My purpose is to help people understand that leadership skills are useful and relevant for pursuing meaningful aspirations in all aspects of life, and that this is a choice, a decision, not a default.

Knowing what matters most, what I call "being real," is the alpha and omega for leaders.

At the individual level, you need to examine what you truly value, share this with key stakeholders in various life domains both to get feedback and support, and then to experiment with new ways of doing things so that - over the arc of a life - you can achieve harmony and have more of what it is that you uniquely want out of life.

My view is that leadership is not about position - you can lead very well with no one reporting to you in a hierarchy and you can lead quite poorly with many people below you in the traditional chain of command. Leadership is about mobilizing people toward valued goals, and anyone can do this, in any aspect of life.

The worst thing you can do, despite the innumerable obstacles we confront, is to not try.

Executives are afraid of losing control if subordinates try to roam too far. Conversely, hierarchy squelches talent by forcing rote standardization through the punishment of failure, a necessary accompaniment to experimentation.

My purpose is to help people understand that leadership skills are useful and relevant for pursuing meaningful aspirations in all aspects of life, and that this is a choice, a decision, not a default.