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Top consultant Sarah Beaulieu offers a five-part framework that enables employees to have difficult but necessary conversations about sexual harassment and violence and develop new, better ways of working together.
In the wake of the #MeToo movement, employees and leaders are struggling with how to respond to the pervasiveness of sexual harassment. Most approaches simply emphasize knowing and complying with existing laws. But people need more than lists of dos and don'ts-they need to learn how to navigate this uncertain, emotionally charged terrain. Sarah Beaulieu provides a new skills-based approach to addressing sexual harassment prevention and response in the workplace, including using underdeveloped skills like empathy, situational awareness, boundary setting, and intervention.
Beaulieu outlines a five-part framework for having conversations about sexual harassment: Know the Facts; Feel Uncomfortable; Get Curious, Not Furious; See the Whole Picture; and Embrace Practical Questions. By embracing these conversations, we can break the cycle of avoidance and silence that makes our lives and workplaces feel volatile and unsafe. Grounded in storytelling, humor, and dozens of real-life scenarios, this book introduces the idea of uncomfortable conversation as the core skill required to enable everyone to bring their full talent and contributions to safe and respectful workplaces.
In the wake of the #MeToo movement, employees and leaders are struggling with how to respond to the pervasiveness of sexual harassment. Most approaches simply emphasize knowing and complying with existing laws. But people need more than lists of dos and don'ts-they need to learn how to navigate this uncertain, emotionally charged terrain. Sarah Beaulieu provides a new skills-based approach to addressing sexual harassment prevention and response in the workplace, including using underdeveloped skills like empathy, situational awareness, boundary setting, and intervention.
Beaulieu outlines a five-part framework for having conversations about sexual harassment: Know the Facts; Feel Uncomfortable; Get Curious, Not Furious; See the Whole Picture; and Embrace Practical Questions. By embracing these conversations, we can break the cycle of avoidance and silence that makes our lives and workplaces feel volatile and unsafe. Grounded in storytelling, humor, and dozens of real-life scenarios, this book introduces the idea of uncomfortable conversation as the core skill required to enable everyone to bring their full talent and contributions to safe and respectful workplaces.
Competence does not speak for itself! You can't simply display it; you have to draw people's attention to it. World-renowned negotiation and deception detection expert, business professor, and mentalist Jack Nasher offers effective, proven techniques to convince others that we are talented, trustworthy, and yes, even brilliant.
Nasher offers the example of Joshua Bell, possibly the world's most famous violinist. In January 2007, at rush hour, he stepped into a Washington, DC, subway station, dressed like any street busker, and began to play a $4,000,000 Stradivarius. It was part of an experiment staged by a journalist of the Washington Post, who expected Bell's skill alone to attract an immense, awed crowd. But Bell was generally ignored, and when he stopped, nobody applauded. He made $34.17.
The good news is that you don't have to accept obscurity: you can positively affect others' perception of your talent. Whether you're looking for work, giving an important presentation, seeking clients or customers for your business, or vying for a promotion, Nasher explains how to use techniques such as expectation management, verbal and nonverbal communication, the Halo Effect, competence framing, and the power of nonconformity to gain control of how others perceive you.
Competence is the most highly valued professional trait. But it's not enough to be competent, you have to convey your competence. With Nasher's help you can showcase your expertise, receive the recognition you deserve, and achieve lasting success.
Nasher offers the example of Joshua Bell, possibly the world's most famous violinist. In January 2007, at rush hour, he stepped into a Washington, DC, subway station, dressed like any street busker, and began to play a $4,000,000 Stradivarius. It was part of an experiment staged by a journalist of the Washington Post, who expected Bell's skill alone to attract an immense, awed crowd. But Bell was generally ignored, and when he stopped, nobody applauded. He made $34.17.
The good news is that you don't have to accept obscurity: you can positively affect others' perception of your talent. Whether you're looking for work, giving an important presentation, seeking clients or customers for your business, or vying for a promotion, Nasher explains how to use techniques such as expectation management, verbal and nonverbal communication, the Halo Effect, competence framing, and the power of nonconformity to gain control of how others perceive you.
Competence is the most highly valued professional trait. But it's not enough to be competent, you have to convey your competence. With Nasher's help you can showcase your expertise, receive the recognition you deserve, and achieve lasting success.
Leaders today—whether in corporations or associations, nonprofits or nations—face massive, messy, multidimensional problems. No one person or group can possibly solve them—they require the broadest possible cooperation.
But, says Harvard scholar Dean Williams, our leadership models are still essentially tribal: individuals with formal authority leading in the interest of their own group. In this deeply needed new book, he outlines an approach that enables leaders to transcend internal and external boundaries and help people to collaborate, even people over whom they technically have no power.
Drawing on what he’s learned from years of working in countries and organizations around the world, Williams shows leaders how to approach the delicate and creative work of boundary spanning, whether those boundaries are cultural, organizational, political, geographic, religious, or structural.
Sometimes leaders themselves have to be the ones who cross the boundaries between groups. Other times, a leader’s job is to build relational bridges between divided groups or even to completely break down the boundaries that block collaborative problem solving. By thinking about power and authority in a different way, leaders will become genuine change agents, able to heal wounds, resolve conflicts, and bring a fractured world together.
But, says Harvard scholar Dean Williams, our leadership models are still essentially tribal: individuals with formal authority leading in the interest of their own group. In this deeply needed new book, he outlines an approach that enables leaders to transcend internal and external boundaries and help people to collaborate, even people over whom they technically have no power.
Drawing on what he’s learned from years of working in countries and organizations around the world, Williams shows leaders how to approach the delicate and creative work of boundary spanning, whether those boundaries are cultural, organizational, political, geographic, religious, or structural.
Sometimes leaders themselves have to be the ones who cross the boundaries between groups. Other times, a leader’s job is to build relational bridges between divided groups or even to completely break down the boundaries that block collaborative problem solving. By thinking about power and authority in a different way, leaders will become genuine change agents, able to heal wounds, resolve conflicts, and bring a fractured world together.
The Essence of Managing
Henry Mintzberg appreciates that managers are busy people. So he has taken his classic book Managing, done some updating, and distilled its essence into a lean 176 pages of text.
The essence of the book remains the same: what Mintzberg learned from observing twenty-nine managers in settings ranging from a refugee camp to a symphony orchestra. Simply Managing considers the intense dynamics of this job as well as its inescapable conundrums, for example:
Henry Mintzberg appreciates that managers are busy people. So he has taken his classic book Managing, done some updating, and distilled its essence into a lean 176 pages of text.
The essence of the book remains the same: what Mintzberg learned from observing twenty-nine managers in settings ranging from a refugee camp to a symphony orchestra. Simply Managing considers the intense dynamics of this job as well as its inescapable conundrums, for example:
- How is anyone supposed to think, let alone think ahead, in this frenetic job?
- Are leaders really more important than managers?
- Where has all the judgment gone?
- Is email destroying management practice?
- How can managers connect when their job disconnects them from what they are managing?
“A new perspective on servant leadership—challenging us to bring both courage and humility to the table—for the sake of the people and the enterprise.” —John C. Maxwell, New York Times-bestselling author
In this updated edition of Dare to Serve, former Popeyes CEO Cheryl Bachelder shows that leading by serving is a rigorous and tough-minded approach that yields the best results.
When she was named CEO of Popeyes in 2007, the stock price had slipped from $34 in 2002 to $13. The brand was stagnant, the team was discouraged, and the franchisees were just plain angry. Nine years later, restaurant sales were up 45 percent, restaurant profits had doubled, and the stock price was over $61. Servant leadership is sometimes derided as soft or ineffective, but this book confirms that challenging people to reach a daring destination, while treating them with dignity, creates the conditions for superior performance.
The second edition of this bestselling book includes Bachelder’s post-Popeyes observations and new examples of how you can switch your leadership from self to serve. Ever engaging and inspirational, Bachelder takes you firsthand through the transformation of Popeyes and shows how anyone, at any level can become a Dare-to-Serve leader.
“Extraordinary! Dare to Serve describes the kind of leadership so desperately needed in the 21st century. A powerful blend of courage and humility, Cheryl Bachelder’s engaging story offers a clear path for leaders to follow, and what makes her message so compelling is the tremendous results she’s produced. I highly recommend this book.” —Stephen M. R. Covey, New York Times-bestselling author of The Speed of Trust
In this updated edition of Dare to Serve, former Popeyes CEO Cheryl Bachelder shows that leading by serving is a rigorous and tough-minded approach that yields the best results.
When she was named CEO of Popeyes in 2007, the stock price had slipped from $34 in 2002 to $13. The brand was stagnant, the team was discouraged, and the franchisees were just plain angry. Nine years later, restaurant sales were up 45 percent, restaurant profits had doubled, and the stock price was over $61. Servant leadership is sometimes derided as soft or ineffective, but this book confirms that challenging people to reach a daring destination, while treating them with dignity, creates the conditions for superior performance.
The second edition of this bestselling book includes Bachelder’s post-Popeyes observations and new examples of how you can switch your leadership from self to serve. Ever engaging and inspirational, Bachelder takes you firsthand through the transformation of Popeyes and shows how anyone, at any level can become a Dare-to-Serve leader.
“Extraordinary! Dare to Serve describes the kind of leadership so desperately needed in the 21st century. A powerful blend of courage and humility, Cheryl Bachelder’s engaging story offers a clear path for leaders to follow, and what makes her message so compelling is the tremendous results she’s produced. I highly recommend this book.” —Stephen M. R. Covey, New York Times-bestselling author of The Speed of Trust
The extractive economy is failing. The regenerative economy is being built. This is the definitive field manual for entrepreneurs, investors, and changemakers ready to stop tinkering with a broken system—and start building what replaces it.
When Laurie Lane-Zucker coined the term impact entrepreneur in 2011, he named an emerging movement. Fifteen years later, that movement has reached a breakthrough. The Impact Entrepreneur Breakthrough maps how to join it.
Part manifesto and part operating manual, this book shows how enterprises, ownership, capital, markets, security, and culture must transform together—and provides practical tools to begin immediately. Drawing on three decades at the forefront of impact investing and regenerative economics, Lane-Zucker introduces powerful new frameworks, including the Five Pillars of Real Security, the Prevention Dividend, and Defense as a Service—reimagining protection as shared resilience rather than fortified isolation.
You'll learn to
Each chapter moves from analysis to action, with real-world applications from practitioners already building the Impact Economy. The breakthrough is happening now. The question is whether you'll participate.
When Laurie Lane-Zucker coined the term impact entrepreneur in 2011, he named an emerging movement. Fifteen years later, that movement has reached a breakthrough. The Impact Entrepreneur Breakthrough maps how to join it.
Part manifesto and part operating manual, this book shows how enterprises, ownership, capital, markets, security, and culture must transform together—and provides practical tools to begin immediately. Drawing on three decades at the forefront of impact investing and regenerative economics, Lane-Zucker introduces powerful new frameworks, including the Five Pillars of Real Security, the Prevention Dividend, and Defense as a Service—reimagining protection as shared resilience rather than fortified isolation.
You'll learn to
- design enterprises that heal communities and ecosystems;
- structure ownership so mission survives growth and succession;
- deploy capital for long-term resilience;
- rethink risk through prevention and collaboration; and
- translate regenerative values into concrete strategies and decisions.
Each chapter moves from analysis to action, with real-world applications from practitioners already building the Impact Economy. The breakthrough is happening now. The question is whether you'll participate.
Great leaders create teams and companies that don't need great leaders.
That idea might stop you cold. Good.
Exhausted. Overwhelmed. You're the hero of your organization . . . and its biggest bottleneck. Every decision waits for your approval. Every problem lands on your desk. The harder you work, the more your team needs you. The behaviors that made you successful—solving problems fast, always being available, leading from the front—have become your organization's ceiling. Your competence becomes your captivity.
This is the hero trap. Most high-performing leaders don't recognize the pattern until they're burning out inside it.
Bill Flynn spent thirty years leading startups through IPOs and acquisitions before coaching hundreds of executives out of exactly this pattern. What he discovered is that the shift isn't about working differently. It's about becoming someone different—moving from the smartest person in the room to the leader who makes every room smarter than any one person.
The Hero Trap gives you the proven path. Through the story of CEO Alex Chen and Flynn's controller-builder-architect framework, you'll get
With a foreword by Marshall Goldsmith, whose own work on leadership transformation inspired this book, The Hero Trap does what other leadership books rarely manage: It moves you from shepherding the present to designing the future.
That idea might stop you cold. Good.
Exhausted. Overwhelmed. You're the hero of your organization . . . and its biggest bottleneck. Every decision waits for your approval. Every problem lands on your desk. The harder you work, the more your team needs you. The behaviors that made you successful—solving problems fast, always being available, leading from the front—have become your organization's ceiling. Your competence becomes your captivity.
This is the hero trap. Most high-performing leaders don't recognize the pattern until they're burning out inside it.
Bill Flynn spent thirty years leading startups through IPOs and acquisitions before coaching hundreds of executives out of exactly this pattern. What he discovered is that the shift isn't about working differently. It's about becoming someone different—moving from the smartest person in the room to the leader who makes every room smarter than any one person.
The Hero Trap gives you the proven path. Through the story of CEO Alex Chen and Flynn's controller-builder-architect framework, you'll get
- specific diagnostics to find where you're stuck;
- frameworks to delegate authority—not just tasks;
- the tools to know when to lead from the front and when to get out of the way; and
- a system for building self-sustaining teams that scale without you.
With a foreword by Marshall Goldsmith, whose own work on leadership transformation inspired this book, The Hero Trap does what other leadership books rarely manage: It moves you from shepherding the present to designing the future.
Five daily habits that reduce burnout, build engagement, and create a stronger organization, with no complex programs or HR mandates required.
Burnout is at record levels, and most leadership advice isn't solving it, because it's too complicated, it lands on HR teams who can't change daily culture, or it simply doesn't stick. This book offers something more useful: 5 simple, repeatable practices that managers, executives, and CEOs can weave into their existing routines right now, across in-person, hybrid, and AI-supported teams.
The 5 practices:
These are daily actions grounded in research and built for how work actually happens today, including distributed teams and AI-integrated workflows. Leaders who adopt them create cultures of support that sustain themselves without top-down mandates or expensive rollouts.
This book is for managers frustrated that engagement programs don't stick and for executives who want tools they can use today, not initiatives that take months.
Supporting your people isn't just the right thing to do; it builds more profitable, resilient organizations. Start here.
Burnout is at record levels, and most leadership advice isn't solving it, because it's too complicated, it lands on HR teams who can't change daily culture, or it simply doesn't stick. This book offers something more useful: 5 simple, repeatable practices that managers, executives, and CEOs can weave into their existing routines right now, across in-person, hybrid, and AI-supported teams.
The 5 practices:
- Celebrate Someone
- Go, See, and Help
- Be Interested
- Cocreate
- Do It First
These are daily actions grounded in research and built for how work actually happens today, including distributed teams and AI-integrated workflows. Leaders who adopt them create cultures of support that sustain themselves without top-down mandates or expensive rollouts.
This book is for managers frustrated that engagement programs don't stick and for executives who want tools they can use today, not initiatives that take months.
Supporting your people isn't just the right thing to do; it builds more profitable, resilient organizations. Start here.
Stop feeling stuck in traditional leadership approaches—master 7 heart-led actions that transform how you lead, connect authentically with your team, and drive business growth.
Leading with only technical skills isn't enough anymore. You need people to build a successful business—and today's workforce demands leaders who see beyond the bottom line. If you're feeling stuck or sensing that traditional leadership advice isn't connecting, this is your roadmap to the modern leadership approach that actually works.
Through 7 practical, heart-led actions, you'll learn to connect authentically with your team, drive engagement, and achieve measurable business results. Being vulnerable takes courage, but when you lead with generosity, you unlock profound benefits:
This proven framework includes the following:
Through unforgettable stories from the author and CEOs of well-recognized companies, you'll see exactly how generous leadership transformed their organizations and careers. Winner of the NYC Big Book Award Distinguished Favorite and Eric Hoffer First Horizon Award finalist, this is the trusted reference for leaders ready to master modern leadership.
Leading with only technical skills isn't enough anymore. You need people to build a successful business—and today's workforce demands leaders who see beyond the bottom line. If you're feeling stuck or sensing that traditional leadership advice isn't connecting, this is your roadmap to the modern leadership approach that actually works.
Through 7 practical, heart-led actions, you'll learn to connect authentically with your team, drive engagement, and achieve measurable business results. Being vulnerable takes courage, but when you lead with generosity, you unlock profound benefits:
- deeper team connections
- stronger organizational performance
- accelerated career growth
- broader societal impact
This proven framework includes the following:
- Generous communication to build trust
- Generous listening to understand perspectives
- Generous inclusion to invite collaboration
- Becoming an ally to create opportunities
- Generous development to validate and expand potential
- Generous moments to acknowledge what matters
- Showing up authentically without masks
Through unforgettable stories from the author and CEOs of well-recognized companies, you'll see exactly how generous leadership transformed their organizations and careers. Winner of the NYC Big Book Award Distinguished Favorite and Eric Hoffer First Horizon Award finalist, this is the trusted reference for leaders ready to master modern leadership.
Master persuasion as a leadership practice to spark change that sticks, turn resistance into collaboration, and move teams from compliance to lasting commitment.
Most change efforts fail not because of poor strategy but because leaders struggle to win genuine commitment. Between 60 and 70 percent of major organizational change initiatives fall short or fail outright. The missing ingredient? Constructive persuasion.
Drawing on over two decades of research and coaching thousands of executives worldwide, Dr. Jay Conger shatters outdated myths about persuasion as manipulation or performance. Instead, he reveals persuasion as the essential leadership practice that transforms resistance into collaboration, ideas into action, and plans into sustained progress.
Readers will learn to do the following:
Each chapter delivers field-tested frameworks, readiness checklists, and real-world cases from banking, healthcare, technology, and beyond. The result is a transformative playbook that elevates persuasion from soft skill to the decisive force behind leadership success in the 21st century.
Most change efforts fail not because of poor strategy but because leaders struggle to win genuine commitment. Between 60 and 70 percent of major organizational change initiatives fall short or fail outright. The missing ingredient? Constructive persuasion.
Drawing on over two decades of research and coaching thousands of executives worldwide, Dr. Jay Conger shatters outdated myths about persuasion as manipulation or performance. Instead, he reveals persuasion as the essential leadership practice that transforms resistance into collaboration, ideas into action, and plans into sustained progress.
Readers will learn to do the following:
- Map influence networks and identify key decision-makers who can tip organizational support
- Build credibility through humility, transparency, and demonstrated expertise rather than positional authority
- Frame problems that invite collaboration instead of triggering defensiveness
- Craft compelling evidence that combines data with emotional resonance
- Orchestrate the emotional arc that moves teams from uncertainty to confidence and commitment
- Remain open to being influenced themselves—the mark of truly persuasive leaders
Each chapter delivers field-tested frameworks, readiness checklists, and real-world cases from banking, healthcare, technology, and beyond. The result is a transformative playbook that elevates persuasion from soft skill to the decisive force behind leadership success in the 21st century.
Learn how to lead in uncertain times, build resilience, and generate credible hope when chaos threatens-using practical faith-based leadership tools and AI-powered imagination to navigate the future with confidence.
You're facing unprecedented chaos. Faith and hope are collapsing worldwide. The institutions, norms, and alliances that once felt stable are fracturing. As a leader—in business, government, nonprofits, or faith communities—you're struggling to inspire confidence in any future at all. Your people can't work toward futures they can't imagine or trust futures they haven't been invited to shape.
What you need is a new path forward. This book gives you practical tools to generate credible hope when everything feels uncertain:
Following two personas navigating leadership in chaos, Johansen, Doyle, and Kirshbaum show you how to treat imagination as a leadership practice and make repair something visible, communal, and real. You'll learn to generate and share calm trust in futures worth striving for—giving your people the credible hope they desperately need.
You're facing unprecedented chaos. Faith and hope are collapsing worldwide. The institutions, norms, and alliances that once felt stable are fracturing. As a leader—in business, government, nonprofits, or faith communities—you're struggling to inspire confidence in any future at all. Your people can't work toward futures they can't imagine or trust futures they haven't been invited to shape.
What you need is a new path forward. This book gives you practical tools to generate credible hope when everything feels uncertain:
- The Credible Hope Compass—a practical framework for making leadership decisions when faith has been weaponized and hope feels naive
- Methods to use generative AI to envision alternative futures and expand your team's imagination
- Faith-enhanced leadership practices that move you beyond denial or despair into action
Following two personas navigating leadership in chaos, Johansen, Doyle, and Kirshbaum show you how to treat imagination as a leadership practice and make repair something visible, communal, and real. You'll learn to generate and share calm trust in futures worth striving for—giving your people the credible hope they desperately need.
Burnout can’t be solved with just perks or stress-reduction workshops. It's solved by changing how leaders engage their teams—a practical shift that requires no new resources. Grounded in peer-reviewed research, Relational Energy shows leaders how small changes in everyday workplace conversations can spark energy, revive exhausted teams, and build workplaces where people thrive.
Every leader is dealing with burnout and looking for something they can actually do tomorrow morning, and this is it.
In this book, leadership scholar Amy Young, with Kim Cameron, reveals how everyday communication creates relational energy, the powerful force that fuels engagement, creativity, resilience, health and well-being, and performance across teams.
Drawing on interviews with energizing leaders and weaving in supporting peer-reviewed research, Young unlocks the secrets to thriving amid uncertainty and disruption due to AI automation, fragile labor markets, cultural divisiveness, and relentless workplace demands. Through vivid real-world examples, you'll discover how energizing leaders sustain their own vitality while lifting their teams at the same time, simply by rethinking how they approach everyday conversations. You'll learn how to turn those ordinary interactions into extraordinary ones, providing a practical, no-cost antidote to workplace stress and burnout.
In this book, you will learn
Practical, research driven, and immediately applicable, Relational Energy shows leaders how small changes in language can create extraordinary impact, recharging people, teams, and entire organizations.
Every leader is dealing with burnout and looking for something they can actually do tomorrow morning, and this is it.
In this book, leadership scholar Amy Young, with Kim Cameron, reveals how everyday communication creates relational energy, the powerful force that fuels engagement, creativity, resilience, health and well-being, and performance across teams.
Drawing on interviews with energizing leaders and weaving in supporting peer-reviewed research, Young unlocks the secrets to thriving amid uncertainty and disruption due to AI automation, fragile labor markets, cultural divisiveness, and relentless workplace demands. Through vivid real-world examples, you'll discover how energizing leaders sustain their own vitality while lifting their teams at the same time, simply by rethinking how they approach everyday conversations. You'll learn how to turn those ordinary interactions into extraordinary ones, providing a practical, no-cost antidote to workplace stress and burnout.
In this book, you will learn
- how relational energy promotes workplace well-being and performance, creating the foundation for sustainable organizational success;
- strategies energizing leaders use to maintain their own energy levels while navigating the same modern workplace pressures that impact their teams;
- how to have workplace conversations that generate healthy perceptions of challenge and stress and reduce burnout while building resilience and team solidarity;
- specific language choices (wording, pronoun selection, questions, and declarative statements) that empower employees, elevate teams, and drive productivity; and
- how to acknowledge hard realities while building genuine hope and resilience, avoiding toxic positivity that saps energy.
Practical, research driven, and immediately applicable, Relational Energy shows leaders how small changes in language can create extraordinary impact, recharging people, teams, and entire organizations.
When life disrupts work, leaders need to know what to do next. This practical guide shows leaders at organizations of every size, from small businesses to large corporations, how to support employees through hard moments while strengthening trust across the workplace.
This is the book to read before the crisis happens, so you can respond with confidence, care, and clarity when it does.
Life disruptions do not stay outside the workplace. Grief, illness, caregiving, divorce, infertility, and other major life events shape how people show up at work, yet most organizations still do not prepare leaders for these moments. Even caring managers can freeze, unsure what to say, how to help, or how to balance support with team needs.
The challenge is not whether a life disruption will affect your team. It is when. The leaders who build trust in difficult moments are the ones who prepare before those moments arrive.
Drawing on original PhD research, interviews with employees and leaders, and nearly two decades of experience advising employers on benefits and workplace strategy, Dr. Nataliya Boychenko Stone gives leaders a practical guide for responding with confidence and care. She shows readers how to
This practical framework helps managers, HR professionals, and organizational leaders navigate life's most challenging moments at work while strengthening trust, loyalty, and performance across their teams.
This is the book to read before the crisis happens, so you can respond with confidence, care, and clarity when it does.
Life disruptions do not stay outside the workplace. Grief, illness, caregiving, divorce, infertility, and other major life events shape how people show up at work, yet most organizations still do not prepare leaders for these moments. Even caring managers can freeze, unsure what to say, how to help, or how to balance support with team needs.
The challenge is not whether a life disruption will affect your team. It is when. The leaders who build trust in difficult moments are the ones who prepare before those moments arrive.
Drawing on original PhD research, interviews with employees and leaders, and nearly two decades of experience advising employers on benefits and workplace strategy, Dr. Nataliya Boychenko Stone gives leaders a practical guide for responding with confidence and care. She shows readers how to
- understand what support an employee actually needs,
- connect people with the right workplace resources,
- adjust work with clarity and flexibility,
- stay present after the first crisis moment, and
- support employees while maintaining accountability.
This practical framework helps managers, HR professionals, and organizational leaders navigate life's most challenging moments at work while strengthening trust, loyalty, and performance across their teams.
Every leader knows the drain of conflict handled badly: performance conversations that go nowhere, teams that don't trust each other, fires you keep putting out instead of doing the work you want to do. Most leadership advice treats conflict as a threat to manage.
This book makes the opposite case: Conflict is energy, and how you use it determines whether it builds your team or turns your work culture toxic. That choice has never mattered more. Employees now spend over a third of their workday dealing with conflict, and fewer than half trust their leader to navigate it well. Leaders who don't handle conflict skillfully create workplaces with 80 percent more unproductive conflict.
Ninety-four percent of people trained in this framework rate it more effective than anything else they've used. What makes this different from the standard playbook for “difficult conversations”? Most frameworks ask you to choose: kind or direct, relationship or results.
This book rejects that trade-off: Compassion without accountability is ineffective, and accountability without it is unkind. This book shows how to hold both, using the compassion cycle, the drama triangle it replaces, and the ORPO formula, turning principle into a repeatable playbook.
The book moves in three parts: first naming the problem, how good intentions and unmanaged conflict energy spiral into drama; then introducing the antidote, the compassion cycle and the behavioral skills that interrupt drama before it takes hold; and finally handing you the playbook, the ORPO formula and match-and-move method for engaging conflict and coaching others through it in real time.
New to this edition:
Written by Nate Regier, PhD, cofounder and CEO of Next Element Consulting, this book distills two decades of applied research into a model any leader can use the next time conflict shows up, which will be soon.
This book makes the opposite case: Conflict is energy, and how you use it determines whether it builds your team or turns your work culture toxic. That choice has never mattered more. Employees now spend over a third of their workday dealing with conflict, and fewer than half trust their leader to navigate it well. Leaders who don't handle conflict skillfully create workplaces with 80 percent more unproductive conflict.
Ninety-four percent of people trained in this framework rate it more effective than anything else they've used. What makes this different from the standard playbook for “difficult conversations”? Most frameworks ask you to choose: kind or direct, relationship or results.
This book rejects that trade-off: Compassion without accountability is ineffective, and accountability without it is unkind. This book shows how to hold both, using the compassion cycle, the drama triangle it replaces, and the ORPO formula, turning principle into a repeatable playbook.
The book moves in three parts: first naming the problem, how good intentions and unmanaged conflict energy spiral into drama; then introducing the antidote, the compassion cycle and the behavioral skills that interrupt drama before it takes hold; and finally handing you the playbook, the ORPO formula and match-and-move method for engaging conflict and coaching others through it in real time.
New to this edition:
- A complete framework outline up front
- Fifteen years of refinement teaching, coaching, and certifying practitioners worldwide
- New research on what skilled conflict leadership is worth
- Reorganized chapters, more-inclusive language, fresh real-life illustrations
- Access to the Compassionate Accountability Assessment and a range of additional resources to extend the book's impact well beyond the page
Written by Nate Regier, PhD, cofounder and CEO of Next Element Consulting, this book distills two decades of applied research into a model any leader can use the next time conflict shows up, which will be soon.
When the plan can’t keep up with changing conditions, strategic judgment must.
Strategic leaders increasingly make consequential decisions in the gap between strategic intent and the plan of action. They need to stay oriented toward what they are trying to create while continually deciding what to hold, what to adapt, and what to let go of to meet rapidly changing conditions.
The challenge is that pressure can begin shaping those decisions before you realize it. Over time, hundreds of reasonable choices can add up to something no one intended.
In this book, strategist and executive coach Karin Blair reveals a hidden lever behind strategic judgment: the inner capacity of the leader making those calls.
Through a framework of interconnected agilities, you’ll learn to
With practical insights and real-world examples, Blair helps you recognize when pressure is narrowing your judgment and build the agilities that strengthen your capacity over time, so you can draw on it when the stakes are high.
You can’t change the terrain. But you can expand your inner capacity to navigate it.
Strategic leaders increasingly make consequential decisions in the gap between strategic intent and the plan of action. They need to stay oriented toward what they are trying to create while continually deciding what to hold, what to adapt, and what to let go of to meet rapidly changing conditions.
The challenge is that pressure can begin shaping those decisions before you realize it. Over time, hundreds of reasonable choices can add up to something no one intended.
In this book, strategist and executive coach Karin Blair reveals a hidden lever behind strategic judgment: the inner capacity of the leader making those calls.
Through a framework of interconnected agilities, you’ll learn to
- build emotional agility to recognize when self-protection and reactivity are shaping your judgment,
- develop cognitive agility to widen the perspectives and possibilities you can consider before deciding, and
- strengthen navigational agility to stay oriented and committed as conditions change and results remain uncertain.
With practical insights and real-world examples, Blair helps you recognize when pressure is narrowing your judgment and build the agilities that strengthen your capacity over time, so you can draw on it when the stakes are high.
You can’t change the terrain. But you can expand your inner capacity to navigate it.
Please Do Disturb: How True Leaders Show Up When It Matters Most challenges one of leadership's biggest misconceptions, that great leadership is primarily about strategy, authority, or performance.
Instead, Rachel Alday, Linny Jones, and Harte Logan make the case that exceptional leadership begins with something far more human: presence, connection, and the ability to create belonging.
Drawing from Alday's decades of experience building a luxury hospitality company, and Jones and Logan’s organizational consulting perspective, the authors reveal how the principles behind extraordinary guest experiences can transform the way leaders serve their teams, organizations, and communities. Through engaging stories, practical frameworks, and lessons learned while growing a business to nearly $25 million in annual revenue managing approximately 200 luxury homes, they demonstrate that the leaders people remember aren't necessarily the ones with the best ideas—they're the ones who consistently show up when it matters most.
At its heart, Please Do Disturb is a book about creating environments where people feel seen, heard, valued, and like they truly belong. It explores how intentional moments of connection build trust, strengthen culture, and inspire people to do their best work, not because they have to but because they want to, leading to phenomenal results.
Whether you're leading a company, a team, or a family, or simply striving to become more intentional in your relationships, this book offers practical wisdom for cultivating deeper connection, fostering belonging, and leading with authenticity in a world that increasingly craves both.
Please Do Disturb reminds us that leadership isn't measured by titles or influence alone. It's measured by the people we choose to notice, the connections we create, and the lasting sense of belonging we leave behind.
Instead, Rachel Alday, Linny Jones, and Harte Logan make the case that exceptional leadership begins with something far more human: presence, connection, and the ability to create belonging.
Drawing from Alday's decades of experience building a luxury hospitality company, and Jones and Logan’s organizational consulting perspective, the authors reveal how the principles behind extraordinary guest experiences can transform the way leaders serve their teams, organizations, and communities. Through engaging stories, practical frameworks, and lessons learned while growing a business to nearly $25 million in annual revenue managing approximately 200 luxury homes, they demonstrate that the leaders people remember aren't necessarily the ones with the best ideas—they're the ones who consistently show up when it matters most.
At its heart, Please Do Disturb is a book about creating environments where people feel seen, heard, valued, and like they truly belong. It explores how intentional moments of connection build trust, strengthen culture, and inspire people to do their best work, not because they have to but because they want to, leading to phenomenal results.
Whether you're leading a company, a team, or a family, or simply striving to become more intentional in your relationships, this book offers practical wisdom for cultivating deeper connection, fostering belonging, and leading with authenticity in a world that increasingly craves both.
Please Do Disturb reminds us that leadership isn't measured by titles or influence alone. It's measured by the people we choose to notice, the connections we create, and the lasting sense of belonging we leave behind.
From the bestselling authors of Making Innovation Work (30,000 copies sold and translated into ten languages) comes a book that questions everything about how organizations innovate. Key takeaway: classical business management and corporate structures by their very nature will kill, not create, breakthroughs. The authors describe a new kind of organization-the startup corporation-that will make established companies as innovative as startups.