Leading The Life You Want

Skills for Integrating Work and Life

Download a free chapter from Leading the Life You Want

You’re busy trying to lead a “full” life. But does it really feel full—or are you stretched too thin?

Enter Stew Friedman, Wharton professor, adviser to leaders across the globe, and passionate advocate of replacing the misguided metaphor of “work/life balance” with something more realistic, sustainable, and enriching. According to Friedman, the idea that “work” competes with “life” ignores the more nuanced reality of our humanity—the intersection and interaction of four central domains: work, home, community, and the private self. The goal is to integrate these areas harmoniously instead of thinking only in terms of trade-offs. It can be done.


“For nearly thirty years, my life’s work has been to help people like you find ways to bring the often warring aspects of life into greater harmony.”

– Stew Friedman, from Leading the Life You Want


Building on his national bestseller, Total Leadership, and on over three decades of research, teaching, and practice as both consultant and senior executive, in this Wall Street Journal bestseller Stew Friedman identifies the critical skills for creating harmony between work and the rest of life. He illustrates them through the compelling stories of six remarkable people:

  • Tom Tierney: former CEO of Bain & Company and Bridgespan Group Co-founder
  • Sheryl Sandberg: business leader and author
  • Eric Greitens: Governor of Missouri and former U.S. Navy SEAL
  • Michelle Obama: former U.S. First Lady
  • Julie Foudy: former soccer champion, sports broadcaster
  • Bruce Springsteen: renowned artist

Each of these admirable, though surely imperfect, people exemplifies a specific set of skills—for being real, being whole, and being innovative—they learned through trial-and-error that reduce conflict and produce a sense of purpose, coherence, and optimism in their lives.

Based on in-depth interviews and original research, their stories paint a vivid picture of the ways these very different leaders use specific skills to act with authenticity, integrity, and creativity—and they prove that significant professional or public success is accomplished not at the expense of the rest of life, but as the result of meaningful attachments to all its parts.

With dozens of engaging easy-to-do exercises for practicing these skills, curated from research in organizational psychology and related fields, this book will inspire you, inform you, and instruct you on how to take realistic steps now toward leading the life you truly want; to find both greater freedom and more harmony among the different parts of your life by using your unique gifts to be of service to others.


 

Tools

leadingthelifeyouwant_webTake the Total Leadership Skills Assessment

18 questions that could change your life.  Take the Skills Assessment and learn how good you are at being real, being whole, and being innovative. Discover which of these six great leaders has strengths most like yours.

 

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Book Lists

  • Wall Street Journal Business Best Seller.
  • Forbes 8 Noteworthy Books of 2014.
  • Time 10 Tips and Quotes from the Best Leadership Books of the Year.
  • CEO Read Business Books Best Seller List for 2014.
  • Forbes Top 10 Creative Leadership Books of 2014.

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