Total Leadership, by Stewart D. Friedman

One of the happy surprises of the Global Business Travel Association convention for me was a seminar called Total Leadership. I attended begrudgingly because a colleague had arranged for us to meet with the presenter, Stew Friedman (a Wharton professor and author), that afternoon to discuss possible content collaboration with Executive Travel. The idea was to familiarize ourselves with his message.

I went into the meeting room a total skeptic, and I left totally inspired. (I love it when that happens!) Turns out that all these years I had bought into an outdated understanding of what it means to be a leader: a style known as “command and control.” Since that is most certainly not my style, I figured I was not a candidate for leadership. The seminar caused me to rethink what a leader is and does. Weeks later I have dug deeper by reading Stew’s book.

According to Friedman, leadership is best examined across four domains of a person’s life (not just business): work, home, community and self. Friedman suggests making changes (“experiments”) that impact all four domains at once. I love that this goes against the binary nature of the work-life balance question: the four domains are interwoven and can/should be addressed as such.

There’s a lot of meat to this book, and it’s meant to lead to action and change. Stew recommends a thorough go-through will take four months. I’m just getting started on that exercise, but it’s a process I’m enjoying.  After all, the promise of the book’s subtitle is hard to ignore: Be a Better Leader, Have a Richer Life.