Hylke Faber - Taming Your Crocodiles: Unlearn Fear & Become a True Leader

W hat does it take to become a great leader? True leadership means freeing yourself from false, mostly borrowed constraints, charting a purpose-filled path based on values that reflect who you really are, and inspiring others to do the same. Before becoming a coach to CEOs and other leaders worldwide, Hylke Faber had his own transformational journey, stepping back from a high-stress career as a strategy consultant in New York City and almost becoming a monk in order to discover a more holistic approach to life. This book distills his experience into a guide that will help you grow into the leader you really are by transforming your crocodilian fear-based conditioning into owlsmind-sets and behaviors that reflect your true essence.

In this bold, comprehensive book, Hylke offers practical advice for coaching yourself and others, both one-on-one and one-to-many, influencing the people around you to evolve their mind-sets and behaviors to a more authentic place. Every chapter includes tools Hylke has successfully used in his work that you can apply to become a more truthful leader, both at work and at home.

With Taming Your Crocodiles, you can learn how to let go of fear, unlock your potential for growth, and foster a supportive environment for your team, in which presence, learning, contribution, and excellence merge. Some of the tools include AWE (Always Willing to Evolve), LOVE (Letting Others Voluntarily Evolve), and SUCCESS (be a Samurai, Unite, Center in purpose, be Curious, Extend contribution, Sense your environment, and be Simple).

Taming Your Crocodiles is a daring and important addition to the field of leadership development. Its personal, provocative, and practical. It challenges us to become radically honest with ourselves about who we really are and how our learned crocodilian fears are holding us back from who we can be. And it provides an inspiring, well-structured path to help us coach ourselves and others to let go of our crocodiles and lead from a place that realizes much more of our true potential.

Vijay Govindarajan, Coxe Distinguished Professor,

Dartmouth Colleges Tuck School of

Business; Marvin Bower Fellow 201516,

Harvard Business School; New York Times,

Wall Street Journal best-selling author

In this simple but transformative book, you have everythingabsolutely everythingyou need to go on lifes greatest journey to grow as a leader, not by changing yourself but rather by discovering who you are becoming.

Chris Ernst, Director, Learning & Organization

Effectiveness, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation;

author of Boundary Spanning Leadership

I do believe that the issue of fear is personal and that is why it is buried in the workplace. Taming Your Crocodiles is groundbreaking not only because of its structured methodology, but also for its courage in calling out the issue itself. I am deeply impacted by Taming Your Crocodiles. I can speak personally and freely on this topic because this work has liberated me to lead more fearlessly at Microsoft and beyond.

Toni Townes-Whitley, Corporate Vice President,

Microsoft Worldwide Public Sector and Industry

Inspiring, thought-provoking, and comprehensive. Taming Your Crocodiles offers a compelling combination of process, stories, and practice. It invites us to reflect on who we are and how to lead ourselves and others from an authentic place. Including lessons from the great leaders of our time, it helps readers to evolve by becoming more conscious of their inherent strengths and more free from self-limiting mind-sets and behaviors. A must-read for anyone who wishes to grow their leadership to the next level!

Joel Brockner, Phillip Hettleman Professor of

Business, Columbia Business School

In Taming Your Crocodiles, Hylke brings his lifes work to the page to help readers explore what makes them come alive and to show how self-discovery can serve as a road map to a fulfilling life. Hylke writes as he livesan endlessly curious observer who leads with vulnerability and an eagerness to explore connectedness. If treated as a book to be read and retired, Taming Your Crocodiles is a collection of compelling and creative ways to unlock our individual consciousness and power. If, however, it is treated as a travel companion through the leadership journey, it can serve as a guide to lifelong learning and reflection. Drawing from his own experiences and the teaching of his mentors/heroes, Hylke offers questions and perspective to empower us to write our story alongside him. In this way, Taming Your Crocodiles can double as the story of who we will choose to be and how we will choose to evolve as leaders and citizens.

Kyle Angelo, Vice President & Executive

Director, City Year Seattle/King County

For your business to grow successfully, your people must grow continuously. To better enable that growth, they must be coached and, in turn, learn to coach others. This deeply thoughtful book goes well beyond Coaching 101 to the powerful art of coaching that will guide and inspire you to a coaching culture that becomes part of your organizational DNA.

Ron Bergamini, CEO,

Action Environmental Group

Taming Your Crocodiles presents a compelling and clear view into why individuals act and keep acting within growth-limiting barriers, offering simple alternatives that allow us to flourish and, along the way, enjoy the fascinating ride. Every time I sit to read this book, I learn more about me and how I become true to myself in front of my team. Highly recommendable.

Augusto Muench, President,

Boehringer Ingelheim South America

I have read many books and attended various courses on leadership during my career. For sure, Taming Your Crocodiles is among the top on my list, since it provides profound lessons on self-development as a foundation for coaching others and reinforces the need of having a personal purpose-driven path to keep growing into a better leader.

Gioji Okuhara, Board Member & CEO,

Brazilian consumer goods companies

We often wish we could get rid of the fears that prevent us from growing. What if we could learn to grow through them instead? Taming Your Crocodiles helps us reconcile with ourselves. Rediscover our true nature through an introspective journey made of questions and testimonials. Change perspective, so fears no longer drive our decisions. How would it feel to lead our life the way we truly want to and be able to inspire the people we care for? Taming Your Crocodiles helps us to become masters of ourselves first, so we become more effective in coaching the people we care for.

Sebastien Arrivault, Strategy Director,

AKQA Portland

Taming Your Crocodiles is helping me and our organization build a learning culture in which we keep enhancing our performance. Self-awareness, self-reflection, and helping each other grow are becoming an integral part in the way we work. This journey of bringing our fearful crocodiles under the aegis of our wise owls is deeply fulfilling. And it works, as we work the tools together: I am seeing a profound and positive impact in our organization. It helps us grow as individuals, as teams, and as an organization. And, above all, its a never-ending story. When you are ambitious, want to perform better, and are also curious to get to know yourself better, you sign up for lifelong learning. And the rewards are magnificent: you are getting wiser.

Bert van der Hoek, CEO,

De Friesland Zorgverzekeraar

Taming Your Crocodiles touches the heart of leadership. It helps us to become aware of our greatness and what holds us back from it. And it invites us to touch the depths within ourselves, providing an inspiring path that compels us to keep growing and to encourage others to do the same. I recommend this enjoyable guide to anyone who wishes to get to know themselves better as a leader and as a human being.