Leaving Prisons

"This is a bold, radical book with unequivocal views of what it takes to be a wise and strong leader. Anyone courageous enough to climb to these heights will feast heartily at the more than ample banquets of reflection and discovery." -Tony Petrella. "Caterpillars obliterate themselves to produce the butterflies that dazzle us. McCleary thoughtfully and without apology asks you to obliterate yourself to liberate your leadership and give it wings. If you are looking for easy 1-2-3 leadership, look elsewhere. This is deep and necessary provocation." -Ron Crossland, co-author of The Leader's Voice and former Vice-Chair, Tom Peters Company. This edition of The Flawless Leader Papers discusses many aspects of our chosen transformations, the release of our trapped value. Regardless of the situation, there is always a correlating personal transformation that, if actuated, will enable the leader to propel her organization toward the desired state. When that personal change is ignored, the organization follows the leader into a prison of immobility and confinement, and the results are what we all see so often: organizational cultures securely and obliviously stuck in rigidity, lackluster productivity, disunity, and a general inability to live synchronously with their dreams and objectives. The immovable reality is that if leaders do not effectively change themselves, they will never be able to effect meaningful change in an organization without the organization suffering the diminishing effects that come from the use of immoral and tyrannical force. Authentic and sustainable personal transformation begins with the right conversation centered on the right question. Most of our conversations and questions are unfortunately weak and unproductive, and this leads into frozen forests of stagnation. Find the right questions and the courageous vulnerability to explore those meaningful questions in dialogue, and your path out of your destructive prisons of addiction will emerge.