In the last couple of weeks, I’ve listened to Bill Clinton give a commencement speech to my eldest child and his classmates; done a half-day session on leadership with ten GE company officers, followed by dinner with CEO Jeff Immelt; and led a meeting with the dozen or so physicians who constitute the senior executive corps of the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine. I can’t stop thinking of Dylan’s song and wondering how we’re doing on developing the generation of leaders.

Hard as it might be for old folks in positions of power to see the world in a new light and embrace it, these senior people with whom I’ve been spending some time are trying their best to lend a hand to the next generation as they roll down a new road. Smart seniors who want to leave a positive legacy will pay attention to these and other examples, learn from them, and follow suit in a way that works in their world.

For decades GE has been, and remains, the most prolific net exporter of leadership talent in the corporate world, because it has a tradition — a strongly-held cultural belief — supported by the tangible commitment of time and money, for developing people. The Business Week article about GE’s efforts a few months back got it wrong in describing the current state of GE’s leadership development system as out of step with these digital times. You need not look any further than my visit to corporate headquarters for some evidence. The expressed intent of my purpose was to stimulate dialogue and raise provocative questions about what leadership means today and what it should mean in the future. With the full backing, even prodding, I felt from Chief Learning Officer Susan Peters, I encountered a readiness to challenge the status quo — to look at leadership from the perspective of not just work but of the whole person, including family and community and personal life (mind, body, and spirit) — that was as refreshing as it was inspiring. Taking time “to address the soul,” as one attendee put it, is not how things would’ve been done at GE back in the day; but, in 2010, knowing that the world has evolved and that a new leadership model is necessary for the people who will run GE in 2020, the current executives of this visionary company are taking important steps to critically evaluate, and so revise, their approach.

The University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine is the site of an NIH-funded study of the impact of a series of interventions — including, full disclosure, my Total Leadership program — on the careers and lives of talented up-and-coming women faculty in academic medicine. This first-of-its kind project is an extension of remarkable efforts led by the FOCUS program, a unique initiative dedicated to advancing the careers of women faculty. We get underway in earnest later this year, and our meeting a few weeks ago was a briefing for the top team on what we are undertaking, and why. Here, in one of the most tradition-bound fields, senior executives were engaging actively in a practical discussion about the nitty-gritty of what it would take to provide support for the next generation to succeed in experimenting with new ways to get things done that are in synch with the demands of their lives beyond work; to do nothing less, in other words, than re-think the culture of academic medicine.

President Clinton aimed one of his rhetorical arrows at this same target: To his audience of fresh-faced grads he declared that you, the rising generation, must focus on creating change that is sustainable, devising new ways to live and work that fit with the needs and interests not only of your work and your families, but of your spirit, of our society, and of our intricately interconnected world.

Tomorrow’s executive leaders need all the help we can give them. Fortunately, there are some wise men and women who know this and are dedicating serious effort to exploring innovative ways to prepare them. I have seen and heard them first-hand struggling to figure out a way forward on the new road, and I’m happy to report that my impressions lead me to be optimistic, despite the enormous resistance inherent in the status quo and the difficulties of successfully inventing new forms of organization that will work better than what we have now.

Is my hope warranted? It depends in part on whether you and your organization choose to help or hinder. How are you re-making leadership development so that future leaders are ready for the world they’ll live in, not for the one we’ve known?

More than any particular policy initiative or new program announcement, yesterday’s session at the White House was a symbolic moment that signified, at last, a new era in which we are really talking and thinking differently about work and its relationship with the rest of our lives. The First Couple, relaxed and confident in their choices, spoke candidly about the difficulties they have faced in cultivating a successful marriage and family while pursuing careers about which they feel passionate.

As I looked around the room filled with 100 or so business leaders, government officials, policy advocates, union representatives, and researchers — and then again in one of the five small group sessions at which we shared best practices — I couldn’t help but notice that there were almost as many men present as women. When I first began addressing the matter of work and family in my Wharton School classroom in 1987, and soon thereafter organized roundtables and research on this issue, it was unusual for there to be more than one or two other guys in the room. More than one senior colleague told me to not waste my time on what they saw as a women’s issue that wasn’t of great import to business.

Yesterday, the President forcefully proclaimed how evidence shows that workplace flexibility is not just a special perk for women, but that it’s a critical part of a workplace that can help all of us: that increased flexibility doesn’t hurt your bottom line, it increases it; that work is what you do, not who you are; and that fathers need and want to be as much a part of their children’s lives as do mothers. Our chief executive was declaring to the business community that raising the next generation is the most important job we have, and that we’re going to make it easier for people to do it.

Our small group discussion focused on the importance of customizing solutions to fit local needs — that one size surely cannot fit all. Representatives of companies as diverse as J&J, Timberland, Dow Corning, PNC Bank, and Jet Blue shared stories of how they’re figuring it out. Instructive as these and other examples were, the hopeful idea that stayed with me as I left the meeting, and walked through the White House grounds admiring the cherry blossoms blooming on the warm sunny day that was the last of a rainy March (thank goodness!), was this: that we have arrived at a new juncture in the American story. Leadership in business isn’t just about business. It’s about life.

Recently, in my Wharton MBA course on leadership from the point of view of the whole person, we grappled with the challenge of how to choose among the various media options available today for connecting with important people in all the different parts of your life. We came up with 17 different media currently in use for interpersonal contact, including face-to-face (verbal and non-verbal), phone, email, snail mail, text and video messaging, blogs, podcasts, online forums, even music sharing and online gaming, among others. Quite a few of these did not even exist ten years ago, reminding us that we are all still very much in learning mode when it comes to the social and psychological principles and methods we need to take advantage of the incredibly powerful, and sometimes bewildering, array of choices we have.

Digital technology has added both relief and stress to our lives. These tools can make it easier to move rapidly from one part of life to another and give rapid access to the people who need you. And you can broadcast with them, making communication extremely efficient. Yet instead of realizing all the potential benefits, most people find themselves trapped by the demands imposed by the enormous amount of information surrounding them every hour of every day. A thought experiment: If I told you right now that you had to give up all your digital devices for the next day, how would you feel? Relieved? Terrified? We’ve become enormously dependent on these tools, and yet we’ve not spent nearly enough time thinking about how best to use them so that we gain the benefits while keeping them from reducing the quality of our lives.

People complain that using new technologies reduces social interaction and sense of community while others rant about being expected to be available for work 24/7 with zero response-time to urgent messages. While the promise of new media is freedom, choice, and control, the reality for most is crippling overload. On the employer side, many bosses wonder whether people are really working when they are connecting virtually. They also worry about how to foster team spirit when the “team” is invisible. Finally, when performance is measured the old-fashioned way (by time spent in an office) and not on the basis of results (no matter where and when they are produced), digital communications can seem to undermine productivity.

But what if you could use the media available to you to build trust and gain greater flexibility? And what if you could do this without being enslaved and constantly bombarded by your Blackberry, iPhone, laptop, or whatever? You’d feel more whole, better able to integrate the diverse pieces of the social puzzle in your life.

You can learn to use new media to shift time and place in ways that work for all your key stakeholders, including yourself. But the intelligent use of the various media we now have isn’t just a matter of doing more digital. Rather, it’s a matter of more consciously allocating your use of different modes of communication: for example, making face-to-face communication a priority for those stakeholders with whom it’s needed, while using digital less. It all depends on what’s going to work best for you and for them.

Studying your forms of interaction will help you generate ideas for how you might capitalize on the benefits of each communication mode (e.g., face-to-face is best when trust is on the line) while minimizing the liabilities (e.g., emails can miss nuances better conveyed on the phone or in person). This might mean shifting to more in-person time with certain stakeholders (such as your children or clients) and less with others (such as with your boss or the people who report to you) while taking advantage of the flexibility of virtual media as a means of staying connected with others.

Here’s one way to stimulate creative thinking about exploiting various forms of communication. Think about the media you use to communicate with the five most important people or groups at work, at home, and in your community. For each of these stakeholders, estimate the percentage of your interaction time that is conducted through each of the following forms of communication: face-to-face (F2F), virtual synchronous (shifting place but not time, such as phone, IM, and videoconferencing), and virtual asynchronous (shifting both time and place, such as voicemail and email) communication. For example, you might spend 50% in F2F with your boss, 20% with her on the phone, and 30% by email and voicemail. After you do this analysis, look for patterns. Consider how using different forms of communication affects your capacity to achieve your goals in each part of your life and to align them better by asking these questions:

• What opportunities are there for you to use different forms of communication more effectively?
• Are there stakeholders with whom you should be devoting more time F2F and others less?
• With whom would it be better to use virtual more regularly?

The real value in this analysis is to become more aware of media preferences (yours and theirs) and to learn more about how you can be more effective in meeting expectations by using a given medium. Look for opportunities to explain to your people why you have a preference for one medium over another for certain kinds of communications. For example, if you prefer email, and can justify it as the option of choice to a friend, your father, or a co-worker, that conversation about your preferences will probably make the entire process of communicating go more smoothly. The technology choice should be based on a mutual understanding about why, how, and when you’re going to communicate.

Staying mindful of the preferences others have means looking for chances to talk about when, where, and how you use different media to stay connected, including when you’re available and when you’re not. You might, for instance, discuss what it would be like to shut off the digital information stream for a specific period — even for just an hour or two — to focus your attention entirely on one thing.

With so many options, there are plenty of opportunities for you to experiment, even just for a week or so, with how you use media. Try something different, with the deliberate goal of performing more effectively in all the different parts of your life, and see what happens.

The Directive Approach — Giving Useful Feedback

The essence of directive coaching is providing feedback. Take this approach when your goal as a coach is to instruct others on what they’ve done well and what they can do to improve.

As a coach, one of the main gifts you have to offer to anyone who you’ve seen in action is to express to them your observation of that action and its consequences. It’s best to present your impressions straightforwardly and with compassion. The quality and sensitivity of a coach’s feedback can make a huge difference in spurring growth. On the other side, to be an effective client (or coachee), the primary challenge you face is to remain open and manage your natural tendency to be defensive in reacting to feedback — information about your actions and their consequences — that is in some way inconsistent with how you currently view yourself. Getting good at both giving and receiving directive coaching requires practice. Very few people are naturally gifted in this essential skill.

In providing directive feedback, your main responsibility is to identify strengths and clarify areas for improvement that address your client’s goals, while at the same time finding ways to reduce his or her defensiveness. You produce value as a peer coach when you give feedback that, first and foremost, addresses goals that are a real priority for them, not for you. It’s useful, too, for you to push your clients to stretch and go as far as they can in pursuing the goals that matter to them.

I’ve found that the best way to offer feedback is to prepare what you’re going to say in advance and to make sure it’s balanced, not overly positive or negative; a mix of both is best, not least because it enhances your credibility and your client’s trust that you’re being candid. Be direct and specific about what you’ve seen and the consequences of your client’s actions. Of course, if you are being constructively critical — pointing out a client’s mistake or area for improvement — you’ve also got to offer a constructive suggestion or two.

When you give directive feedback, you want to make sure that what you’ve said is what has actually been heard and understood by your client. The easiest way to do this is to simply ask your client to repeat back to you how she took what you said and what it means to her. Finally, it’s almost always a good idea to conclude an offering of directive feedback with an expression of your interest in providing follow-up assistance, leaving the door open for future opportunities for you to help.

The Nondirective Approach — Asking Smart Questions

The essence of nondirective coaching is simply asking useful, probing questions. Many people fear change because it forces them into unknown territory, where things are unpredictable and unfamiliar. And yet there are predictable stages people go through when they undertake intentional change. In taking the non-directive approach, your goal is to help others to see and feel the need to create meaningful, sustainable change. Here are the stages and some of the key questions to ask in helping your clients to face the challenges associated with each:

What’s the problem?
The first step is identifying the need for change. This can be difficult, as many of us ignore information that disconfirms our current perceptions or threatens the status quo. Coaches can help identify blind spots — by encouraging self-reflection about things that aren’t obvious to their clients. As a coach, basic questions to ask to increase awareness are:

-As you think about your goals, what’s not working well in your life?
-What are the consequences of this issue for you and for the important people in your life?
-What is the source of the need to change — is it in you or is it external?

Why bother?
The next stage is about the belief that the need to change is urgent enough to take action. Because we naturally tend towards continuing the status quo, if doing something new doesn’t feel urgent, it’s not likely to occur. Coaches can help raise urgency by asking questions such as these:

-Looking ahead, what will happen if you don’t change?
-What will happen if you do change?

What’s your decision?
The decision to change is a crucial moment because it marks the point when your mind shifts and you begin to see a different future. It is also a fragile point in planned change processes, fraught with temptations to revert to the way things have always been and distractions away from the focused effort that’s required to do something new and make it stick. However, coaches can help clients reach and move beyond this point by asking:

-What have you decided to do differently and why?
-What is the ideal outcome?
-What are your new goals?

What steps exactly?
What are the possible step-by-step actions the client can take to make this decision real in his or her work and life? Good coaches ask clients to think aloud about what to do differently, how to overcome obstacles, and what skills or sources of support are needed. You can help your client discover specific ideas for how to better accomplish goals by asking:

-What exactly will you do, and when will you do it?
-How will you measure progress?
-What stands in the way, and how will you overcome these barriers?
-How will you generate needed support?

Are you really in?
Generating sufficient commitment to follow through is one of the most challenging aspects of any change process. Because commitment wanes without a sense of urgency, coaches should continually test for this. Coaches can ask:

-What if this is harder than you think?
-What are the first steps — and the next steps — you will take?
-How will you maintain your sense of urgency?

How will you sustain it?
Even if a client has made it through all of the prior stages, it is crucial that he or she receive reinforcement for the positive outcomes gained. Encouragement at every small step builds momentum, and coaches should provide frequent reinforcement and celebrate their clients’ successes to bolster confidence and help clients avoid slippage. The key questions here are:

-What impact has your new behavior had on you and others?
-What accomplishments are you proud of achieving?
-Is there a smarter step that might help you build momentum?
-How can I (as your coach) reinforce your commitment to action?

Get in the Game!

Directive and non-directive peer coaching can make a real difference in helping people change. Try both methods and then find out what works and what doesn’t by asking your clients to critique your actions. Like any other skill, practice as a peer coach — with follow-up assessment of what works and what doesn’t, along with support from people (that is, your clients) who are dedicated to helping you become more adept at helping them — makes perfect.

We all need somebody to lean on. No one gains real success, in business or in other parts of life, without the support of other people. Peer-to-peer coaching is an important source of social support, and there are good reasons why, as a business professional, you can and should do it regularly.

Drawing on decades of experience in coaching and in teaching others how to coach, in this post I describe what you can do to cultivate your own peer-to-peer coaching network — a small group of trusted people whom you help and who help you by providing encouragement, ideas, a different perspective on obstacles and opportunities, and social pressure to actually do what you know you need to do differently.

I’m not suggesting that you become a professional coach, or pretend to be one. Informal coaching connections aren’t a replacement for professional coaching or counseling support, which should be sought when problems in your life reach the point where you are unable to deal effectively with them with the resources you’ve currently got at your disposal. Rather, I’m offering ideas that, short of professional counseling, can help you and your friends, colleagues, and family members help each other in your efforts to create change.

Coaching, to put it simply, is the process of helping others to improve performance now and developing their capacity to perform well in the future. It’s about changing behavior to make things better. Because the process of change is difficult and can provoke anxiety, people often resist it. The forces of inertia are strong, but effective coaching can surmount them. Peer-to-peer coaching is fun, because it involves learning and solving real problems; it’s free; and, I’ve found, just about anyone can do it.

What You Gain

There are many benefits that derive from informal coaching relationships. First, the obvious and automatic ones you receive as a “client” (what I call anyone on the receiving end of coaching): By talking about a new business idea, for example, with a peer coach who has no vested interest other than in helping you figure out the best next step, you can get the encouragement you need to overcome your fear of starting something new and specific suggestions for realistic actions to take. Perhaps more important, peer coaches hold you accountable — you feel obliged to report to them on your progress, of lack thereof — an all-too-often missing ingredient in recipes for cooking up something new.

Then there are the intangibles that come from helping others, and these might ultimately be the most useful. People find that when they are trying to help someone else produce change they themselves gain useful insights on their own problems, just by listening to someone else’s. (Full disclosure: I’ve made a career out of asking questions to which I wish I knew the answers.) In addition, there is a sense of camaraderie and the good feeling that comes when you have a positive effect on another person’s well-being. Further, doing so enhances your reputation as someone who invests in others’ success. Finally, because the giving and receiving of coaching support is a behavioral skill, through practice and reflection on what works and what doesn’t, you can develop and improve your ability as a coach.

Getting Started

If you’re starting from scratch, think about the people in your current personal and professional networks with whom you’d like to collaborate in an informal coaching network. They might be co-workers, friends, or members of your family. Start small, with three people, including you, and with each of you taking turns serving as both coach and client for the others.

Begin with the three of you finding a time to talk about your goals for your informal coaching network. The more open you are about your goals, the more likely they’ll be realized, because your commitment will be higher. In this first conversation, you should also talk about your hopes and fears. Discuss how your small network will work together. Establish expectations, set up times to meet (via email, phone, or face-to-face), and begin to learn about each other’s interests. Clarify how you’ll play the coach and client roles, and be open to adjusting these expectations as needed. Gain an initial understanding of your clients’ key relationships at work, at home, and in the community. At the same time, respect privacy and preferences for how much information your clients are willing to disclose.

Guidelines for Peer Coaching

Here are some general guidelines for how to be an effective peer coach:

• Show you care about helping your clients achieve their goals.
• Share your own experiences only to help the client feel accepted, not to focus on you.
• Be as aware as possible of your own biases as a coach.
• Stay in touch with the reality your client is facing — listen well.
• Don’t hide your ignorance — ask questions, even ones you might think are dumb.
• Encourage your client to get more help when needed, from all sources.

Some cautionary notes: First, if you cannot provide feedback at the time your client is expecting it, immediately communicate this to your client to explain the delay. This builds trust. Avoid long periods of coaching inactivity. Like any developed skill, good coaching requires time, energy and thoughtfulness by both participants — and you get can get rusty quickly. Try not to criticize your client’s ideas; usually it’s just best to listen and offer alternatives. Don’t promise more than you can deliver; this will decrease your credibility.

Two Types of Coaching

Once you’ve gotten started, you can focus more on what kinds of coaching work best for different people and situations. Coaching can be either directive or nondirective. Directive coaching involves listening to your client and then offering advice from your own experiences or knowledge base. Nondirective coaching requires listening to your client’s problems, but instead of then offering advice, asking questions that encourage your client to reach solutions independently. Asking good questions helps your client achieve greater self-understanding. Both forms of coaching can be effective; the preferred type depends on what your client needs. For details, stay tuned for my next post.

One of the least discussed yet quite salient issues for American business in this year of health care reform is an important yet hidden cost associated with mental illness: the drain on productive work endured by family members struggling to support loved ones who suffer from such diseases. The good news for business leaders is that it’s not hard to do something to help and thus feel good while improving company culture and morale, as well as your bottom line.

Mental illness comes in a staggering array of forms, and affects a broad swath of our general population. According to the National Institute of Mental Health, an “estimated 26.2 percent of Americans ages 18 and older — about one in four adults — suffer from a diagnosable mental disorder in a given year.”

Awareness and understanding of mental illness has grown in recent years; still, it’s often not taken seriously or treated as a legitimate medical disease either by businesses, by the health care system, or by our society. Indeed, too many people remain reluctant to get the help they need because of the stigma associated with mental illness. The website bringchange2mind.org (with a powerful new public service video by film director Ron Howard) asserts that “for many, the stigma associated with the illness can be as great a challenge as the disease itself.”

This stigma extends beyond those directly stricken to family members. Parents of children with mental illness are often viewed as guilty by association, unfairly perceived as the cause of the illness — the source of harmful child-rearing practices — when the origin is mainly biological. Parents and other family members feel shame and a sense of failure. I know because one of my adult children suffers from a toxic combination of schizophrenia (a thought disorder) and bipolar illness (a mood disorder).

There are real costs associated with employees having to carry this heavy weight of worry and responsibility, especially if they feel they must do so without the understanding and support of their organization. There is stress, unwanted social isolation in the workplace, and the feeling that they must find clandestine ways of responding to urgent demands for their attention. All of this undermines productivity by causing burn-out, unplanned absences, distractions from focused effort on tasks, and poor confidence in being able to contribute to the team.

As a leader in your organization, you can reduce these costs and inspire greater performance from valued employees. You can enable them to feel freer to ask for the help they need in supporting their families by changing how you think , how you talk, and how you act. In turn, they are bound to repay you with extraordinary effort and commitment to your goals and to your company.

Mind your attitude. Changing your attitude toward one of greater understanding and acceptance requires education (see, for example, this recent Harris survey on schizophrenia). If an employee with dependent care responsibilities born of a physical abnormality or illness needs to bring a loved one to a doctor’s visit, no one judges him harshly. Indeed, this is likely to evoke sympathy. On the other hand, if he has to disrupt his work schedule to care for a family member, who — for reasons difficult to grasp and explain — cannot be left alone for fear of hearing voices or of some other dread psychological symptom, then he might well be reluctant to risk letting others know why he needs the time because they might look askance or even question his own mental stability. Your attitude can make all the difference. By taking mental illness as seriously as any physical illness, you convey emotional support and encourage employees to get the help they need to cope with the strains of caring for their sick loved one.

Watch your words. The words you use, and the way you use them, convey your attitude. Here’s a tip from bringchange2mind.org: “Refrain from using terms like ‘crazy,’ ‘nuts,’ ‘psycho’ and ‘lunatic.’ While there may be times when it is too challenging or simply not possible to politely correct someone else’s insensitive use of language, you can always try to watch your own.” To combat harmful stereotypes and demonstrate understanding, it’s better to say, for example, that someone “has schizophrenia” than to call that person a “schizophrenic” — the illness is not the person.

Model behavior. The kinds of actions that show genuine support are the same ones you’d want to show all your employees in treating them as whole people, with important aspects of life playing out beyond the bounds of work: Initiate and encourage dialogue with an open mind, address the individual needs of each employee, respect confidentiality, and be flexible and willing to engage in joint problem-solving while focusing on results that matter to you and to them.

Change the culture. As a business leader you are in a position to have a positive influence on the culture of your organization which, in turn affects all your employees as well as other stakeholders — clients and customers, suppliers, community members, and so on. Your supportive attitude about those who are forced to live with mental illness — with the words and deeds to reinforce it — can shape your company’s values and the behavior in it that determine whether or not all your people get the help they need to both contribute fully to your business and lead productive lives.

What else can be done to make it easier for parents and other loved ones of those who live with mental illness to perform well at work? Please comment and share your stories, advice, and resources.

Bruce’s epic music is a source of inspiration for millions around the world. Like many others, his impact on me has been deeply personal. On a recent night in Philadelphia, listening to Bruce and his E Street Band, I was reminded once again of why the Boss (big B) is not only New Jersey’s greatest export and America’s rock poet laureate, but why he’s a model for other bosses (small b).

Consider these three simple principles that Bruce exemplifies to inspire his followers:

1. “Prove it all night” — Devote yourself fully to your people and never let up

Springsteen is obsessed with giving everything he has to his fans, and he always has been. When he shows up for work, he is wholly present and demands that every member of his band and company does the same. In the early days, he would spend hours before a show sitting in most of the seats to check the sound to ensure that it was good for everyone in the house. He plays until you’re exhausted.

2. “Come on up to the rising” — Create community by connecting people to something bigger than themselves

Bruce found salvation in music and in the brotherhood of his band. This sense of connection gives authentic vitality to the many roles, beyond that of musician, he takes seriously in his performances: revival-show preacher, wry comic, and self-educated social critic. His fans feel a bond cemented by ideas that matter — social justice, the hope for redemption, love. In a world that is increasingly volatile and fearsome, those like Springsteen who can “talk about a dream and try to make it real” are prized for bringing people together and helping them realize how they can make the world a bit better.

3. “It ain’t no sin to be glad you’re alive” — Appreciate what’s good; express optimism

Springsteen’s music, even as it focuses on the social and political problems of racism, economic inequality, and war (as in the Grammy-winning album The Rising), has a fierce determination to find the good and celebrate it. There is realism, but no cynicism. It takes both sensitivity and steadfastness to find and maintain this balance. The most successful and effective leaders have learned — through reflection on the crucibles of their own personal experiences — how to do this in their own distinct way, in their own unique voice.

Our turbulent world — more networked than hierarchical, more flexible than standardized — demands leaders like Springsteen, who generate loyalty and commitment not so much with their use of positional power and formal authority, but with their authenticity, their integrity, and their creativity.

Chief among the film’s many virtues is the deeply compassionate display of a man’s struggle to be true to his dangerous, heroic obsession, though doing so leaves him in the most existentially harrowing place imaginable — “the hurt locker.” The expression, of course, is figurative, meant to describe a mental and emotional state of pain, where human warmth and intimacy are forsaken. The riveting portrayal of James and his comrades compels the viewer to feel acute tension all the way through. You’ll be emotionally spent by the end of the movie.

The Hurt Locker also raises a question about work that’s relevant for professionals the world over: Where do I draw the line between passionate commitment and destructive fixation? The adrenaline rush that comes with living on the edge of life and death in the service of one’s country is counterpoised against the desire for connection with family and other loved ones. What are the consequences when the former wins and the latter loses?

For country, you might think, the outcome is desirable; a rare talent is being applied to meet an urgent performance demand with direct positive impact on military achievement. But at what cost to the soldier and the people closest to him? You feel the pain of the young sergeant’s heart-wrenching farewell to his only son as James prepares to return to the field of battle. He’s a professional is driven by his mission, relentlessly pursuing the cause he believes in — at almost any cost.

Should we fault him for his preference? Why not fully support the complete immersion of a great talent into work that must be done very well, even if the personal cost of such a choice is dear? When the stakes are life, death, and defending the country, we’re more inclined to encourage obsessive involvement in the task despite the costs. But what about business professionals who’ve crossed over from passionate commitment to destructive fixation? Are the costs worth it in that context?

Everyone has their own individual value systems, and I try to refrain from judging or imposing upon the personal values others hold. But one piece of more general advice would seem to hold true: You need to know your own core values and continually align them with your actions by experimenting with how you get things done. And when there are costs, to those around you and to yourself, at the very least you need to be sensitive to this, and honest in dealing with the consequences. Most people want to have some measure of engagement in all four aspects of their lives—work, home, community and the private self (mind, body, and spirit). But there are those, like Sergeant James, for whom work is all. And why not?

I urge you to see this movie. But whether or not you do, I’m eager to hear your stories — your own or those about people you know — who have wrestled successfully with this dilemma: Is it possible to live a rich life that is solely focused on achievement in work, to the exclusion of all else?

Even President Obama, who masterfully demonstrated his storytelling skills in the campaign, was recently described as shuffling from one crucial issue to the next, like an iPod listener flits from song to song. No time for albums. Trying to do too much, too fast, and on too many fronts can be risky, yet today’s environment requires that we get better at doing so.

All the more reason, then, for giving attention to how you get others to pay attention. The trick is to show movement on the issues that matter while, for each issue, helping your key stakeholders grasp the meaning of what you’re aiming to achieve — why the goal matters to the team or the organization and how we’re going to get from here to there.

So don’t give up on honing your storytelling skills; instead, learn how to move faster among your different narratives. Through practice and feedback, improve your ability to connect through stories — while keeping them short to hold beleaguered attention spans. For even as the digital age compels us to develop ever-increasing capacities for a switch-your-focus-but-remain-present state of mind, as a leader you still have to be able to convey a narrative that resonates with your people and inspires them to move with you in the right direction.

A good leadership story has the power to engage hearts and minds. It has these six crucial elements:

1. Draws on your real past and lessons you’ve learned from it.
2. Resonates emotionally with your audience because it’s relevant to them.
3. Inspires your audience because it’s fueled by your passion.
4. Shows the struggle between your goal and the obstacles you faced in pursuing it.
5. Illustrates with a vivid example.
6. Teaches an important lesson.

Leaders at all levels and in all walks of life can improve their skill in telling a good, fast leadership story. Here’s how: think of a story that meets these six criteria and convey it to someone — anyone who you’d like to teach — in less than two minutes. Then ask them what impact the hearing of your tale had on them. Where they moved? Did they learn what you wanted to convey? Next, repeat with someone else — but do it faster. Then again, faster still.

Let us know what you discover.

This was the question I asked last week at the beginning of a day-long workshop attended by a group of senior-level women at a major technology firm headquartered on the west coast of the US. And I’ve been asking this question of thousands of other business professionals over the last year or so in similar settings around the country. Just a few days ago, in Puerto Rico, I asked it again at a gathering of business executives and, again I heard pretty much the same thing.

By far, the most common responses? Adaptive, flexible, and innovative.

Because of the ubiquitous sense of turbulence in most of our lives these days, the leadership attribute that comes to mind most often is the means for dealing with chaos. It boils down to this: playful creativity.

Now, more than ever in my experience, people are feeling a need for greater control. When you believe in your own power to generate new ways of getting things done — that is, when you have the confidence and competence to produce meaningful change — then you are less likely to succumb to the stomach-churning anxieties that come from not knowing how you’ll deal with whatever obstacle that’s next to be thrown in your path.

What’s most essential for us in the Global Leadership 2.0 universe, then, is the capacity to be creative as leaders. The really good news is that you can learn to become more creative as a leader, at work — no matter what your formal position — and in the other parts of your life, and thereby gain a greater sense of control over the turbulence.

Leadership is the capacity to mobilize people toward valued goals; that is, to produce sustainable change — sustainable because it’s good for you and for the people who matter most to you.

To be innovative, to act with creativity, is to experiment with how things get done. The innovations people pursue in my Total Leadership workshops are designed to improve performance not only at work but also at home, in the community, and in your private life (mind, body and spirit) by better integrating these different parts of your life — I call the results four-way wins.

These short-term experiments could be trying a new way to delegate; reducing noise by shutting down your technology for a while; sharing your vision of the kind of world you’re trying to build with others; even exercising regularly to reduce stress and enhance your focus. These are just the kinds of small wins that the participants at the west coast technology firm and the executives in Puerto Rico were going after by the time we finished our workshops. But the larger purpose was to gain greater mastery of the skill of leading change. For once the experiment ends, the real learning begins, through reflection on what worked — and what didn’t — in the attempt to bring about something new.

A warning: If you’re not continually getting better at overcoming the three great inhibitors to creativity — fear of failure, guilt about appearing to be selfish, and ignorance of what’s possible — then you’re missing opportunities to strengthen your capacity to gain control in an increasingly uncertain world.

So, what small wins are you pursuing these days? How will they improve your ability to be creative and to have greater capacity to adapt to the rapidly shifting realities of your life and work?