship with Kareem, who stayed in his corner – no longer employed by the business but still rooting for its success.

Zach didn’t know when Kareem said “no” to the business that the business was saying “yes” to Zach.  A situation that at first seems to be a disaster can actually turn out to be perfect. 

Looking for the perfect is especially helpful when you get an untimely surprise.

  • Benjamin got the promotion he wanted a year before he felt ready.
  • Enrique was awarded a giant contract the same year he was planning to retire.
  • Martina, the next-in-line for a public office, had to step into the job when an elected official had to step down for personal reasons.
  • Neal found out that after years of family planning, he and his wife were about to have not one, not two, but three babies.

In each of these situations, leaders were able to reframe a situation that initially felt wrong by believing it must have to be right. They looked for the perfect.

Believing life might be perfect as it is doesn’t mean you play a passive role in your life. You are still leading your life; you are still becoming the leader you want to be and creating your vision. But you’re doing so with an open mind, realizing that for reasons we don’t understand, some things might be “right” for us that we wouldn’t have chosen for ourselves. Other things might be “wrong” for us even if we thought they were right.

Sometimes we find the opportunities we’re looking for, but other times those opportunities find us.

Exercise

  • Recall a time in your life when you got a “no” or “yes” that you weren’t expecting – maybe unanticipated (good or bad) news or a surprising change in direction.
  • How did the situation work out?
  • In hindsight, what was perfect?

The ideas in this article are drawn from The Inner Edge: The 10 Practices of Personal Leadership and the accompanying eBook called The Extension. The eBook is designed to give you simple, engaging personal leadership exercises and activities to help you be a better leader, and lead a better life. Get your copy today! Click here for a Preview and to Order.

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Leah

Leah Zellner, the president of a national resort group, dashed into her office, throwing off her coat.

“I’m sorry I’m late!” she gasped. “It’s been a crazy day!”

For the next five minutes, she raced through a litany of concerns: leading her company as its first female president, finalizing a merger, launching a new global strategy, moving into a new office, speaking at a client conference, throwing her daughter a wedding, and expecting her first grandson.

“You certainly are busy!” I commented.

“You have no idea,” she wheezed. “Meetings, calls, invitations, a trip toNew York…”

I watched Leah rush about her office. Here was a woman who seemed to have everything she wanted: a glamorous, high-paying job, exciting travel, and a happy growing family. But today everything that made up her charmed life seemed to be getting in the way.

I wondered, “Is this what our busy lives have come to? That our momentous life events have become items to check off a list?”

Leah flopped into the chair beside me. “You know, it used to be that it was Ready, Aim, Fire. Then it became Ready, Fire, Aim. Now it’s justFIRE!FIRE!FIRE!”

Leah’s life as a leader mirrors many I’ve seen in my years as an executive coach. Every day, I see talented, accomplished leaders struggling because they’re too stressed, too stretched, or too tired of sacrificing. As a result, many businesses are losing their leaders, and many leaders are losing themselves. It’s become a stubborn predicament: how to achieve success without sacrificing your quality of life.

There’s another way to be successful as a leader in today’s world that is more thoughtful. More strategic. More reflective. You can learn to lead in a way that preserves your talent while enhancing your quality of life. You can succeed without the sacrifice. Leading well and living well, both at the same time. In the pages of this book, you will discover a new way to be a better leader…and lead a better life.

Leah is one of many leaders I profile in the book, The Inner Edge: The 10 Practices of Personal Leadership. This book isn’t about leading your organization or leading your team. It’s about leading yourself.

To learn more, go to www.TheInnerEdge.com. You’ll find an overview of the book, endorsements by such thought leaders as Marshall Goldsmith and Stephen Covey, and more!