PART I
Taking Your Leadership to a New Level

“It is not the mountain we conquer but ourselves.”

—Sir Edmund Hillary
New Zealand mountain climber and Antarctic Explorer
First to successfully climb Mount Everest

Taking one’s leadership to a new level challenges the best of us. If you are like the leaders and innovators I know, unless we get a chance to slip away to attend a class or a conference or take a long-needed vacation, the demands of life and work leave little time to think about such personal renewal. However, this is a time in our organizations and in the world that requires something different from us all. A new world, an ever-changing reality is sounding its call to leaders at all levels. We are being asked to prove what we can do, what one of my mentors once called “changing our spots.” We need to rethink where we are, how we act, where we need to go, and how we’re going to get there. Part 1 is designed to get you started.

To set the stage for Part 1 and the chapters that follow, I have chosen a personal story to begin this part of our journey, knowing it will be a relevant theme throughout the rest of the book.

I am a hiker. I say this with a great sense of accomplishment as it didn’t come naturally to me. Knowing we’ve all had our mountains to climb in work and life, it seems certain you will relate even if your mountains have been of a different nature. There are many parallels in my story about learning to hike a mountain and taking your leadership to a new level. The process of raising your capability, capacity, knowledge, and know-how in order to reap the benefits of diversity, accelerate innovation, and boost productivity requires a similar learning curve. As you read it, think about the experiences you’ve had that asked you to reach inside to grow.

I went on my first hike about ten years ago. It was a new beginning that stretched me mentally, emotionally, and physically. It was an awakening about the world around me. The outdoors was a foreign place at the time Up to that point, my life and work had been so filled with making my way and surviving that I hadn’t even taken the time to consciously notice that trees came in many varieties and mountains had paths upward with vistas that would become a catalyst for new visions, new contributions, and a sense of becoming more.

At first, I was clumsy, and everything about the experience felt awkward and unfamiliar. I had to retrain my thinking and beliefs to conquer even the first mountain peak. The journey required new skills, new tools, new discipline, and new habits. I had to reframe my flair for independence, join-ng in an interdependent collaboration with two friends, who were dramatically unique in every way. Our collective knowledge, focus, capability, agility, and adaptability were essential to forging unknown trails; each of us found our place to take the lead. We learned that it was our differences that generated safety, well-being, and the shared accomplishment of reaching the top We learned like trees that grow on the ridge of a mountain, battered by the wind; like them, we, too, gained inner strength as we ascended.

In Part 1, we’ll begin the climb of leadership renewal.

In Chapter 1, you’ll have a chance to explore the need for change, as well as the what, why, and how of the new business essentials for putting our differences to work. Included are the findings of recent studies, as well as two extraordinary stories that respond to the question “So who says putting our differences to work is the fastest way?”

In Chapter 2, the focus is on introducing the Five Distinctive Qualities of Leadership. Here’s where our paradigm gets shifted with five behavior-based qualities that fundamentally change how we think and operate as leaders and innovators, while using what we already know.

Chapter 3 includes the road map, compass, and necessary gear—the Basics. It walks through the process, introduces tools, and offers principles for success to guide your way.